Hairston states that Thomas Kuhn’s idea of a paradigm shift applies not only to the sciences, but also to the humanities and especially to the field of composition. Hairston believes that, at the time, the teaching of writing was just beginning to experience a paradigm shift due to various external forces. Now, thirty-three years later, is American composition teaching today experiencing another paradigm shift (or still in the throes of the one Hairston witnesses in the 70s and 80s) because of new external forces such as Common Core, influx of international or older students, increased diversity, rapid changes in technology, and changing cultural/educational values? What is the field of composition doing to deal with the paradigm shift today?
Along the lines of the Hairston reading and the issues/questions we face today, Faigley also addresses the issue by calling for a synthesis of the expressive, cognitive, and social views of teaching composition. Faigley states that the preoccupation with theories of writing process has made scholars forget to address the major issues plaguing composition studies. Why are those questions Faigley asks on page 663 still bombarding us even today? Why haven’t they been resolved?
One of the ideas that struck a chord with me in the Reither text is offering a course that is, as Reither’s colleague described in a course description, “organized as a collaborative investigation of a scholarly field rather than the delivery of body of knowledge” and Reither’s statement that these courses are most effective when executed in a workshop format. The idea of getting students to read and write for themselves and their peers and not just for the teacher is one I think is becoming more popular in today’s undergraduate classrooms. This reading made me realize that some of the best English courses I took as an undergraduate (including both first-year composition courses as well as creative writing courses) were ones in which my classmates and I workshopped each other’s writing. I am curious - what is everyone’s experience with a workshop type of classroom, either as a student participating in it or as the teacher running the workshop course? How did your professor (or, as the teacher, how did you) facilitate/encourage the reflective inquiry Reither calls for in the classroom? Was it as effective as Reither says it is?
Along the lines of the Hairston reading and the issues/questions we face today, Faigley also addresses the issue by calling for a synthesis of the expressive, cognitive, and social views of teaching composition. Faigley states that the preoccupation with theories of writing process has made scholars forget to address the major issues plaguing composition studies. Why are those questions Faigley asks on page 663 still bombarding us even today? Why haven’t they been resolved?
One of the ideas that struck a chord with me in the Reither text is offering a course that is, as Reither’s colleague described in a course description, “organized as a collaborative investigation of a scholarly field rather than the delivery of body of knowledge” and Reither’s statement that these courses are most effective when executed in a workshop format. The idea of getting students to read and write for themselves and their peers and not just for the teacher is one I think is becoming more popular in today’s undergraduate classrooms. This reading made me realize that some of the best English courses I took as an undergraduate (including both first-year composition courses as well as creative writing courses) were ones in which my classmates and I workshopped each other’s writing. I am curious - what is everyone’s experience with a workshop type of classroom, either as a student participating in it or as the teacher running the workshop course? How did your professor (or, as the teacher, how did you) facilitate/encourage the reflective inquiry Reither calls for in the classroom? Was it as effective as Reither says it is?