Posted 1:14 PM by Kim
So, Sybil and I were just talking a little bit about Berlin and it struck me that what Berlin says students should get out of composition training is what many may think is more appropriate coming from parents and other family members, religious or spiritual advisors, or philosophers. Wistfully I say that Berlin's goals may be a trifle lofty for teachers to transmit.


By the way, Kevin, your little plan worked...I'm thinking through theory. I read the first sentence of Hairston's essay, "In 1985, when I was chair of CCCC,..." (659) and I snorted. "Well, not hard to find any hierarchical contamination here..."

Posted 12:48 PM by Codi
Well, my teaching philosophy (if I can call it a philosophy at this point) is difficult for even me to explain because I still consider myself a ROOKIE. Last semester was mainly about following a syllabus that was set out for me and hoping to make it interesting and exciting for my students and myself. This semester, having had the opportunity to come up with my own readings, assignments, etc., I am embarking on the path towards some sort of philosophy. I have a hard time, as have all the other bloggers thus far, putting myself expressely into one camp. While I agree with many aspects of the expressivist camp, I do NOT consider it as being my TEACHING philosophy. I feel it is doing a severe injustice to the students to not stress the importance of grammar and mechanics at an early stage in the writing developmental process. While I concede that it is more important to have a solid grasp on the subject matter and a clear focus, it is impossible to do such things without an even minimal level of fundamental grammar/mechanic instruction.

I have also tried to teach a bit of accountability in my classes. I think many freshman have not been held accountable for their lack of preparation/dedication to this point. Maybe it is not my job to make them more mature, but I try to help them in the right direction for the future.
Katey mentioned making the assignments manageable to the students and applicable to the student's lives. I feel this is also extremely important--without this vital element, how can one be expected to write about something that has absolutely no meaning to his or her life? The topics in English 120 are highly linked to the social epistemic camp. We are teaching our students that--to steal the title of one of the textbooks being used this semester--Everything is an Argument. We focus on the issues in society today, things like Immigration, Military Intervention, Gender Roles, etc. These are, in effect, issues of relevance to the students, and are therefore more interesting to them.

I guess what I am trying to say is, I want my students to enjoy writing and enjoy learning how to write. If they don't enjoy what they are doing, they will be mediocre at best in the efforts and final results of their writing.

So... what camp is that?

Posted 12:31 PM by Kim
Hmmm...teaching philosophy. I thought I was on track and doing all right until I read Berlin's "Contemporary Composition" and realized that I'm not preparing them for life as well as I should be. "In teaching writing, we are not simply offering training in a useful technical skill...we are teaching a way of experiencing the world, a way of ordering and making sense of it" (246). Perhaps I really do cozy up to the Social Epistemic camp, because since I've been doing this (you know, the world-wise comp teacher of two years) I've kind of felt like the best thing I could do for my students wasn't teaching them MLA format (sorry Katey, I know that's gotta hurt) but to work on getting them to leave my class with a good taste in their mouth about the college experience, and about writing in particular. Truthfully, at the risk of sounding defeatist, I don't believe that I really teach my students much about writing. You can work with people for a semester or two and get them "trained" or accustomed to write like you suggest (ne, demand) but students are used to having different teachers for different subjects, so they're used to morphing to adapt to the demands of each teacher. Again, the SE thing (not South Engineering)--there's a hierarchy for each class and students, as well as teachers, will find it in each setting and adjust accordingly.


I like to make my students think about real life problems--even if it's under the guise of an assignment. For most of them, their future writing will not entail research papers, but getting trained for writing them can help a LOT with proposals, sales pitches, resumes--I don't think students realize just how much what they'll be doing in their future IS research papers. Again, even before I read about it I had Social Epistemic leanings.
Here's to the downtrodden and marginalized!

Posted 10:48 AM by Katey
I am in a frenzy right now because I get really confused when I have to mail one thing, blog, another, and then read actual text. These are the days when I think I am too dumb to be in grad school. But (as Dr.O’C would say) I digress.

Let me begin by talking a little bit about my teaching style and philosophy. I try very hard to make sure that my lectures and assignments are both manageable and applicable to my students lives. A lot of times I wonder if this is, in a way, dumbing things down. However, I feel that if I am speaking their language and about issues that pertain to them, they will be more actively involved. I am not sure that English 110 and 120 should be a competition in the most creative ways to confuse students. Abstract theories and terms are more manageable when applied to situations that can be experienced in the dorms or at food service. Does that make any sense? I think that the course I teach are intended to help students discover how they write “the best” rather than finding the best ways to “beat” them. So, in a nutshell, I guess my philosophy of teaching is probably one of relating and support. I sound like a mother...

I’ll continue. My class this semester is based on the critical analysis of society and the self. Having said that, I think the premise of my course lies solidly in the social epistemic camp of composition. I am trying to get my students to see that everything in their worlds has meaning and that meaning can be used to create their own reality (or their dream reality by means of creating their own Utopia). However, when we have discussions and when I assign narratives, I want my students to take a more expressivist approach. I want them to decide how they feel about issues and themselves and then try to analyze society afterward. (I am beginning to confuse myself; maybe this is why I get so many blank stares throughout the day.).

I am not sure that I can sum this up. I have a problem applying theory to my classroom because I don’t think that all of what I do and my students do fits into one camp specifically. I think it is a combination of many camps and I have a hard time separating them.

