Bringing Students' Writing to the Forefront

First of all, I would like to address the issue of genre that I promised to reintroduce to my class this week. After reading last week’s article I realized that I had miss-taught the concept of genre by defining it as a means to categorize writing styles; however, I now understand it to be a unifier of dichotomies such as style and content, form and context. Instead of relating the complexity and inclusive nature of genre to Swale’s discourse community definition, I decided to explain it through our rhetorical analysis piece, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. As a class, we discussed how the text’s form could not be separated from its content, purpose, audience, and social context. We concluded that genre encompasses all five components of the rhetorical situation and that it is not a static process. Rather than simply studying the definition of genre, we put it into conversation with not only the speech but also with the students' own papers.
Kathleen Welch’s article “Ideology and Freshman Textbook Production: The Place of Theory in Writing Pedagogy” focuses on the importance of using students’ work as the writing classroom’s primary texts and textbooks as secondary references. Textbook examples alienate the students because they are usually presented out of context (273). The students do not benefit from these perfect and, consequently, purposeless papers that offer no explanation for the writer’s writerly choices. When classes focus on students’ papers, teachers can highlight the rhetorical situation. Students can talk about what they did and why they did it and whether or not it was successful; then they can debate what they could do to make their work more effective. Last semester in 101 we stressed that writing is a recursive process, but textbook examples seldom illustrate this. By concentrating on student writing, teachers can prove to students that writing is fluid and, like language itself, ever changing (274). Welch advocates for student writing as the best example of powerful writing: “By giving up the disconnection and decontextualizing of freshman writing texts, we unlock the energy of the students’ and our own expertise as writers” (274). Following this method supports the idea that students are not only capable of producing readable texts but that they are already writing experts in the sense that they see language as living. Presenting writing instruction in this more effective and personal manner proves to students that they are already successful writers and that composition courses are not a waste of their time.

Re-Thinking and Re-Teaching Genre

Just when I thought I had finally gotten this genre stuff all figured out, I read Devitt’s article “Generalizing about Genre,” and I realized that I had been as lost as my students. “Genre” sounds too complicated a term for something simply describing form, and, as it turns out, it is much more involved. I definitely have some explaining to do for my students who still believe that genre only means knowing the difference between an essay, a letter, and an e-mail. Actually, I think Devitt’s more encompassing definition of genre will make more sense. We tell our students that context (both textual and social), form, situation, purpose, and audience all impact writing, the writer, and the reader, yet we try to break up these integrated components into separate dichotomies. Devitt provides a way out of the corner that we have found ourselves facing. We do not have to choose between whether the context or the form determines the genre of the piece because they are both factors. When students learn that rhetorical situations are all about making well-informed choices rather than memorizing which form and style to use in every situation, they will become unburdened. Understanding genres allows students to tap into their previous experiences and knowledge about a particular piece of writing, without having to start from scratch every time they sit down to write out a grocery list or a research paper.
This semester in my 102 class we have discussed genre several times. I know that my students have heard this term in other classes, but the definition doesn’t stick with them. I think it is because they also realize that “genre” is a much larger concept than they are being taught. Starting next week, I am going to attempt to expand their view of genre by building on what I know they already know: that genre is connected to form. Since my students are much more familiar now with the idea of a discourse community and because Devitt uses John Swales’ definition of a discourse community to illustrate his own point, I plan on using discourse communities as a springboard for re-teaching the complete definition of genre. I will report back next week with the results of this in-class experiment.

Understanding Resistance

Reading Douglas Hesse’s article, “Teachers as Students, Reflecting Resistance,” I could not help but think about our practicum class last semester. As first-time composition teachers and first-time practicum students, I think Hesse more than accurately described our limbo situation. In the dual role as teacher and student, we struggled with resistance, not only our students’ resistance but surprisingly our own. I was shocked by how much our attitudes towards the new material in our text The Politics of Writing resembled our students’ attitudes towards our department’s approach to teaching composition. We failed to notice our own resistance to an unfamiliar discourse community, composition and rhetoric. Hesse contends in his article that all first-year students, whether freshman or beginning graduate students, experience a strong level of resistance with new material; furthermore, they tend to discount the writing style and content as unapproachable rather than accepting that the difficulty exists within themselves (225). Naturally, one’s initial response to complicated material is that the information is too complex or written in a purposefully confusing manner. We expect our freshman to need help interpreting content, yet as graduate students we believe we are prepared for deciphering sophisticated information. Our pride takes a hit when we struggle because we know that we have put effort and years into our field of study.
Personally, I am a literature person, so comp theory was completely new to me. I assumed because I was becoming adept in the literature discourse community that I could navigate all sub-communities of academic English. I completely identify with Hesse’s claim to salvation: “What “saved” me was a realization that the field needed to be learned from within and that a considerable amount of mucking around––reading and writing as if things made sense––was necessary” (227). Without knowing, I adopted this approach to entering the comp community. In no way do I understand everything about composition, but by throwing myself into it, I now feel more comfortable discussing and writing about the subject than I did at the beginning of last semester.
I was reminded of my struggle with new material even at this level for one purpose: to be more sympathetic towards my own students. Resistance is a defense mechanism and a sign that students are having difficulty engaging in the material of a new discourse community. Does this mean that none of our students have a lazy bone in their bodies? Probably not, but if we can show them that we honestly understand their resistance then we have found a starting point for entering the conversation. In addition, as teachers/students we are in the unique position to share with our students what we do when faced with resistance and other academic challenges. We can prove to them that we are on their side, not just their evaluators.