Allie Draper ENGL 471 March 14, 2014 Teaching Philosophy (Statement of Intention) I cant begin this statement

of intention conventionally; here, in this line right here, is where I should hook you [like theyve told me to hook you since third grade, when I thought of fish and balked]. And here, right here in this one, is where I should establish my authority, convince you that however little experience I have, it will be enough to do what I promise to do, whatever I promise to do. But I dont want to begin that way. Because the authority that might one day be vested in me is authority I mean to give away; and the quality I value more than any other is flexibility the flexibility to change, to make no promises but that as a writer Ill bend, even if it means the essay breaks. This is how I have learned I must write; if I wish to grow, I must stretch. And if as a writing center tutor and a teacher I want my students to have courage and experiment, then I too must be brave and take risks. So if nothing else, in this statement I will practice the pedagogy I preach, go out on a limb and hope this branch that I have built will hold me and my plans for the future. My knowledge of power is that of a tutor: a position as inglorious on paper as it is glorious in practice. To be a tutor is to occupy a space that is as close to outside the power structure of education as I have ever seen anyone achieve. We have no real authority; no one within the power structure has appointed us. Yet we are not without power; the writers who visit us come willingly, seeking something they feel they cannot achieve on their own. This work is not teaching, and this paragraph is not an attempt to suggest the ethos I denied earlier. It is here to explain why I believe what I believe: because as a tutor, I have been a mediator between the powers that be and the powers that are yet becoming. And I have decided what we need is not more powers that be, but rather powers that know how to give [power up] so that others can become. What does that [even] mean? It means that as a teacher, I see my greatest strength as the ability to restore the agency that can and should belong to every writer. And the best way to do that, I think, is to give to them the authority that the system has given me to direct not only discussion, but their education and assessment as a whole. The system cannot tailor itself to students; so it seems an easy conclusion that we must give students the power to tailor it themselves so that it meets their educational goals and their hopes for their futures as writers. For that reason, I intend to grade every major paper along two axes: one with regard to the goals I have identified with students, and the second with reference to the projects writers have identified for themselves. Writers define one of the areas (organization, audience awareness, analysis, claim, etc.) toward which they would like their grade to be weighted, and I define the other. Should a writer ever [or always] feel my reader/grader response failed to recognize the rhetorical moves he or she made, the writer is encouraged to write a further paragraph explaining their rhetorical choices for additional credit [always] and the possibility of additional recouped points. The latter is not, perhaps, an exercise in giving students control over their education so much as an effort to incentivize recognition of the often ignored fact that writers did make rhetorical decisions, did exercise control over their piece. It, like all of the brief examples listed, is part of an effort to help writers realize their own power and capability.

The instructor who hopes to prioritize her students goals must be flexible. That, above all others, is my demand for myself. And so I hope that it is fair that that, more than any other quality, is what I would choose for my students to focus on in their writing, because I believe that that will grow in them the power to persuade whoever they need to persuade, in whatever context. I would have my writers feel prepared to meet the demands of any rhetorical situation, not only by practicing writing in a variety of genres, but most importantly by considering why were taught to write like we are. I want writers to think critically about the rules theyve been taught. I want them to understand the limitations of prescriptions (claim in the last sentence of the first paragraph; topic sentences; three supporting points) and to uncover the ideas that hide beneath them (introduce the claim early because Anglo-American audiences expect it there and tend to relate culturally to directive styles; three supporting points because thats the most general, roughest approximation of how many is enough to be convincing). Because if writers understand that the rules are more like guidelines [thanks Captain Jack], that they are simply another set of rhetorical constructs to be reassessed in every new context, then the only limit to the rhetorical options available to them is their own creativity (move the claim to the end; no topic sentences; ten supporting points). How does one learn flexibility? By stretching as a writer, by trying to bend even if it breaks the essay. Take risks, try new things students in my classroom would have unlimited rewrites, and keep only the best score. They would study contrastive rhetoric and talk about the way that notions of good writing change from country to country, culture to culture, classroom to classroom, and person to person. They would experiment in new genres, translate between genres, and write the same piece twice [or three, or four times] but addressed to different social and cultural audiences. I want to use my authority as a teacher to legitimize language not traditionally used in the classroom: the tongues and voices we use at home, whether this means the familiar, informal register used among family and friends, non-standard varieties of English, or perhaps not English at all. Some writing assignments would ask students to choose certain areas of their paper (a paragraph, particular sentences, introductory or concluding material, etc.) to step outside of a traditional academic register (or if they choose, English conventions or English altogether), with an additional paragraph reflecting on the effect. It is my hope that in this space writers will discover what is strong about each of their many voices, and learn how they might be strongest together. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the teaching philosophy I have described holds great appeal for me as a newcomer to the field of teaching. For one who is still learning how to lead, it forces me to practice what I believe is the first and most important rule of leadership: the willingness to step down and hand the pen to someone else, to learn and work alongside those with whom I have been trusted. It is my deep and fervent conviction that students are ultimately the most capable directors of their education. What they need is not instruction, but a guide. That is what I hope to be. As I hope to teach flexibility, so too do I hope the philosophy and the exercises I detail here will help me learn it and practice it. These are the standards to which I hold my writers; but first and foremost, these will always be the standards to which I hold myself.