Yellow Tea Rose

Statement of Teaching Philosophy

2007-12-08T02:03:00.000-05:00

While I am concerned with issues like grammar and style, as a teacher I am primarily interested in whether or not a student demonstrates an understanding of good paper structure, logical reasoning, and critical thinking in his/her work. This focus on content encourages students to really think about what they are saying in their papers and what sorts of methods of arguing will be most effective to prove their theses. In her article “The Composing Processes of Unskilled College Writers,” Sondra Perl shows how destructive a focus on grammatical mistakes can severely inhibit a student’s ability to write. By making things like grammar and lexicon secondary, I leave students free to concentrate on understanding the topics and tests that they have chosen to analyze. There are three core concepts that are fundamentally related to my main belief in the importance of placing the quality of ideas first:

I believe in teaching critical thinking and argument through writing.
I believe in teaching ways in which literature is connected with the other humanities.
I believe in facilitating group discussion to engage students with the texts.

While the skill of writing is valuable for its own merits, I also believe that it should be used to develop critical thinking and argumentative faculties. Logical arguments are the foundation of all good papers, for what else is a thesis other than a statement of belief that must be effectively supported. I challenge students to truly think about the meaning of a topic or a work of literature in order to draw appropriate conclusions that are of their own making. Explaining the importance of choosing proper sources and detecting bias are also key to my lectures.

It is important that students understand the connection between literature and history, philosophy, art, and music because making those connections serves two very important functions. Knowing what sorts of things influenced and inspired writers and their audiences gives students a richer, more holistic understanding of literary works. An interdisciplinary approach also helps each student to see how literature is important in a broader sense. Instead of feeling like novels and poetry are not important because not every student will one day become an English major, they can see how literature fits into the cultures of the past as well as their own. Since I have training in studying history, I primarily take a new historicist approach to teaching literature. My lectures are about half centered on grounding the student in the culture of the authors we are studying and half in discussing the literary works themselves.

See this link for more information : http://www.geocities.com/naruhina1984/mary_barton_teaching_example.doc

Group discussion both makes the student feel responsible for the reading and helps them to begin thinking about what a work of literature means to them. It also develops the kinds of skills they will need for close critical analysis of texts, which can then be applied to their papers. They have the opportunity to voice their ideas in an open forum as well as to benefit from the variety of ideas voiced by their classmates. In this way, instead of entirely feeding the class a text, we discover the text together.

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.”
– William Arthur Ward

Post-Process Pedagogy

2007-11-19T00:14:00.000-05:00

When utilizing post-process pedagogy, an instructor gives students a variety of formats in which to present their work. Instead of telling students to each write a paper on a given subject, an instructor would instead give students a topic to explore and allow them to either write a paper or to create the equivalent of an academic paper. An example would be how in our 5060 class we are allowed to choose the format of our final project. While I am working on a paper and a website that together will fulfill the requirement, others in the class are creating a video that deals with an issue related to composition. I also encountered this approach in several of my classes in high school. In my eleventh grade English class, my teacher told us to read a book from a list of books and to create a project to present to the class based on our reading. The results were highly creative and in some cases more interesting than others (for instance, a boy who read The Hot Zone made human organs out of jello to go along with his book report).

Research Project Proposal and Draft

2007-10-30T23:34:00.001-05:00

My research project is on the viability of the use of logic in composition classrooms. Richard Fulkerson defines logic as “the systematic study of argument with a view eventually to classifying any given argument as satisfactory or unsatisfactory” (“Logic” 199). Through my research I hope to provide evidence that teaching logic to students in 1301 can improve the quality of written arguments and boost critical thinking skills. Those two factors are vital to the production of quality, factually sound work, especially at the university level. Being able to judge the validity of arguments will help students to not only produce better quality work of their own, but also to spot faulty arguments in the work of their peers and even primary and secondary source materials.

The paper will have two parts. The first will be a discussion of the theorists who have studied either just logic or logic as it applies to teaching composition. It will include both their views of what the study of logic should entail, how their conception of logic applies to the composition classroom, and what affects they theorize it will have on a student’s ability to make valid arguments. Since I am still in the process of researching this topic, this draft will consist entirely of the body of this part of the paper.

