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8.26.16



 

Introductions

Purpose

Composition studies' history is rich and complex. As with many fields of study, developing an understanding of where the field has been will help you to understand the practices that are currently advocated within the field and those that have fallen out of favor. The field's history helps to explain why certain practices were developed for teaching writing, why some of these eventually fell out of favor, and why some practices have staying power whether they are pedagogically sound or not. Understanding this history will help you to decide how you want to participate in the current conversation through the design of your classroom practices.

Before Class

Activity: Getting By With a Little Help From the Professor

Since few of you are rhetoric and composition students, it is understandable that you may not be familiar with all of the references and assumptions that the authors of this week's readings were making. Therefore, for this first activity, you will work in the following Google Document groups to develop a list of six questions that your group wants to pose to the instructor.

Group Members
1 Nishat, Ami, Terry, Chris
2 Pru, Crystal, William, Casey
3 Lynda, Lin, Lisa, Liza
4 Josh, Maddie, Taylor

For the process of this activity, you will...

  • each identify some of the questions that the readings posed for you. These will probably be questions based upon disciplinary specific knowledge and assumptions
  • share those questions with your group
  • as a group member, answer any ofthe questions if you know the answer. If your answer comes from the readings make sure you reference it to help your peer understand where they can find that information in the future
  • as a group, choose six questions that you would like to ask the instructor during the class discussion
  • rank these questions from 1 to 6.

After 30 minutes the each group will have an opportuity to ask two questions. If another group essentially asks one of your top two questions, then move down your list to another question. If there is time, we may give groups an opportunity to ask more questions.

Both the lecture and disucssion below may get folded into the activity debriefing (i.e., group question asking).

Lecture: From the Ancient Greece to WaW

The instructor will guide the students through the early history of composition studies focusing on the Scottish Common Sense Realists, post-Civil War Harvard, and Current Traditional Rhetoric pedagogy.

Discussion: Composition's History

We will work together to understand the assigned readings by addressing the following questions:

  • What questions, comments, or concerns do you have about the assigned readings?
  • What is the relationship be reality, thought, and language? How do the authors we read, talk about or imply this relationship?
  • In addition to the reasons provided above, why should composition instructors understand the field's history?
  • Why has invention lost its place in the teaching of writing?
  • How do Gilyard and Matsuda's histories shed light on the ways that you experience multilingual writers in your classroom, especially bi-dialectic students and second language writers? In what ways are these narratives similar? in what ways do they diverge?
  • In 2007, Downs and Wardle presented a fairly radical revision to composition pedagogy. Why might you teach this approach? What concerns would you have about teaching this approach?