Composition S.O.S.: My Friend's Facebook Appeal for Clarity

            I was on Facebook on Tuesday night when a girl that I grew up with began frantically sending me chat messages. She is a freshman and budding English major at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, New Mexico and has always been extremely confident in her composition skills. Her panicked messages were in regards to her Freshmen Comp class and an assignment with which she was having a great deal of trouble. The instructor had assigned the class to write a personal narrative describing what he called a “turning point,” or decisive moment in the students’ lives. My friend had chosen to write about her parents’ divorce, focusing on the idea that there is no such thing as a “normal” family. All of this seemed very straight forward, and I was confused as to why she was so upset…that is until she described the second part of the assignment. The instructor had asked the students to do a literary analysis of their own personal narrative, but no other specific instructions had been provided. I was perplexed. How and why would you do a literary analysis of something YOU had written?

Slowly we talked through the steps of a literary analysis. We discussed ethos, logos, and pathos, rhetorical devices, and the purpose of writing, and as we talked, I suddenly realized that the strange assignment was actually doing some very interesting things. Suddenly, the author had been switched to the role of the audience. Could the main point of the writing be identified? Was the narrative informative or persuasive? What rhetorical devices were being used (without the author even knowing it!)? Interestingly, what she thought she knew about her own writing, even her own narrative, took an interesting turn. I am certainly not stuck on the idea of this assignment because I believe it could be incredibly problematic. However, it was very interesting, especially since we have been discussing ways to get students to take their audience into consideration. I don’t know that this technique would work with every student, and I am not sure that the professor’s instructions provided enough clarity regarding the assignment’s specifications. Yet, I am sure that my friend will have an entirely different take on audience and literary analysis than she had before this assignment.

Composition's Parallel to Performance Studies

            This semester I am also taking Dr. Borshuk’s Multicultural Studies course in which we are focusing on Performance Studies. We are concentrating on work by Richard Schechner and Victor Turner, two of the men who have helped to define Performance Studies as a discipline. These two authors believe that the vast majority of actions in everyday life should be considered performance because human beings are constantly performing for the society around them. Because we are socially constructed individuals, our identities are defined through interactions with the world outside of us, and as such we change ourselves and mold our actions to fit the normative thought of dominant culture. I was very surprised to find significant connections to the Performance Studies way of thinking within this week’s 5060 texts.

            Macrorie’s term “Engfish” is not only humorous, but also very identifiable in a lot of the papers I have been grading for 1301. Students have an idea of what they think an academic should sound like, and so they attempt to recreate what they have been told is appropriate for the scholastic world. Students mimic what they have been shown in classrooms, but such a process does not allow for creative work which reflects the writers’ opinions, interests, or personalities. They fail to give their work a realistic voice. Instructors need to provide their students with opportunities to bring their writing alive with personal style and voice. As we discussed in class, the difficulty of such an undertaking is that academic writing is necessary. How do we help students to find their own voice while still producing effective writing for the academy? I do not believe that Macrorie’s ideas are exactly the right technique, but at least the author is adding to the discourse and helping others to critically think about ways in which a writer’s voice can be honed.

            Like Macrorie, Crowley recognizes that writing itself is performative. She is disgusted with pedagogies which propone formulaic writing. She believes in writing as an inventive process in which students not only learn to write, but also face critical social issues which help them to create a broader mindset. Her comprehension of sociocultural issues shows that she recognizes that human beings are constructed. She realizes that human beings are constructed individuals, and her work signifies a hope to mold social interaction into writing to make it more informative, well-rounded, and authentic. Authenticity in writing will allow for inventiveness which will help to produce individual voice in the writing produced by our students.

            Though major differences exist between the opinions of Macrorie and Crowley, the two authors do provide some interesting insight on concepts of social performanceTheir pieces help to tie together the current pedagogical move toward multi-modal teaching of composition and the interdisciplinary world of Performance Studies. . With composition being such an important component of our culture as a whole, its nature as a show piece is a concept which deserves further study. If we are socially constructed, how can we ever truly represent our own individual voice within our work? How do we navigate the world of social boundaries in order to create new and innovative ideas? How do we find ourselves within a mimicked world?

