I empathize with Crowley's frustration with the fact that we tend to teach composition in a way that is contradictory to the natural writing process. From class discussions, and personal conversations I've had with others in our program, it seems to me that most of us share a similar frustration. We want to do so much more. We want the teaching and writing process to be more personal, more messy, more Macrorieian. Yet, it seems that the practicality of teaching so many students so many things in such a short time limits our ability to do this. It appears necessary that every instructor of ENGL 1301 be using the same format, and be doing the same thing at the same time for the "system" to work. This is not necessarily a bad thing. The "system" accomplishes many goals for students and instructors alike. Still, it leaves us sharing Crowley's and Macrorie's frustration. What about the messy stuff, the heart stuff, the "real" writing?
I have a friend who is in the TC PhD program. After teaching ENGL 1301 and 1302 numerous times, she taught ENGL 3365 this summer, and she was thrilled with the experience of getting to teach her own class her own way. It reinvigorated her love of teaching, and helped her remember why she was doing this in the first place. It seems teaching basic English classes in a rather scripted way is part of the process of paying our dues until we get far enough along that we can "really" teach. The danger here is that the distaste students often already have for English classes just gets reinforced by this system, and that some grad students may get permanently turned off from teaching by it. How can we salvage the necessary evil of mass producing basic English classes? By bringing the personal, individual element to our classrooms.
Maybe we are constrained by the limits of the "system," but the way we decide to implement our structured instruction is up to us. Perhaps we can use Macrorie's free writing exercises to give our students a taste of true self expression. Maybe we can plant seeds of thought regarding invention during our discussions and exercises. We have the ability to implement or supplement our instruction with skills, practices, and discussions that reflect the things we think are most important to the writing and learning process. This is our basic training, and once we make it through the obstacle course, we can build further upon what we've learned here and apply it to our classes when we get to "really" teach.
I absolutely agree with you Linda that our dry, skeletal syllabus in 1301 can truly take the bloom off the rose for incoming students scaring them away from the major. Yet, the constrictions of the syllabus also can be detrimental to us the teachers as it doesn't allow us to share all the beauties and wonderful things for which we chose this line of work, and that can be just as frustrating. I like your idea of incorporating Macrorie some way into the 1301 classrooms just to allow them a little creative breathing room, but unfortunately they have to learn the "basic training" as you called it somewhere. Thus, they learn the skills we need to teach them in the sort of mental bootcamp that is 1301.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you too, Linda. It would be awesome if we could bring a more personal touch to 1301. I think the bigger challenge of this would be commodifying this type of course for a university. The way 1301 is being taught at Tech simply offers too many benefits for the university as far as classroom space, distance learning, etc. It also allows us to have the job and benefits we would normally have to wait until our second year to enjoy.
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