English 600A Blog: Teaching Revision

Horning and Becker’s Revision, History, and Practice brings into discussion the important observation that composition instructors need to cultivate metarhetorical metastrategic, and metalinguistic awareness in students as much as writing skills. They contend that professional writers are more efficacious because they have high levels of such metacognitive awareness while producing writing. Horning and Becker recommend reflective writing, particularly in portfolios, as a means of generating these meta-level awareness. Reflection might be one means of cultivating this form of metalinguistic cognition, but I would argue that we can also foster metarhetorical awareness by having students engage with issues and debates in community engaged pedagogy. These experiences engender the critical thinking and perhaps emotional connection necessary to stimulate rhetorical and linguistic analysis. Another great means of inculcating metalinguistic awareness that I have found constructive is teaching poetry and creative writing as process elements of a composition course because students cannot help but become metalinguistically aware of aspects such as word choice and connotation when they have to analyze or create poetic or literary works. Incorporating such techniques would then build student capacity in the revision process of writing. On the whole, I concur with Horning and Becker that instructors should allot more time to fostering metarhetorical and metalinguistic competence than drill-teaching writing skills. These capacities of course, develop over time, more time than the typical freshmen writing course affords.

Berkenkotter also speaks of the “cognitive basis for alterations in the macrostructure or ‘gist’ of text” (163) that in the revision process that separate expert adult writers from others. In this respect he shares with Horning and Becker the recognition that meta-cognitive awareness is an important capability that perhaps aught to be cultivated in novice writers as well. What I find most interesting in Berkenkotter’s observations of Donald Murray as a writing subject is the fluidity of the revision process that Murray undertook. Revision for Murray was not a linear process; he shifted back and forth between planning, editing, reviewing, and giving his thoughts linguistic expression in words. Berkenkotter relates that Murray at times felt free to “reconceive” his writing “when he recognized something missing from the text and identified a major rhetorical goal” (163) in the revision process. I would concur with Berkenkotter that the final intent of expression in writing often comes through in the revision process itself, that thoughts take shape through the writing and revising activity. Therefore, this process has to be flexible enough to enable the writer to reformulate what she has written, perhaps continually until she brings the process to a tentative closure. Berkenkotter also argues that in this recursive process of writing and revision the writer is conscious of his audience and adjusts his writing accordingly. While this consciousness may be the case in many instances, I would proffer that there are writing contexts in which the writer herself might constitute her own audience.

In line with the reflections in Berkenkotter’s article, Sommers attests that revision is part of a meaning-making process in writing.   Arguing that “revision processes are more than communication; they are part of the process of discovering meaning altogether” (51), Sommers relates expert adult writer view revision as a fluid space for meaning construction and clarity cultivation while student writers are perplexed by the prospect of thinking they have to fit in pre-conceived meanings into a final written product. She contends that the recursiveness and meaning-making function of revision has gone unrecognized in composition scholarship because of the logocentricism or dominance of speech over writing in Western communication. Because writing has often been conceived as an extension of speech, it has been ascribed a linearity (of pre-writing, writing, and revision) of discrete stages that does not reflect that actual experiences of writing and revision. Like Berkenkotter states of Murray’s revision methodology, I concur with Sommers that students need to be encouraged to see revision as process of discovery and meaning construction, a space where they can feel free to the “exploit the lack of clarity, the differences in meaning, and dissonance, that writing as opposed to speech allows in the possibility of revision” (52). I would argue that, in this manner, students can conceive of revision as creative process with many possibilities for self-expression.    