The second part will be a learning tool for students who want to learn more about logic. This will most likely take the form of a website since websites are both easily accessible and allow for a great deal of interaction between the student and the material. Through a website I can also include multimedia, such as video recordings of commercials and political debates. Since I want for the students to be able to learn how to apply logic to real world situations, it only makes sense to avoid the use of the standard format of logical argument, which usually entails statements such as:

All composition classes are hard.

1301 is a composition class.

Therefore, 1301 must be hard.

While this kind of writing might make students better able to make logical conclusions, it is unlikely that it will help them to write effective argumentative essays. I will include definitions and examples of induction, deduction, logical fallacies, and other key concepts for understanding logic.

In so far as what help I would like to receive from the readers, it would be helpful to know your thoughts on how logic is relevant to teaching composition. Also, I would be interested in knowing what issues that I have written about the in the discussion of secondary sources below seem the most vital to quality writing. Finally, if anyone has any suggestions as to what multimedia might be useful in the first part of the project, that would be very helpful.

…

In “A New Logic for Composition,” Jack Pitt explains that the new logic he calls for is distinct from the Aristotelian system of logic as well as formal deductive and inductive logic. This new logic is based on the use of a specific kind of deductive logic in which “a series of sentences one of which (the conclusion) is claimed to follow from the others (the premises)” (Pitt 88). Pitt further explains that students must be taught the difference between validity and truth because an argument can be valid, but untrue or vice versa.

Dennis Packard argues that teaching logic in composition classes will add to the rationality of student writing in “From Logic to Composition and Reading.” He argues that using effective logic in writing:

allows us (1) to isolate premises and conclusions of arguments, (2) to determine logical connections and relationships within such statements, and (3) to evaluate arguments for validity. (366)

While Packard’s article mainly focuses on using outline diagramming to find the arguments in sentences, he also makes some valid points about the importance of logic in general. By breaking down the sentences that make up arguments into outlines, he points out the importance of understanding the implied premises in an argument. While not all writing includes leading words and phrases like “therefore” and “as a result,” that does not mean that those phrases are not meant to be inferred by the reader.

Richard Fulkerson discusses the features of a form of logic that he terms “comp-logic” in the articles “Logic and Teachers of English?” and “Technical Logic, Comp-Logic, and the Teaching of Writing.” In the former, he laments that at the time in which his article was published that logic was not considered as a necessary part of the composition curriculum. Fulkerson alludes to a study done by William McCleary for his doctoral dissertation that suggested that there is no evidence that teaching logic to composition students makes them able to write better argumentative papers. Despite the ineffectiveness of the kind of formal logic that McCleary used in his study, Fulkerson still argues that logic can be used in the composition classroom if it is transformed to meet the needs of writing students. He states that while composition teachers do not necessarily need to teach logic, that they need to understand it in order to help students to understand such issues as “why a written generalization without examples is unconvincing and how to improve it” (“Logic” 200).

In “Technical Logic, Comp-Logic, and the Teaching of Writing,” Fulkerson details the features of comp-logic. He explains that it:

includes three parts: “induction,” by which composition texts mean generalizing from evidence; “deduction,” by which composition texts mean reasoning from general principle to specific case; and an array of material fallacies that students are to avoid. (“Technical Logic” 437)

It is important to note that Fulkerson has taken these traditional logic terms and reworked their definitions to make them viable for use in composition. While he lists deduction as a component of comp-logic, he later explains that for the most part students will be using induction instead of deduction. One of the ultimate goals of comp-logic is to enable students to provide the type and quantity of examples that are likely to satisfy a reader.

Brooke Moore wrote Making Your Case: Critical Thinking and the Argumentative Essay in order to meet the needs of composition teachers who are increasingly being as to teach critical thinking in their courses, and vice versa. She addresses how critical thinking can be applied to writing affective argumentative essays and to identifying poor arguments in sources. In chapter seven of the book she discusses informal fallacies. She identifies argumentum ad hominem, a fallacy in which “we ‘refute’ a person’s ideas by pointing out something about the person,” as the most commonly used fallacy (Moore 157-158). The remainder of the chapter details fallacies such as the appeal to authority, straw man, and scare tactics.

