Try to recall teaching Freshman Composition as a beginning graduate student. Or, if you are just beginning to teach composition, consider your experiences. I know that after years of teaching, I still often feel ill-prepared to address the simplest of my students’ concerns, particularly, when they ask, as they do each semester, “Why do I have to take this class?”
I’ve taught a variety of Freshman writing courses over the years, and as long as the course is required— be it in a remedial or an honors class— the question always surfaces. Initially my reactions to this question were somewhat defensive and full of good meaning platitudes. I’d lecture on the value of a “liberal education” or explain how the tools students learn in this class carry over to any field. While these responses were true, however, they were— at least in my experiences— mostly ineffective.
What I didn’t realize then, but I try to realize now, is that students who ask this question are already engaging in some of the most fundamental processes of Writing Studies that otherwise might be evaded with a keen disdain: the processes of criticism and analysis. I began to consider my classroom as a text in of itself, and me, in some part, as its author. While I would struggle to get my students to analyze and criticize written texts earnestly, when it came to the issue of the class as a text, they did so willingly and easily.
Now when the question is asked, I try to foster this view of the class as a text by deflecting it back to my students. “Why do you have to take this class?” I say. Then I write their answers, which unwittingly resemble the same platitudes I had given before, upon the black board. In course, I eventually begin to call into question (with a smile on my face and a tongue in my cheek) the authority of my own expertise, the necessity of the course, etc.. I do this not so as to invite anarchy, but rather to enact an actual textual analysis in which the students have particular personal stake. I also find that this helps to establish a climate where analysis and criticism are considered normal, comfortable, necessary, and fun.
However, this raises a rather obvious, but seemingly invisible question: Why aren’t criticism and analysis already normal, comfortable, necessary, and, even fun for my students? Largely, this is a problem of abstraction. At the heart of Writing Studies, we try teach students how to organize, communicate, and augment their abstract ideas (albeit through the tangible medium of writing). Especially difficult is trying to convey fundamental concepts like analysis and critical thinking, which in many ways “rock the boat” of our students’ prior learning. Whether we like to admit it or not, much of the content and approach of “critical thinking” courses, like Freshman Composition, ask students, as they might see it, to thumb their proverbial noses at much of what they call their “core beliefs” (or, writing teachers might suggest, their social indoctrination). It’s not only likely that students will be resistant to criticism and analysis. It’s only natural. Nearly all mechanisms of social indoctrination teach children to give their thinking over to some larger sphere of tried-and-true thinking. Whether it be “Father Knows Best” or “Drink Pepsi” or “I pledge allegiance to the flag…” this message is everywhere on TV, in the home, and at school. It shouldn’t be any wonder why young composition students often insist, “Just tell me what to do.”
As English instructors we not only have to face students’ own learning limitations, but we have to face an entire culture of social indoctrination. This is why it is so important to take advantage of every opportunity to normalize criticism and analysis. Sometimes, as I suggest above, these opportunities surface through students questioning our authority or even through out-and-out misbehavior. And, it can sometimes take some real work to turn a trouble maker into the class protégé. There are, of course, less confrontational ways of normalizing criticism and analysis. One strategy, developed by Margie Krest, who builds off of Peter Elbow’s ideas, asks teachers to favor Higher Order Concerns (HOC) over Lower Order Concerns (LOC) (Hysop). This idea has been championed by Purdue’s online writing tutorial OWL, and is the emphasis in many composition programs around the country. The strategy asks instructors, rather than marking up a student’s paper for mechanics or syntax, should direct his or her comments to issues such as organization, thesis development, use of evidence, audience and purpose. In turn, this process should also be extended to Peer Review. One method forbids students from marking on their peer’s drafts; rather students address a series of HOC questions. Another idea is to use multiple revisions of the same paper; with the early revision focusing exclusively on HOCs and the later revisions focusing on the nuts and bolts of LOCs. The idea here is through essay feedback, analysis and criticism can be made commonplace and even natural.
Similarly, we also shouldn’t discount the effect that a text’s subject and/or medium has on a student’s willingness to engage in criticism and analysis. Some subjects will always generate hackneyed and stock responses—especially those that garner a lot of political attention. Likewise, many students find it easier to plunge into the analysis of popular culture texts rather than written texts; for these students, analyzing the rhetorical strategies of a Sprite ad is more self evident than those of a New York Times editorial. While we shouldn’t compromise our curricular standards, I also believe that we may sometimes need to shift how we teach critical thinking, reading, and writing so that our students will be less resistant to it.
While Writing Studies demands that students ask questions, delve into the hows and whys of a given text or idea, our discipline should not ignore that there are institutionalized and pervasive cultural message makers that would have our students accept texts and ideas on face value. If we want to be effective teaches of writing, we need to acknowledge that our students are trained to resist the underlying philosophy that makes good writing. In many ways, this is a symptom of our time and our culture, but it is not going to go away; in fact, the institutions that seek to undermine critical thinking will only become more effective in methods. We, too, as teachers of writing, must also effectively diagnose and treat this cultural ennui and distaste of our subject.
Discussion Questions
How do I handle students who question my authority? Do I incorporate their misgivings into the classroom philosophy? If yes, how so? If no, why not?
When are my students invested in their learning experiences? When are they disinterested? What are some of the tell-tale signs?
Do my students engage in criticism and analysis formulaically or organically? That is, do they follow a prescribed recipe for analysis and criticism or does their methodology seem self-developed?
What are some specific “cultural message makers” that encourage our prospective students to resist criticism and analysis?
When grading, what habits or pet-peeves do I have that might fall under Lower Order Concerns? In what instances are these Lower Order concerns more important than Higher Order and vice versa?
Am I comfortable with presenting popular culture texts (such as advertising, style and fashion, sports, and television) in my classroom? Why or why not? What might be gained by asking students to engage critically with “everyday” texts? What might be lost?
When I assign research projects do I allow my students to research popular political issues? Have I created a blacklist of specific topics?
Am I interested in the material I’m teaching? What alternatives do I have? Have I explored the issue with my administrator?
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