Teaching Philosophy
Downs & Wardle argue that "[w]hen we continue to pursue the goal of teaching students 'how to write in college' in one or two semesters--despite the fact that our own scholarship extensively calls this possibility into question--we silently support the misconceptions that writing is not a real subject, that writing course do not require expert instructors, and that rhetoric and composition are not genuine research areas or legitimate intellectual pursuits." (Downs and Wardle 553) From this article entitled "Teaching about Writing," the students in a class should learn to study writing itself, and my philosophy disagrees with this in that I feel students should learn "how to write" (553), but that they should do so by studying with an expert writer, and they would learn about writing as one of the topics that comes up in class discussion of craft. Focusing on modeling writing for the class and discussing topics in students writing reduces authority (from Peter Elbow), but makes the class environment easier to focus within.
In my classes, the writing process is defined by our textbooks and students do not research alternatives to it because less than one percent will continue in writing and dialoguing about writing--that is what concerns me about writing about writing. I do think it is fair to say that if an instructor or professor works with a class of less than thirty students that person should make the most of the opportunity to share their specialization with the class--the students may only have a couple of opportunities to learn information and habits of mind from a learning facilitator closely and potentially one-on-one. Therefore, while composition specialists may best be able to think about writing with students, if an individual is studying to be a writing expert, the more time that instructor can expose the students to the knowledge about how to write and the habits associated with expertise in the field, the better the students are going to be at writing by sharing the how of writing, which would include how the writer filters ideas about writing. Modeling and lots of writing with students is the most effective means for me, a creative writing focused scholar, to attempt to teach students. Through participating in the class with students, doing at least attempts in their homework, and working with them one on one, though teaching involves other administrative aspects, I can focus on a strength of my major: writing large quantities and learning from the large quantities of mistakes within those writings. The most important focus for me as a teacher is to write well and expose students to what I have received regarding how to write. |