In A Guide to Argumentative Writing, Byron Stay explains that argumentation “implies interpreting the world around us and communicating such interpretations meaningfully” (6). He advocates the Toulmin method of argument, which is made up of data, claims, warrants, and qualifiers. Stay also gives a process for evaluating issues in order to develop arguments for or against them. In particular, he focuses on polemic issues, or issues that “tend to get people strongly one of two sides,” such as capital punishment (Stay 86).

Interestingly, in his book Teaching and Learning Argument, Richard Andrews divides his strategies for teaching argument into different age groups. While presumably the other sources did not address techniques according to which level they are appropriate for because they were mainly focused on teaching logic in the college classroom, it does seem important to recognize the differing capabilities of children and young adults of varying ages to compose arguments. This source also provides an international perspective since both the author and the subjects of his research are British.

Works Cited

Andrews, Richard. Teaching and Learning Argument. New York: Cassell, 1995.

Fulkerson, Richard. “Logic and Teachers of English?” Rhetoric Review 4.2 (1986): 198-209.

Fulkerson, Richard. “Technical Logic, Comp-Logic, and the Teaching of Writing.” College Composition and Communication 39.4 (1988): 436-452.

Moore, Brooke N. Making Your Case: Critical Thinking and the Argumentative Essay. Mountain View: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1995.

Packard, Dennis. “From Logic to Composition and Reading,” College Composition and Communication 27.4 (1976): 366-372.

Pitt, Jack. “A New Logic for Composition.” College Composition and Communication 17.2 (1966): 88-94.

Stay, Byron. A Guide to Argumentative Writing. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1996.

My Observations

2007-10-29T19:27:00.000-05:00

About a week ago I was in the line at the Walmart pharmacy waiting to pick up some Claritin-D. I was standing in one of two lines and the one that I stood in fed into two registers. There was a Hispanic woman with her little girl standing in the line opposite mine. They were watching their cart, which was full of items and parked towards the benches at the back of the makeshift pharmacy space. In front of me was a woman who was talking on the cellphone about how she had been waiting for quite a while and didn't understand why her prescription hadn't been processed yet. There were two women at the registers that I was waiting in line to get to, both of whom were having lengthy transactions performed for them. After I had been waiting in line a couple of minutes, a pushy middle aged woman showed up behind me. She decided that even though the line I was in was feeding into the two registers, that it would be alright if she started her own line going to one of the registers. Ignoring my death glare, she proceeded to wait in her makeshift line until the register she had chosen opened up. Thus, even though I had been waiting longer, she was served first. Already in a bad mood, I was all the more irritated when I finally got up to the register and realized that a blond woman had decided to move the line right up to my heals. Luckily, I was able to buy the Claritin-D quickly and leave.

Interestingly, line etiquette is much different here in Texas than it is Northern Virginia.
In Northern Virginia, people conscientiously leave a foot or two of space between the counter where people are paying and the beginning of the line. This is especially vital in a pharmacy, where people might be buying items that they would rather others didn't see; however, in Texas personal space seems to be less of an issue. This fits in with other behavioral differences between the cultures of these two very different states. It makes sense that in a place where there is a more friendly atmosphere even among strangers that there would be less concern about privacy.

Voice in Academic Writing

2007-10-21T23:11:00.001-05:00

My first reaction to the question of whether voice competes with or enhances academic voice is to say that academic voice seems to squelch any real meaning or sincerity in a person's writing. I am currently in a class where we are supposed to use more "elevated" writing, which I have decided means putting the Word thesaurus on overdrive and plugging in terms from psychology and philosophy textbooks like madlibs ("The Reflexive Psychosis of Being in the works of Emily Bronte and Theodor Geisel").

However, I also think that voice can potentially greatly enhance one's academic writing. A good, memorable article is not only informative, but also accessible and highly readable. As a highly intelligent, literate people, I feel that we can only sound our most engaging and articulate when using language that we are comfortable with, and thus have mastery of.