Some self-reflection...

I want to be a college English professor. I want to teach students, to share my love for literature, and to positively impact the lives of those that I teach. I want to conduct meaningful research and address issues that are pertinent to the lives of students and the advancement of English as a discipline. Some might consider these lofty goals—realistically I even question whether or not they might be idealistic—however, I am hopeful that I can work toward my goals with diligence. This week’s readings have given me some very specific concepts to consider if I hope to reach my professional and academic aspirations. What are my personal beliefs regarding composition? What should a composition program include? What do students need to know to be successful college writers? What value should I place upon communication with secondary educators? What are important aspects of a syllabus? How will I keep up my end of the contractual agreement I make with my students? How will I convey to them the importance of holding up their end of the bargain?


I am sure that my opinions regarding the particulars of composition will continue to mold and change throughout the the course of this class, however, I would like to take the time to reflect upon them here. In all aspects of life, a lack of communication leads to failure to execute. I believe that this holds true for those of us in the academic world as well. As a professor, I intend to conduct meaningful discourse with secondary educators in order to better understand what they are emphasizing in their high school classrooms and how they are teaching their subjects. Hopefully I will be able to share information with them regarding the elements that college writing programs deem important for writing at a higher academic level. Without such communication, no real progress will ever be made in the field of composition.

I loved the emphasis placed upon the syllabus this week. I had never heard the syllabus seriously referred to as a contract before, and such a description led me to reflect upon the many syllabuses I have had in my years as a college student. Some are detailed; some are not. Some are explicit; some are vague. Some show extreme dedication to education and an awareness of student needs; others fail to focus upon the classroom environment as a place of learning and seem to display a lack of motivation on the educator’s part. I intend to take my syllabus seriously. I will not put anything into it that I do not plan to execute to the best of my ability. I will take the various needs of my students into consideration, and I will hold myself to the same high standards I will require of them.

I am dedicated to becoming the best possible educator that I can be, and I am enjoying learning about the journey which composition as a discipline, as well as those who have taught/are teaching it, has taken. I am beginning to realize that composition is a radically important and extremely undervalued component of the English field, a component which is necessary if we hope to see the Humanities continue to be valued on college campuses nation- wide.

Let the Great World Spin

Colum McCann is the author of a novel entitled “Let the Great World Spin,” a text which uses a circular mode of narrative to depict the cultural strife of the United States during the 1970s. For a people dealing with the struggles of military losses in Vietnam, the continued rise of capitalism, and new concepts of racial and cultural relations, the image of a man walking a tightrope between the monumental parallel columns of the Twin Towers was a symbol of hope for an emotionally unsure, unbalanced, and insecure nation.


I thought often of the conventions of this text as I read the essays of both Parker and Horner. Both emphasize the importance of an historical perspective for modern day composition. They fear the repercussions of an uneducated generation, of a generation with no foundation. Through an historical lens, both authors detail the changes which the English language, the university system, and composition as a whole have undergone to position us in the location which we, as students, are familiar with today. Take for instance Bain’s modes which have greatly influenced the modern ideas of composition practiced in classrooms today. Though to claim the modes is considered taboo, the recognition of our practice of the modes is a necessity. No composition education would be complete without knowledge of Description, Narration, Persuasion, Argument, and Research. Knowledge of how Ethos, Pathos, and Logos have combined with the modes is also a requirement of a well-grounded foundation in composition. Such change is evident, and to believe that progress in any discipline is unnecessary is futile. Evolution is also a key component of the McCann text. Within the text the author emphasizes the need for individual growth and change and the hope for future generations which comes with the transformation process. Changes in curriculum, such as the acceptance of a wide variety of composition mediums, are important if academic success is truly the primary goal of English departments.

P.S.

All this discussion of “change” makes me wonder—how would Alfred Lord Tennyson, who wrote the line “Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of change” in his poem “Locksley Hall,” feel about Poetry being thrown out as one of Bain’s modes?