Detail your philosophy of composition.

I’m not ashamed to say that my philosophy of composition is already evolving from what I thought it was a few days ago. Last week, I believed the expressive philosophy was the best way to go about teaching composition. What appealed to me most was the emphasis being placed on the writer, rather than the traditional idea of audience emphasis. As of now, my philosophy of composition is a mimetic-rhetorical hybrid. In Richard Fulkerson’s Four Philosophies of Composition, he notes that a mimetic philosophy is the connection between good writing and good thinking. As we discuss in almost each class session, writing starts before a pen is ever touched to paper. Without the ability to think critically and analyze, your writing will be flat, one-dimensional and not a true reflection of the world you live in. Something else to consider with the mimetic philosophy is its emphasis on teaching sound reasoning as a best practice. In addition, the ability to write well stems from knowledge already known and research performed in pursuit of additional knowledge. So, the practical side of me can appreciate the mimetic philosophy as I believe everyone, at all levels of education, has the ability to work within this philosophy. The rhetorical composition philosophy is also valuable to me because it emphasizes that writing is “good” when it has been adapted to have the desired effect on an audience. This allows us to include blogs, social media communications (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), emails, and other forms of informal writing in what can be considered “good” writing. Too often students are told that academic published works are the examples of good writing that they should strive to emulate, but for many students, they cannot relate to the texts they are assigned in the classroom. It is more helpful to students to take foundational texts and apply the knowledge they gain from them to situations they experience daily.

Here are the two values that are most important to me:

1. Teaching students to learn for life, not just the classroom: When teaching students, don’t assume that your influence over them ends after the last assignment is turned in and grades are submitted. What would you like for students to take from a course? How can they apply some of the knowledge they’ve learned to real-life situations? I think this is especially important when working with K-12 students since many of them will not continue their formal learning at a college or university. I also like to think of this as a student-oriented approach.

2. Providing students with a safe space and the appropriate atmosphere for learning: I want students to approach learning in my class not just as a requirement, but also as a way to safely express their ideas. After reading the BA1 essays from Texas Tech’s First-Year Composition program, I was disheartened to see how many students had been told they were bad writers. Many students even shared that their previous instructors did not attempt to help them become better writers; instead, instructors were more concerned about making sure they hit all of the points that their state-approved lesson plans required of them. Some students even wrote that they believed they were terrible writers and had no hope of improving; in fact, the ultimate goal was to “just pass this class.” Fortunately, I didn’t have any experiences like this in my high school years. All of the teachers I had were caring professionals who were willing to go the extra mile and make sure that each student was given the tools they needed to succeed.

I plan to enter back into the industry after completing my Master’s degree but gave this blog post a good deal of attention. I see myself teaching after gaining a few more years of experience in the workforce so will hold on to these ideas I’ve come up with. I will also take note of the ideas my