My Ever Evolving Teaching Philosophy

2007-10-14T23:47:00.001-05:00

I think that the biggest change to my teaching philosophy is that I don't believe in grading quite as harshly as I used to. While I still think that nothing prompts a student to want to brush up on their writing skills more than a low grade on a paper, in general I do not give low grades like I had thought I would. Instead, I make sure to make copious comments on the papers that I grade. Whether that works or not, I know that I at least read the comments that my professors leave for me and benefit from them, so hopefully the freshmen will too.

After researching information on logic as it relates to composition for my video, I think that I will definitely teach about logic in my classes more so than I had thought I would when the class began. I know that after reading about logical fallacies, I have become better able to explain why the arguments and structure of the freshman comp papers need to be fixed. The question will be how I will effectively incorporate this into the class since studies done on logic in the classroom have for the most part shown that it did not have a real impact on student writing.

My Question

2007-10-07T23:38:00.000-05:00

Given what you've read for this week (or even from previous weeks), what puzzles you? What are you wrestling with? What questions do you have that others might be able to answer/help you wrestle with?

Even though we talked about this issue in detail in class, I am still not sure about how to integrate peer writing groups into the classroom successfully. I was never a student who liked peer writing or group work in general. It always seemed like the teacher had just decided that they didn't feel like preparing a lecture or didn't have the time to think one up, so instead they just chose to have us all talk it out amongst ourselves. Also, as an English major to be I already wrote pretty well, so whenever I was put in a situation where other students were supposed to critique my work, I never felt that it was very helpful. Either the other students had very little input on my work or they gave advice that was completely incorrect. For these reasons, it is difficult for me to get excited about putting future freshman through an exercise that I feel is like the proverbial blind leading the blind. Has anyone else thought of innovative and credible ways to incorporate group work?

The End of Composition

2007-09-30T23:28:00.000-05:00

For me, the "end of composition" is producing students who can articulate their thoughts clearly and logically on paper while adhering to basics rules regarding grammar, style, and organization. They should also be able to analyze and, to some extent, use sources, which is the basic requirement for almost all college assignments. Freshman come into composition 1301 not knowing how to write in a way that shows they are articulate and intelligent, which they clearly are at least verbally because they were accepted to Texas Tech. Starting with the summary exercise, classroom instructors and document instructors work towards teaching skills that build upon each other and ideally lead to the student feeling confident enough in his/her skills to be able to produce research based papers in composition 1302. Teaching these kinds of generalized skills is also an "end of composition;" skills like being able to summarize and paraphrase can be applied to absolutely any discipline or occupation that the student chooses to pursue after composition class ends - even, heaven forbid, if the student decides to drop out of college on December 11th, he/she can apply those skills to secretarial work or whatever other occupation he/she chooses.

Teaching Philosophy

2007-09-23T21:30:00.000-05:00

What is a philosophy of composition or a philosophy of teaching? Are there different types of philosophies? What teaching and learning strategies do you think might go into your philosophy?

A teaching philosophy should explain what a teacher intends to accomplish in the classroom, how he/she means to achieve those goals, and how he/she will measure his/her success. Every teacher’s teaching philosophy will be different, but since as composition teachers we will all have the same syllabus, we will have many of the same goals for our students. The major differences will lie in what exercises, activities, and lecture styles we employ to reach those goals.

In terms of composition, my teaching philosophy would explain how I plan to ensure that my students will become competent writers. Firstly, I would want to give the students a college entry level grasp of writing and grammar. The composition syllabus already specifies which type of writing exercises should be employed, so my part in this process will be giving good lectures that explain how to fulfill the requirements for the assignment of the week, closely monitoring group work, and giving useful feedback on those papers that I do end up grading and those that students bring to me in draft form during my office hours. My next goal would be to encourage critical thinking within the bounds of the assignments so that the students learn how to engage in the readings and come to their own conclusions about various issues. I would also make sure to provide readings and examples that come from different areas of interest and research so that the students will be better prepared for the reading and writing they will eventually do in whatever discipline they choose.

