Canagarajah, Tinberg, Villanueva, and Wardle and Downs

Canagarajah, Tinberg, Villanueva, and Wardle and Downs all add to the certainty that first-year-composition is a complex subject to take and teach. With Canagarajah’s discussion on ESL Composition and Tinberg’s reflection on the community college composition course, the local conditions are especially important in these chapters.

I like one of Canagarajah’s closing statements that: “Success today requires dealing with unpredictable, changing, and relative norms of language and literacy” (41). In her chapter, the local condition is (rather obviously) multilingual students. I love the idea of changing the frame of reference from “ESL speakers” to “multilingual” because I agree that the ability to speak more than one language implies great understanding of language itself. It also understandably adds to the difficulty of a freshman English course. The contact zone approach seems transferable to all first-year composition courses, not just those designed specifically for multilingual students. Furthermore, grading students on process and product fits in the discussions we’ve had in class over the last few weeks for all students. Specifically thinking of students who are not as familiar with English language as a whole, I wonder how her interactive teaching would work. I suppose I question the approach because I think of some cultures in which students are taught through their whole school experience not to interact with their teachers. Would this be hard for some students? I’ve never taught in another culture (or taught this culture…), so I could be completely mistaken, but the opportunities I’ve had to tutor multilingual students makes me curious as to what others might think? Does the interactive approach work independently of culture?

In a similar way, Tinberg’s chapter on theory in the community college composition course was very interesting. Like Canagarajah’s, though very specific local conditions are present, I think the broad concept can be applied generally and therefore at GSU. Surely there are students at GSU who will need to write to be successful in their workplace and other education courses. I wonder what the line is between making assignments understandable but not too obvious that they question the intelligence of the student. Is there a bottom line of trust that must be awarded to all students equally, whether they come from a nontraditional or multilingual background?

Though I’m again curious as to what other’s think, Tinberg’s statement, “for me, teaching composition remains a deeply humbling enterprise” begins to hint at an answer for me (250). Trusting students seems a critical part of teaching, and because experience makes it difficult to offer that trust as perfectly as one might hope to, the profession is humbling.

Villanueva, and Wardle and Downs made me question the role of rhetoric in a first-year composition course. Since I’m currently taking Greek Rhetoric, this seems very relatable to me at the moment. I highlighted the sentence on Plato’s Gorgias and laughed because I’m reading that as soon as I finish this! Yet I think the word ‘rhetoric’ was only mentioned a handful of times in my entire undergraduate experience. As Villanueva defines it: “the conscious use of language, particularly written language, and most particularly the written language of the academic community” rhetoric is a natural part of the composition course (267). And as the concentration “Rhetoric and Composition” implies, of course the connection is critical. But if done incorrectly, could rhetoric be a theme fabricated to give the course structure? I would like to think it isn’t, but I could see how students might find a large number of rhetorical readings less than helpful as they grow to understand language than initial readings that offer instant connection.

#contactzone #pedagogy #TeachingComposition