As a composition instructor, I teach writing with a theory-into-practice approach and important elements involved with successful teaching using such pedagogy involve building a strong rapport with students, creating a student-centered classroom, and scaffolding specific writing abilities toward completing different writing assignments. I find teaching with an emphasis upon these elements allows me to show writing as a recursive problem-solving process encouraging critical thinking abilities that students apply to coursework outside of composition. As a result, students noticeably accept more responsibility over learning material and applying it to their own writing willingly as opposed to understanding writing as a passive requirement with little or no value nor application beyond a composition classroom, which is a misconception I believe students mistakenly bring with them into composition courses. I work on shattering that misconception beginning with building rapport through incorporating popular culture examples into my lessons.
For example, a popular lesson I love teaching is introducing counterargument as a writing ability involving three moves: First, anticipate reader objections. Second, raise those objections in writing. Third, overcome those objections. I demonstrate those three concepts when I play a clip from Return of the Jedi. The clip shows Luke Skywalker confronting Obi-Wan Kenobi after learning Darth Vader is his father rather than a murderer who killed his father. Obi-Wan describes how Darth Vader’s previous identity as Anakin Skywalker ceased to exist once he became Vader and his explanation is true from a certain point of view. In small groups, then, I ask students to discuss how those counterargument moves play out in the clip. The tasks students perform in class involve applying information from readings to something that is familiar to them, but seemingly unrelated with the readings, which becomes clearer through critical thinking application and then students apply that new understanding to their writing. I structure class meetings with a lesson and discussion for half of a period and then use the other half as an in-class workshop because doing so helps me create a student-centered classroom, but I also believe students need opportunities to practice with newly acquired understandings and writing abilities as well as time to work on papers.
All of the lessons I teach students about writing result in stronger writing, but my students’ improvements happen because their writing process becomes stronger, which drives my overall pedagogy. I always encourage students to focus on improving how they progress from paper idea to final draft rather than focus on the final draft itself. I strongly believe breaking down student misconceptions about writing involves working with students on learning different writing abilities with increasing difficulty, but organizing those abilities so each one builds upon the previous one, allowing for scaffolding to occur and help students gain more confidence about their writing before attempting future writing challenges.