Posted 8:42 AM by Kendra
I agree with Nancy in that I, too, am hesitant to ally myself with any one camp based on the readings we have done so far. My interactions with students vary greatly. I have the privelege of working with students at many stages in their writing process. I see my job as a challenge of interpreting the assignment they have been given, the situation for which it is being written, and the writing they have done when they come in. These elements act as clues of how the conference should proceed.


Clues aside, however, I feel comfortable backing the Expressivist camp in several theory elements. Berlin writes, "In expressionist rhetoric, this gift is democratized, writing becoming an art of which all are capable" (687). To this I add an emphatic yes! One of my main goals at the CFW is to give my students confindence in their own abilities. If students can begin to feel that their own words are relevent and powerful, the other theory camps can begin to shape their writing process. If students doubt their own words, no amount of outside research will help them see themselves as "writers."

I am intrigued by the elements of Social-Epistemic theory, but don't feel quite ready to espouse them as my own. Berlin describes the real for social epistemic believers- "the real is located in a relationship that involves the dialectical interaction of the observer, the discourse community (social group) in which the oberserver is functioning, and the material conditions of existence" (692). This rings true for me. I think it is important that teachers and tutors help students to understand the interconnectedness of their writing, their lives and their surroundings. Often, students bring in writings for classes and treat the paper as though it were some foriegn object--something in their possession but not part of their life. I guess that sort of ties into the expressivist element too- I want the students to see themselves as writers- as conduits of power- and to understand how their writing fits into everything else that is going on right now.
I think it was after I read Gerald Graff's book about "teaching the conflicts" that I began to want a class full of young social revolutionaries. I think we have a responsibility to our students to teach them how powerful words can be. This idea needs some more mulling time--perhaps I'll come back to it. Writers of the world, unite!

Posted 7:02 PM by Nancy
I don’t think that I can accurately pigeonhole my teaching philosophies and assignments into any of the three theories with total conviction. I don’t know that I understand everything I feel I should know about each theory from only a few essays, but I will put out some thoughts on the subject for the blog ‘o the week.

I think that what I did last semester included some elements of all of the theories, perhaps most heavily the social epistemic. The writing assignments could be broken down as first more expressionist, with a heavy emphasis on “I” writing (although topics were assigned) and just getting ideas down on paper. I think this was valuable for the students who had not done much writing in the past—they got to ease into writing in a less threatening way than starting with formal assignments or research papers. Things moved in more of a cognitive direction with so much time being spent on many elements of the writing process, different writing strategies and individual conferencing about each student’s process and progress. I found it invaluable to sit down with each student and discuss his or her individual writing “issues” in a one-on-one situation. Although there was no real “composing aloud,” I think that the cognitive theories do include more than that—the composing aloud is more useful for a research tool. I think there is an underlying element of attempting to “diagnose” and help students through whatever problems they might be having in their individual processes. I think the semester ended up focusing on more conventional academic writing—the research paper!—and social epistemic really played a role in that, with students finding ways to situate their thoughts into a conventional essay format. I don’t think that the semester can be categorized strongly as one or the other, although the expressionist activities were definitely the least represented.

This semester I planned my own syllabus. I use OLOW and GR, but I had more time—and a semester’s worth of experience to draw on—to plan what activities I thought would be beneficial. I am starting again with some “I” writing, but the topics are assigned. I have not designated any truly self-designed activities except for perhaps my final short writing, which I intend to be truly personal—my students will be writing letters to themselves, which I plan to collect and mail to them in 2004. I will be doing the mandatory conferencing, which definitely has cognitive possibilities. Again, I want to mention that I really value sitting down with my students away from the classroom. I like getting to know them, what they like or don’t like, what in class works for them and what doesn’t work for them. I also plan to do—and have already done—paired or group writing activities. Although I won’t be able to do any “on the spot” analysis of the composing process, they will see firsthand how other students compose due to the inevitable oral nature of joint composition. I am really excited about the paired writing activities I have planned. I don’t think we can get away from social epistemic here at NDSU—it is an enormous part of our duty as instructors, in my opinion, to guide our students in the direction of acceptable academic writing. They need to know that writing in slang is not making good diction choices. They need to know how to write an intelligent sentence. Blah, blah, blah. I think that the social epistemic theories best prepare students for college writing, whereas expressionist and cognitive help students develop less threatening processes, in that they address ways to make writing more interesting to students via free expression or what might be causing blocks in the process (cognitive).

To end this ramble, I just want to say that I am very interested in the class response to Hariston’s essay. I thought she made some valid points (which I will refrain from discussing here), but a very controversial rant against politicizing first-year comp. I am eager to find out your opinions.

And p.s. to Sybil—I enjoyed looking at your list of expressionist teaching ideas, and I plan to try some of them out!

Posted 4:39 PM by Sybil
You ask some excellent questions, Josh,... and I have learned to like questions over answers. Someone famous said that, I think. Anyhow, I do have a response- There is no one way that will teach/inspire/encourage/enlighten ALL students. I just try to get MOST of them excited about writing or reading or whatever. The reason I say that is because the expressivist teachers in my life that have made my eyes bulge out of my head were not the teachers that everyone else liked.. even my friends/colleagues that were expressivist LIKE me. That's the crazy thing that I think Kevin kind of brings up... everyone leaks over into another theory once and awhile. PLUS, one expressivist may be different than another. I do believe there are extremes to each of these theories. Ok, I'll shut up now.