When I Teach Composition in My Nightmares

Our blog prompt for this week was to detail our philosophy of composition in accordance with our teaching philosophy. Seeing as I have never considered what my teaching philosophy might be because teaching is not in my life plan in any way, shape or form, this particular prompt was difficult.

In class we were asked to condense our teaching philosophy into one sentence, which I did, and I’m not sure if it works, but this is what I came up with: My teaching philosophy focuses on getting students comfortable with writing by helping the student find their voice in their writing by allowing them to learn through trial and error and exploring how to apply different writing techniques to their own work.

I’ve noticed in my grading that most students aren’t comfortable with their writing. As a result, they hate having to write at all. They consider it a chore which is a shame. They don’t understand that writing can be fun and I feel that a big reason for that is they weren’t encouraged when they were younger to write whatever they want. Too often they were constricted in their younger years in their writing assignments. With that constriction came resentment. Students resent being told what to do, it’s a cornerstone of teenagerdom.

As I’ve written in previous blog posts, allowing students to express themselves in their writing is an important component of their education. I also believe writing and learning to write well is an on-going process that requires extensive, repetitive practice. I also believe that incorporating subjects the students are actually interested in will really help engage students in class discussion and encourage them to be enthusiastic about the material. Of course, sometimes you won’t be able to make material interesting and relevant to a student all the time. Sometimes you will have to tell students that the reason material is relevant to them is because they are citizens of the planet earth and it is their responsibilities as citizens to know this information.

If I were to ever somehow get suckered into teaching I would really like to focus on encouraging students to find their own voices in their writing. I would do this by assigning them work that allows them to practice their writing in creative ways that they choose. The students could then dissect their creative writing to understand the rhetorical devices they chose in order to reach their audience. I would also try to include pieces to analyze that are relevant to their interests, more contemporary pieces like Harry Potter or other works not written by old dead white guys.

I would also want to meet with students one on one over the course of the semester to discuss with them what they think their personal learning style is. I would ask the students if I need to include power points, handouts, perhaps even audio recordings of class discussions. Not every student learns the same way and it is important for teachers to reach as many students as possible throughout their careers.