English 600A Blog: ESL and Translingualism

Horner et al. contend that composition studies is still dominated by English monolingualism but is badly in need of revision given that many composition students are now multilingual or speak different varieties of Englishes. They concentrate on reforming composition scholarship and the preparation of academic practioners in terms of addressing the latter issue. For Horner et al., the field of composition scholarship must transition from monolingualism to adopting translingualism in disciplinary practices such as publishing in academic journals and incorporation in conferences. They propose that the field of composition scholarship inculcate translingualism by including multilingual perspectives, writing in different Englishes, non-Anglophone writing and translation from other languages. While maintaining a disciplinary focus, Horner et al. share Canagarajah’s concern with composition pedagogy being responsive to the needs of students’ linguistic diversity. Both Horner et al. and Canagarajah contend that multilingualism tends to be the norm amongst speakers of English wordwide and that global English speakers are continually adapting their language fluency and modifying their language use. Canagarajah asks us to consider these factors in teacher-training of professionalization of composition instructors, calling for greater sensitivity and responsiveness to translingual students in pedagogical practice. According to him, translingual composition instruction requires teachers to be flexible and attuned to student diversity, as well as the contexts, genres, and semiotic resources helpful to multilingual students. The teaching standards and formulas for instruction in monolingual classrooms may need to be modified for translingual classrooms, to include more multimodality, for instance.     

Matsuda and Hammill likewise attempt to provide a portrait of the second language learners in order promote greater understanding of their needs. Coming from diverse cultures and languages, they impress upon readers that second language students are learning a new language at the same time that they are expected to learn concepts and write for diverse courses. Second language learner are also developing communicative competency in that they are discovering how to sustain social relations with an audience and learning meta-writing strategies while at the same time becoming familiarized with basic elements such as sentence structure and grammar. What I gathered most from Matsuda and Hammill’s discussion is that second language learners often carry a much larger labor burden in terms of coursework and acculturation. Additionally, if composition pedagogy is not inclusive for second language learners, they may become alienated from the writing process. I would be very interested in pedagogies that foster a sense of inclusiveness for second language learners. Some strategies put forth by Matsuda and Hammill include having second language learners reflect on their own cultural experiences, but not all students may be comfortable with talking about their differences. One teaching and assessment strategy that I have found useful is reading second language student essays for meaning and intention rather than attention to form according the language standards. When I have adopted this practice with my own second language students’ writing, I have found their papers to be much more enriching and modified my assessment rubric accordingly.

English 600A Blog: New Media

In this week’s readings, Brooke suggests that, in keeping with the times and the audience, instructors need to engage with new media and incorporate it into their courses. I appreciate the strategies he offers for mediating between the conflict of having to according to teach print-based outcome requirements and the urge to experiment with digital and new media in the classroom. He suggests that while academic and outcome standards might discourage the use of new media for writing assignments, teachers could employ new media as part of a process-based learning component rather than an end product. This suggestion prompts me to think of how I can use online Moodle postings or digital forums as part of the process-based dialogue component of my progressions while working toward a final essay as an end product required by outcomes stipulations. Brooke also relates how new media has its own literacy and affordances, and cannot be assessed in the way we traditionally assess printed texts. The difficulty lies in fact that there is no established rubric for assessing new or digital media productions. Hence, instructors might be hesitant to assign new media assignments. However, Brooke offers some advice for assessing these productions such as reflection activities and rhetorical analysis of student work that considers both visual as well as textual rhetoric in new media creations.

Selfe underscores the importance of allowing students the freedom to express themselves aurally and visually through the incorporation of new media. Ignoring multimodal composition means ignoring alternate means of personhood and cultural expression. For Selfe, the aural and visual are part of a sign system or semiotic field that widens the terrain and modalities available to students for composing. In a reversal of Derrida’s perspectives, she argues that western pedagogy has privileged writing and the written word over speech/sound and the visual. Her arguments are compelling in that I never really considered denying students the opportunity of composing aurally as a deprivation of meaning-making through “semiotic resources” (616). Perhaps some students can express themselves more effectively and produce better content when they are allowed the means to compose through multimodal texts. This is especially relevant to the contemporary generation of first-year composition students which may be more comfortable with and enthusiastic about digital production rather than traditional written text assignments.

