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4. What is the purpose of first-year composition?
The answer to this question varies dependent upon the institution, the faculty, and the goals of the students. Here at NDSU, we are often torn between the needs of our university, which is a land-grant, science-based institution, and our desire to provide students with a liberal, critical-thinking oriented education. Our specific program goals are listed in the introduction to Writing, Reading, and Reasoning; these goals are hopefully an attempt to combine two, perhaps competing, goals. Because the question of what we should be doing in first-year composition is such a common question and such a significant one, it is important to note that many theoretical answers can be given as an answer to the question. We are not attempting to classify the program goals of NDSU into a particular theoretical category; however, we can tell you what a Social Constructionist might envision as the purpose of a first-year composition course.Social Constructionists see rhetoric as "a political act involving a dialectical interaction engaging the material, the social, and the individual writer, with language as the agency of mediation" (Berlin 692). Social Constructionists, then , would hope to create a first-year composition classroom in which individual writers interact, through dialogue, with a discourse community. Because Social Constructionists believe that rhetoric "must perforce change over time . . . reflexiveness and revision" become central aspects of the classroom (Berlin 692).Students in a Social Constructionist classroom are seen as uninitiated members of the discourse community. Only through dialogue (reading, writing, and talking) can they produce knowledge, become successful writers.A Social Constructionist instructor would focus on academic reading. This might include non canonical texts, or perhaps canonical texts juxtaposed to a non canonical text. Texts for Social Constructionist classrooms would also include student "texts." Because Social Constructionism is based on the idea of knowledge emerging from social interaction in the discourse community, student interaction, written and spoken, with each other and with the instructor, in the classroom is imperative. Other activities in a Social Constructionist classroom would include frequent peer group discussions. Peer editing sessions would be used in addition to peer discussion, but not as an alternative to it. Student-teacher conferences would focus on dialogue between student and teacher (NOT a teacher directed session, NOR an editing conference). Essay topics would include writing about social issues with a goal of analyzing social constructs through the medium of language (itself a social construct) and, through frequent revision, producing academic writing. Although the individual student is an essential aspect of the Social Constructionist classroom, we should not underestimate the importance of the discourse community. Learning to write academic discourse is a major goal of Social Constructionists, and this goal takes place through student immersion in the community's discourse.
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