Composition in Schools

This semester I am in an Intro to Composition Studies course. Composition. Before the semester started I wrote this class off as yet another writing intensive course where I would have to write numerous papers about __________. I was very wrong. Five weeks into the semester I am knees deep in studying the subject of composition.

Do you know how you walk by something every day? Perhaps it is a flag pole. Maybe an empty building. Or a bench. You have probably walked by it hundreds of times. Your eyes see these items. You could be able to tell someone, "Meet me by the flag pole," Or, "Turn right after you pass the building." But then one day you stop and really look at it. The post on the top of the flag pole. What that empty building used to be. Who the bench is in memory of. All of the sudden the little details that make up these things that you have seen countless times becomes brand new and produces the question, "Why have I not noticed this before?" That is my reaction when it comes to teaching the subject of composition. 'Sure,' I have thought before, 'Of course I will teach students how to write synthetic pieces, on demands, and how to write essays.' But this course has really opened my eyes to the responsibility to teach writing.

When I was in high school I did a fair share of writing. Science papers, on demands, AP prompts, book reviews, etc. But my senior year I took a college course of introductory writing (different than my composition course). All of the sudden rewording the same sentence for a couple of papers became creating a piece of work that flows fluently from sentence to sentence, introducing new ideas to connect a larger theme, adding stylistic choices such as freeing yourself from traditional grammar rules, and choosing what is relevant when writing. These skills I learned in that class carried me all throughout my first couple years of college. Why had that not been taught this sooner? Why was I still being taught when to use who vs whom just a year before? The difference between the two years were eons away. Perhaps since the common core standards have been implemented this is no longer a problem, but this semester has already been insightful and has me motivated to teach real composition skills. NO MORE INTRODUCTORY, 3 PARAGRAPH, CONCLUSION ESSAY!

I have become aware of the problems of mechanical grading. Painting a student's paper with red ink, fixing grammatical errors when the true problem of the paper is the content. Sure a student might write "uncertainity" instead of "uncertainty," but as a teacher I should be more concerned about what the student is referring to instead of the misspelling. I now see that students should be aware that (wait for it...) there is more than just prompted writing out there! I am learning about that different styles of writing should be taught, instead of just essay after essay. How to prevent students from writing like a textbook: exposing more reading to them than textbooks. Methods of the ways students produce writing. Today I just read the essay, "Shaping at the Point of Utterance" by James Britton that argues writing in the moment is a valuable method of writing. One of his ideas on how to overcome writers block is to speak ideas out loud--the perfect reason to do small group writing discussions. This class so far has been eye opening on something that I have assumed I will be teaching (writing) but did not really give much thought to it.

Moving forward to applying this information is exciting to me, especially since I am getting ready to dive into working in the schools feet first. Can't wait to compare what the teacher does in the classroom with the ideas we discuss in my composition class and how they coincide. And how I will teach this semester.