In “Composing Multimodal Texts” Beach et al. not only stress the importance of multimodal literacy for present pedagogy, they offer pragmatic means for creating multimodal assignments that stimulate student learning as well as meeting the requirements of instruction such as teaching rhetorical analysis, using images, audio and video, through the process of multimodal composition. In response to Brooke’s concerns about meeting outcomes requirements, Beach et al. assert that new Common Core Standards now require the integration of new media technology in coursework. I found the assessment criteria they provided for evaluating student video productions a very helpful tool, and the example of students using multimedia implements to create digital poems and stories to be a fantastic assignment template. Beach et al., moreover, helped me recognize that the use of multimodal composition can be an effective means of teaching audience awareness in rhetorical study because such productions require knowledge about the impact of audio-visual editing and design choices on audience reception.

English 600A Blog: Invention Pedagogy

I found Lauer’s exhaustive study on the historical evolution of invention thought-provoking. She appears to intimate that invention is a fluid concept and there has always been debate over the “nature, purpose, and epistemologies” of invention (119). Her discussion on poststructuralist critiques of invention is particularly interesting given that poststructuralist epistemology challenges the existence of the inventing subject at all. We are then forced to consider whether a subject is actually inventing something original during the writing process or whether “discourse constructs the writer” (116) and individuals cannot really invent or add anything new to our understanding through writing because they are just the products and mediums of a wider social discourse. One question that arises out of this depiction of the inventing subject is that, even though writers may be embedded in social discourses, people can be immersed in different and competing discourses simultaneously. Perhaps something original and inventive can come from the writer’s interaction with the multiple discourses that constitute her selfhood, in this context. In any case, whether writers are products of discourse or autonomous creators expressing new and individual perspectives, it appears to me that writers must use invention strategies to compose during the writing process. Just how to cultivate effective invention pedagogy for students is another contentious issue that Lauer considers.

Lauer contends that invention pedagogy has historically, since the time of Greek Antiquity, focused on four means of assisting students to “investigate their subjects” and generate ideas (120). A Romantic pedagogy concentrates on the student’s natural ability to foster invention, discourages teachers from intervening in this process, and encourages them to instead provide a conducive environment to cultivate student interests and offer feedback on final drafts. Imitation pedagogy encourages having students imitate samples and activities as models or stimulants for invention. Practice pedagogy stress the importance of constant writing exercises to generate and explore invention. Instructors using art pedagogy guide students through writing process by teaching invention strategies. One issue that emerges out of a particular preference for any of the above pedagogies is the degree to which we cultivate or curtail originality by choosing a specific invention pedagogy. I guess we could argue that the natural ability or Romantic approach appears to stimulate the greatest amount of originality, but even natural ability has to rely on imitation at some point to enter into the discourse that students are embedded in given that invention takes part in a social setting and writers are not isolated individuals divorced from social influence. On the other hand, too much reliance on models for imitation and drilling in practice can cause students to fall in to the pattern of formulaic writing and stifle creative paths to invention that they might otherwise engage in on their own. I think we, as instructors, need to find the right balance between these four pedagogical models according to our own teaching philosophies. As teachers, we routinely use art pedagogy to guide students with invention strategies in composition courses, but sometime it might be helpful to step back, when necessary, and see what develops out of students’ own invention processes before intervening with suggestions.  

English 600A Blog: Evaluation and Assessment

This week’s authors critique the practice of associating error with student competence. Inoue, for instance argues that students should be graded on the effort and time spent on activities rather than the assumed quality of their output. She points out the difficulty of assessing error in students of ESL backgrounds, speaking different Englishes. Inoue stresses that instead of concentrating on errors, composition instructors focus on encouraging students to make the learning process their own in order to derive individual and personal value from it. I concur with her methodology because, in my own experience, I have found that when I concentrate on the value of the work and my own learning process, instead of a final grade, I tend to benefit more from a course general. Inoue further advises entering into a partnership with students in actualize this process of personalized learning through a process-based approach that grants students authority in the assessment process, but I wonder if this is applicable in institutions based on standardized assessment methods.

