Lee Patterson

Teaching English in College - Reflection

Self-Reflection of Past Six Weeks
Over the past six weeks I have learned a great deal of new information about teaching.
The most surprising thing has been my introduction to genre as an entire field of study in
rhetorical theory. I had unknowingly used genre theory in my teaching of research, but not at all
to the degree that these texts represent as possible. This course has taught me that exploring
genre can be an opportunity for a class to delve into topics such as civil rights, popular culture,
literary theory, and everything in between while using the new affordances for expression that
the internet, social media, and multimedia forms allow.
Some of our most illuminating class discussions were concerned with these projects that
students can do. I learned that the definition of composition in rhetorical theory has been
opened out to include videos, websites, commercials, documentaries, comics, advertisements,
and other forms of expression besides the older, limited definition of composition as typed essay.
The most memorable moment in the class was seeing Logan Beardens students genre project
work. His students showed inspiring creativity in making media projects that were centered on
their use of classic theorists like Lacan to interpret popular culture phenomena like the Harry
Potter novels.
Ive also learned detailed strategies for giving the most effective feedback possible on
written assignments. Daikers Learning to Praise was an essay that had an especially good
impact on me. As Daiker states, noticing and praising whatever a student does well improves
writing more than kind or amount of correction of what he does badly, and that it is especially
important for the less able writers who need all the encouragement they can get (Daiker 155).

Part of encouraging students to find their voice, especially in our required courses where they
may have high apprehension in approaching our field, involves praising them when they succeed
and encouraging them to take risks. This resonated with me in that, as a student, I always did
things by the books or simply recycled things my professors said in lectures, but in an
increasingly competitive academic environment, and in an increasingly connected global society,
we need to encourage students to express the unique views we know they have but often shy
away from.
Ive also learned more about the ideal of a composition instructor. Tobins Teaching a
Composition Class was a cathartic text in its narrative of dealing with a class that does not
respond, which is a situation I have encountered at times. Tobin brought up numerous metaphors
for the roles a teacher has to play: that of the parent, the priest, the entertainer, and others. The
text makes clear that we as teachers cannot always succeed in inspiring passion in our students,
and when we fail in this it is not the end of the world. Tobins strategies of Combine and
Conquer emphasized the human elements in teaching, recommending that we ask questions of
our students that will let them respond in a personal and expressive way.
The most interesting current brought up in our class were concepts of official literacies
as in Cynthia Selfes essay, Technology and Literacy and presentations by my colleagues such
as Molly Daniel. An issue I have often grappled with in teaching Composition is an issue that is
becoming increasingly widespread: the presence of the internet in students lives leading to
different (some might call alternative) notions of what literacy is. It is becoming clear that a
single official literacy is impossible now, if it was ever possible before. Prof. Daniel gave a
presentation on the use of Twitter for remediating this problem: encouraging students to
communicate with each other on issues in the class with the professor looking on and interacting.