As a teacher I plan to very clearly articulate my expectations of my students and how they can excel in my class. This would involve a highly detailed syllabus with an explanation of the criteria by which the students will be graded. In my own experience, the less information that a teacher provides about an assignment, the more I panic, so I’d like to avoid having my students feel confused or resentful because I have not been clear. I will also be somewhat of a harsh grader. If students know that they will be held accountable for effectively demonstrating that they have learned the skills and information for the week, then they will be more likely to put in an effort to listen closely and write effectively. So far as group work, I intend to use it sparingly and only when I feel that the students have learned the skills that they need to thoughtfully and intelligently critique each other’s work.

Facilitation Through ICON

2007-09-16T23:10:00.000-05:00

ICON teachers do a variety of things that make life easier for those who are teaching composition classes. The most significant of these functions is that we take pressure off of the professors by lightening their work load. It would be especially difficult for new classroom instructors if they had to both create lesson plans and grade all of the papers that their students turn in. With each of their students turning in increasingly larger assignments every week, grading everything would simply be too burdensome.

By using ICON, graders also gain an important degree of anonymity. When a student is not sure who graded their paper, they cannot claim that they received a poor grade or even a good one because of their relationship with their teacher. Thus, classroom interactions are not hampered by feelings of resentment towards the instructor.

Having a large pool of online graders brings diversity to the grading process. Each grader has his or her own strengths that make him or her particularly good at spotting certain errors and explaining how to fix different types of writing. As their various assignments go from grader to grader, students will learn how to fix a greater variety of issues than they would otherwise.

I suppose that what makes grading through ICON similar to critiquing a paper in a writing center is that in both cases the students receive hints on how to make their papers better rather than a complete explanation of everything that is wrong. Without the option of using a red pen and mercilessly noting every last mistake, ICON graders instead have to choose examples from the student’s work that exemplify a great number of errors. We then point the student in the right direction to find help on how to fix that type of error. As a result, the student has to really think about the writing process.

3 Important Concepts for Teaching Composition

2007-09-02T23:40:00.000-05:00

The three major concepts that I plan to stress to my students are the importance of answering the right questions in their writing, thinking critically about the topic at hand, and the fact that learning to write well will positively impact every pursuit that they will make in the future, regardless of what field they enter into after the end of 1301.

One thing I plan to stress to my students is that when they are writing they need to think about the five W’s: who, what, when, where, and why. A work that does not answer each one of these is inevitably confusing and incomplete. When thinking in those terms, there is less room for common errors like passive voice; when you are actively thinking about the importance of saying who performed a given action, you are less likely to revert into passive voice and its inherent vagueness. I also like the inclusion of “how” in the Glenn and Goldthwaite reading. Answering how something was done can be critical to a reader’s understanding and can dispel questions about the credibility of the information provided by the writer.

Thinking about those question words will also hopefully open the gateway to critical thought. It is absolutely vital for a writer to be able to think for themselves, in part because without being able to think critically, it is impossible to make new and meaningful contributions to any field. In order to write good papers, let alone anything else, students have to be able to be able to discern what they believe to be the important parts of primary and secondary materials so that they can bring them together into a coherent work of their own. Most students enter college having accepted implicitly the information their parents and the media have given them. Even if they walk away from the class still believing everything that they did when they entered into it, I hope that they will at least have begun to think about why they believe what they do.

I also will use the concept of Writing in the Disciplines to make the class relevant for each student. In high school, English teachers expose their students to writing as a marginal part of their classes, wedged in after lessons on literary works. By showing how writing is a crucial element of not only scholarly pursuits in any discipline, but also any job that they might pursue after graduation, I will make it more likely that students will be engaged in the class. It is important that they understand that no matter how brilliant a scholar in the sciences is, if he or she is not able to document his or her findings effectively, no journal will be willing publish them. In the same vein, a businessman who cannot write clearly enough to produce a memo that is easy to understand will not be able to inform subordinates of important changes in company policy. Thus, no matter what path they plan to pursue, the students will understand that good writing is crucial to their success.