Like Inoue, Anson is concerned with assessing students from diverse socio-linguistic backgrounds, arguing that errors may reflect the students’ lack of emersion in the prevailing social conventions of writing. He cautions instructors to refrain from passing judgment on students’ competence due to errors in writing. Anson impresses the importance of alerting students to the fact that errors are socially constructed. By becoming aware that errors arise from social conventions lessons the fear associated with formal or grammatical writing, for example, making students recognize that their writing is not faulty, just stylistically different. I find Anson’s contentions useful in that she identifies that what we perceive as errors is constantly in flux given society’s linguistic prescriptions at certain time in history. He encourages instructors to be self-reflective and identify their own potential biases in grading errors and offers practical guidance in terms of how much they should concentrate on error, how to respond or comment about it, and deciding how much value to place on errors in the larger writing and teaching process.

Sommers similarly asks how instructors can moved beyond error assessment and offer feedback to students that are more suited to the students’ own purposes and meaning rather than imposing their purposes on students. For Sommers, the classroom activities and comments we offer on student papers need to be connected. Just as the whole composition course is not based on grammar and errors, the evaluation of papers does not have to be concentrated on these elements as well. Her comments compel me to consider how we can offer specific commentary to students centered on meaning instead of making error corrections due to our preconceived prejudices about student writing. One suggestion I have, following the Sommers reading, is to have student submit two copies of a draft and focus on the intended meaning, organization of parts, and logical clarity during the first copy review. Instructors can then use the second copy for evaluating sentence mechanics and grammar, etc. separately. Another aspect I appreciate about Sommers’ reflection is her observation that we need to encourage a sense of revision, as a process of rediscovery, and illustrate to students the process of development implicit in writing. Like Inoue and Anson, she advocates encouraging students to see their work as a whole and not just fixate on correcting parts of it for sentence structure errors—which can detract students from developing writing for in depth meaning. I agree with her emphasis on the need to show students that writing is always an unfinished product malleable to revision. This can be very liberating for students traditionally pressured by academia into assuming their writing has to result in a perfected product.        

Week 10: Expressivism and Creativity in Composition

This week’s readings address concerns regarding the relevance of creativity and imagination in composition pedagogy. The fact that, in some respects, composition has become a service course designed to prepare students for future college courses across the disciplines has resulted in the privileging of rhetorical writing and analysis over literary interpretation in the evolution of composition as a discipline. As Farris relates, debates have emerged within composition about the inclusion of literature in the curriculum at all and the purposes it might serve. While utilitarian perspectives argue for the exclusion of literature, those arguing for its retention in composition point to its usefulness as a means of generating argument and means of examining textuality. Having a debate at all about the inclusion of literature suggests that composition’s contemporary bent appears to devalue creativity in comparison to analysis and argument in writing, so much in demand by market forces and other technical professions. As Hesse suggests, imaginative and creative writing are assets that composition has ignored since the late 1980s. He maintains that the development of composition as a discipline with its own theories and pedagogy has privileged the instrumentality of writing as argument and analysis over expressionism and creativity. Hesse even mentions that creative non-fiction has been disowned by composition pedagogy and taken up by the creative writing sub-discipline in English instead. I see this turn in composition as lamentable given that, to me, writing is an art as well as a way of thinking and expression that cannot be reduced to a technical product for the exigencies of broader academia or the professional market place. One of the few positive shifts for those interested in sustaining creativity in composition appears to be the increasing multimodality of communication where creative writing can possibly find a greater reception.

Despite its sidelining by broader disciplinary forces, there are still some brave proponents of creative writing in composition such as Sullivan who advocate for the inclusion of creativity because creativity is now recognized as a form of intelligence and complex cognition that compliments critical thinking. Sullivan pushes the market angle as well by arguing that creativity and innovation in writing is much sought after in the business world and should therefore be cultivated in composition. Like Hesse, he encourages the conception of writing as articulating the values of a productive, creative art and contends that, instead of relegating creativity to the sphere of creative writing only, composition pedagogy should integrate creativity into the writing process. I would argue that creativity itself would likely have to be (re)incorporated into composition at some point because relying solely on formulaic analytical writing to meet the demands of capitalism and other academic disciplines will result in stale, homogenous, lifeless writing lacking originality and fresh perspective. As Burnham and Powell communicate, this is exactly what the expressivist movement sought to avert by incorporating writing practices such as free-writing, journaling, personal narrative, peer-review, and reflective writing in composition to foster originality, individual voice, and a critical stance toward authority and prevailing social injustice. The expressivisits were marginalized from composition two decades ago for purportedly encouraging naiveté and self-centeredness in student writing, but perhaps it is time for writing instructors to give their ideas and methodologies another hearing.

