May 31, 2005
Freshman Composition
The Little Professor links to an article by Stanley Fish on his method of teaching Freshman Composition. Fish writes:
Most composition courses that American students take today emphasize content rather than form, on the theory that if you chew over big ideas long enough, the ability to write about them will (mysteriously) follow. The theory is wrong. Content is a lure and a delusion, and it should be banished from the classroom. Form is the way.
I absolutely agree with this. If the goal is to teach students how to write, content should be irrelevant. Fish has his students create their own language, an intriguing exercise. The LP points out, however:
Still, as Sean McCann notes, Fish cleverly avoids the central question: "does the assignment in fact make students better writers?" But Fish also avoids the pink grammar handbook in the room: do students actually learn to write in freshman composition?
McCann elaborates:
The whole approach seems backward to me. The problem with teaching writing is not that it’s too content driven, but rather that it’s already overformalized. Students can’t learn to express a thought well or argue an idea forcefully by mastering, or building, a model. They need to have an interest in clear or forceful expression. Alas, having a thought or an argument is really the hardest part about writing. The problem with most writing pedagogy--Fish’s included--is that, pushing content aside, it teaches students that their ideas and convictions are of secondary importance. No surprise if they don’t learn how to write well in that context.
So, now that I've made it unnecessary for you to read the linked material, even though it's all fascinating stuff, I guess I should proffer some thoughts, just in case anyone still reads this blog (I'm tempted to make a joke about driving off our last few readers, but I know you're all nerds). This is a topic I've been thinking about fairly regularly lately, in preparation for my first teaching assignment. I'll be following someone else's syllabus at first, which, while an understandable tactic on the school's part, is still constraining. The texts chosen make it clear that the department wants to focus on content: the working poor. It's endearingly liberal and optimistic. The expensive private university I attend (I'm on the dole, of course) is overrun by shallow rich kids, so the professors who devised this topic were no doubt congratulating themselves on forcing the students to confront the Plight of the Working Poor in America. While I do think that the privileged clueless should confront these issues, I intend to focus less on the content of the texts than on the form and the often futile attempt to teach basic grammar. Trying to make the kids feel guilty about their (parents') wealth seems like a distraction and unlikely to have any lasting impression anyway. If they're inclined toward sympathy, then they probably already have an inchoate social conscience; if not, I doubt any amount of proseltyzing with cause them to develop one. So, as I said, I'm going to focus on grammar. We'll see how it goes. Maybe some students will actually leave my class knowing what subject-verb agreement is. I'm sure it will make for good blog fodder either way.