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last.updated 9.27.11

Early Composition Pedagogy

Purpose

We will discuss historical methodology as a way of understanding how the field of composition has come to understand itself. we will also examine the rise of the composition course at Harvard and consider how it responds to the rhetoric of the Common Sense Realists, as well as influences some current practices typical of the composition classroom.

Before Class

• Read Brereton [Origins]
  • "Introduction" pp. 3-25
  • Chapter 2: pp. 26-57, 127-131
  • Chapter 3: pp. 132-157
  • Chapter 5: pp. 313-316, 320-353
• Submit Blog Entry #3 on Blogger by the beginning of class

Freewrite

You have now read different types of histories of composition studies--Johnson's objective approach, Crowley's subjective approach, Horner's analytical approach and Brereton's commentary on primary texts. What do you see as the value of these different approaches to the history of the field? How might each approach influence how you use these type of texts to inform your writing pedagogy practices?

Discussion I – Making History

We will discuss the responses to your freewrites as a way of understanding the approaches that we have used to understand our field.

Discussion II: Harvard & Early Composition Pedagogy

• How questions, comments and/or concerns do you have about the readings for this week?
• What is your response to these pedagogies that you read about? Using Berlin's term, noetic field, which examine the relationship between the writer, the audience, the language, and the reality, what do you see as the primary noetic field of this pedagogy?
• How would you put Downs & Wardle into conversation with this early pedagogy? How is Writing about writing a revision of the philosophies that inform these pedagogies?