 

English 600A Week 7, Blog 5

Basic Writing (BW) theorization seeks to locate the reasons for students with writing deficiencies in either the way individuals have failed to learn cognitive or linguistic stipulations in language (error-centered approaches), students’ lack of emersion in academic discourse (academic initiation approaches), the societal constraints, injustice and inequalities that cause large gaps in student literacy and perpetuate the need for Basic Writing courses (critical approaches), and the social-spatial location of Basic Writing programs within academic institutions (spatial approaches). I think all of the above approaches provide partial insight into the demographic identified as BW students, and we can benefit best if we selectively incorporate elements of each to meet the needs of first-year composition students. On facet of the argument against designating and teaching Basic Writing or grammar that Micciche brings out in “Making the Case for Rhetorical Grammar” is that progressive pedagogues often view the teaching of BW and grammar as reinforcing conservative pedagogies and call for their elimination. Micciche contends, however, that there is a case to be made for the study of grammar as implicated in the rhetorical process. Analyzing and practically engaging in the use of syntax, passive of active voice, and word choice, for example alert writers to the alternate meanings conveyed by different grammatical choices. Paying attention to these syntactic elements can also be constructive in social justice endeavors as in the example Micciche provides of examining the syntactic-level political rhetoric of politicians waging war, so grammar and BW instruction need not solely implicated conservation projects. In fact, as Micciche points out, teaching students grammar and BW skills is a necessary component of empowering them to function in a world that privileges the communicative discourse of the dominant culture.

Aside from grammar, Fleming provides a useful overview of rhetoric and argumentation. He appears to give a New Historicist reading of rhetoric, chronicling its popularity and the forms it takes according to historical context. In mentioning that rhetoric’s rise and significance dovetails that of the writing process of invention, Fleming illustrates the inter-connected relationship between rhetoric or argumentation and writing pedagogy. I found his advocacy of teaching argumentation as a process of inquiry and discovery rather than a methodical proving/supporting of propositions very helpful. His consideration that post-war theorists have posited argumentation as a deliberative, conflictual process to sway an audience rather than the modernist focus on proving “truths” also appeals to a poststructuralist understanding of rhetoric. The authors of Everyone’s an Author also suggest useful ways of formulating and arguing positions but they seem at odds with Fleming’s more deliberative approach to argumentation and in favor of ‘taking a stance,’ arguing it persuasively with evidence, appealing to an audience, and appearing authoritative in the process. As they themselves acknowledge, it is often difficult to address the complexities of a position by committing to one side (although they remedy this lacunae by emphasizing the incorporation and rebuttal of counter-arguments). Nonetheless, this form of argumentation often morphs into a defensive proving and upholding of one’s stance than an inquiry or discovery through the process of argument that Fleming encourages. Perhaps it might be practically more feasible for first-year composition students to first master this ‘choosing a side and defending with strong support’ method before they can conceive of argumentation as an investigative process that is not invested in sustaining either a pro or con position but seeks to arrive at a better understanding of phenomena under consideration.

English 600A Week 4 Blog

Instilling meta-cognition, or self-awareness, about the writing process in students appears to be one objective in the first-year composition pedagogy that writers commenting on designing curriculum (Yancey) and making it more accessible to students through multi-model technologies (Shipka) focus on in this week’s writing. Both authors also emphasize that, to attain this meta-cognitive ability, the disciplinary focus of first-year composition courses needs to be concentrated on writing itself. Yancey discusses the important concept of making writing personally meaningful to students. Providing prompts that steer students to think critically and engage with issues, such as war, can enhance both the quality process and product of their writing. Incorporating narratives and multiple genres in the initial stages of writing can provide students with multiple perspectives as well as the reflective capacity necessary for substantive writing. What the writers on curricular design appear to suggest is that there is no clear-cut way to effectively teach first-year composition; it is almost an “impossible” task as Yancey intimates. But perhaps by having students take part in piecemeal steps of writing, through portfolios for example, students can take ‘ownership’ of their own writing process and produce more meaningful work that reflects a greater fecundity of thought.  Shipka seeks to advance this pedagogy by encouraging students to personally analyze composition as a multi-modal communicative process using the prevailing technology of the time. Having students use a meditational mix of tools in the composing process, and designing activities that foster awareness about the materiality and collective quality of writing, conveys to students that writing is always a (socially) constructed element in a discursive field, not the work of individual ‘greatness’ mastered by the gifted.

A related topic discussed in this week’s readings is the challenges encountered in teaching research as part of the first-year composition curriculum. Howard and Jamieson prescribe the replacement of conventional research papers with instruction in research practices given that students cannot really learn to write comprehensive research papers in the short span of time allotted to teaching them in the introductory composition course. I concur with their recommendation of teaching research components such as library database searches, assessing sources, critical reading, summarizing and synthesizing rather than instructing students in the formulaic writing of traditional research papers. Students tend to maneuver through such research papers through “patch-writing” and filling in the slots of thesis, evidence and conclusion, disconnected and dispassionate about the subjects they ought to research. This disconnection from research is something that Purdy and Walker also critique, calling for a validation of students’ intrinsic curiosity for research through the use of non-academic and online sources as a way of acknowledging their own research identities and refraining from imposing academic templates or “pathways” which might stifle or constrain students’ inclination toward research. Given that critical reading is such as essential part of writing effective research papers, more instruction in that overlooked facet of instruction would also certainly be helpful, as Carillo attests. A better use of the first-year composition course time might be encouraging students to investigate possible research topics in which they are genuinely interested through their own online non-academic perusals and experimentation with different genres such as narrative and creative writing, and then gradually incorporating the topic into research practices. Final research papers could be composed in subsequent courses that prepare students for careers in which research is required but, as Purdy and Walker propose, first-year composition ought to be that “liminal space” where students can explore their own identities as writers.

English 600A Week 3 Blog

This week’s readings suggest that feminist pedagogy integrates elements of cultural, collaborative, and community-engaged pedagogies and has developed along side composition’s evolution such that authors like Richie and Broadman assert that there is a metonymic relation between feminism and composition studies. As Micciche relates, feminist pedagogy, like community-engaged pedagogies privileges experience as a way of knowing (an epistemology) that should be incorporated in the composing process. It also seeks to reintegrate feminized elements like emotions, devalued by dominant current traditional pedagogies, back into composition as a valid point of reference. Feminist epistemologies also encourage students to explore multiple points of view and write in different genres in order to find their own “voice” or form of expression as well as gain critical perspectives that de-center dominant modes of writing. Feminism’s underlying concerns about addressing inequality between the sexes and socially constructed notions of gender are also the focus of feminist pedagogy. Since composition as a field tends to be highly feminized, with low-paid, female adjunct faculty comprising the bulk of composition instructors, feminist theorists also examine narratives that disrupt or challenge power and hierarchy within the discipline. A question emanating from the above precepts for me is whether resistant feminist pedagogies can co-exist and work within the institutional stipulations of composition. Richie and Broadman appear to suggest this resistant quality of feminist pedagogies has historically worked in a dialectal relationship with the institution of composition to bring about beneficial reforms. They contend, however, that it is a conflictual relationship, but perhaps positive evolution in composition can only result from confrontational forces challenging prevailing methodologies.

Community-engaged pedagogies, like feminist ones, value experience in providing a grounded perspective from which students can produce substantive writing that can perhaps incorporate their own social justice concerns. Making sure that community-engaged pedagogies actually serve the needs of students and targeted communities appears to be a challenge encounters by instructors who adopt service-learning projects into their coursework. The time and training necessary to take part in service-learning projects is an issue which Dush considers when discussing the added responsibilities students had to shoulder for participation in community-engaged projects. A better division of labor in terms of training negotiated between the community organization and educational institutions may have been beneficial in Dush’s context. As Julier, Livingston, and Goldblatt contend, communication between instructors and the partner organization is important in making the service-learning experience fruitful for both participants and community organizations. Both Scott and Julier, Livingston, and Goldblatt convey that students gain practical real-world experiences through such as assignments as public relations work for community organizations that expose them to different forms of writing. An issue that emerges from such service-learning projects, however, is whether students actually engage in deeper reflections about community engagement from their experiences rather than just acquiring technical skills that primarily make them “market-friendly” and serve the interests of participant organizations. Despite these challenges though, one could argue that any engagement with the outside world, provided through community-engagement activities, could offer quality reflective material to enhance students’ writing.

 

English 600A Week 2 Blog

The readings this week address composition theory and pedagogy’s evolution from the elitism and exclusivity of being a predominantly current-traditional based male Anglo-American, product-focused disciplinary enterprise to becoming more inclusive of diversity and engaged with quotidian culture. George, Lockridge and Tirmbur’s observation of culture studies’ influence on composition pedagogies relates how the concern with common everyday life and culture amongst British Academics of the Center for Contemporary Culture in Birmingham University grew into a radical movement that critically analyzed class and race in local contexts. The impact of culture studies within composition theory now compels educators to take issues of difference and diversity seriously as an important component of composition pedagogy which has expanded to include, not only English as Subsequent Language Speakers, but post-colonial concerns with transnationalism and alternate forms of “Englishes.” Brodkey’s insistence that hierarchical teaching which disregards everyday outside world issues of race, class, and gender in the classroom perpetuates racism and classism, impeding the empowerment of marginalized students (by denying them the opportunity of communicating their experiences related to class and race through composition) further speaks to the necessity of bringing local contexts into mainstream composition pedagogy.   Indeed criticism that even subversive movements in composition theory for access and inclusion have disregarded the input of women and minority ethnicities has led to a dialectical process of evolution for the white-male initiated emancipatory projects of critical, collaborative, and cultural studies informed pedagogies as conveyed by the works of Ann George, George, Lockridge and Tirmbur, and Kennedy and Howard.

The dilemma of just how to represent marginalized voices into composition pedagogy also surfaces in Royster’s article. Royster’s discussion of problematic issues arising from the white academics’ representation and activism on behalf of African-Americans for example relate the need to include the “authentic” voices and experiences of communities traditionally excluded from composition pedagogy, for each community brings with it diverse epistemologies that reflect particular cultures and life experiences. For composition pedagogy to be useful at all, it must reflect and engage with the particular life experiences of and genuine expression of its “subject” students. Sometimes this project extends to incorporating the collaboration of students in the teaching process as advocated by certain forms of critical pedagogy that seek to make composition instruction more student-focused and student-initiated, as George communicates. Although these approaches run into dilemmas premised on questions of authority in the classroom, they have also generated insights and improved the quality of composition instruction in many cases. Pedagogical aimed at greater inclusion have also sought to tackle social justice issues with composition pedagogy becoming a form of activism that seeks to foster activism amongst students. While leading to positive changes, these critical pedagogies, such as the Freirian approach, have also encountered criticism that insists on teachers fostering neutrality with respect to the political aspects of composition instruction. Thus composition pedagogies has to grapple with challenges involved in making education more accessible and inclusive of the common populace, marginalized communities and larger society as a whole. As Kennedy and Howard and Beach et al. attest, engaging with the public sphere and popular culture through the adoption and new and digital media is the most recent means of attempting to realize collaborative pedagogical enterprises that seek include a broader spectrum of society within its purview.

 

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