Emig talks about writing as an experience of self-discovery as opposed to a defined process.  If writing is an experience, or happening, how do we, as teachers, get a writer unstuck in our classroom? OR If each student is an individual, how does one create a space for an experience, or happening, to occur for each individual?

Rohman and Wlecke write, “The most that can be done, it seems to us, is frankly to state your philosophy of writing, and within those frontiers establish whatever methodological and pedagogical laws seem appropriate.”  Of the readings for this week, for which do you find yourself having an affinity, and how do you see them playing a part in your philosophy of writing?

Kitzhaber and Sheils both bring up technology in their pieces.  How has it affected writing and composition positively and/or negatively?

Kinneavy writes about expressive discourse and the idea of self.  How does his notion of self tie into creating a happening in a writing course?

Several of the pieces touched upon the idea of writer’s having a specific audience in mind. Corbett suggests going back to teaching classical rhetoric to fix this weakness in writing. What are your thoughts on his proposal?

Young discusses a crisis in the current-traditional paradigm of rhetoric as being the area of invention as part of writing.  Granted this was written in 1979, how do you see yourself functioning within the current-traditional paradigm but also helping to remedy the crisis Young discusses?

Kelly Wheeler

In Kitzhaber’s essay, “The Present State of Freshmen Composition,” he states that freshmen composition is in need of “radical and sweeping reforms” (270). While that was indeed true for the time period in which it was written, can we say today that those reforms happened? Does composition still need reformation? If so, in what ways? Is it better now or about the same?

 

In “Why Johnny Can’t Write,” TV is blamed for students’ inability to express themselves properly when composing anything: “Short of throwing away all the television sets, I really don’t know what we can do about writing” (3). Clearly this blame came from a place of confusion and they realized it was unfounded later on. Do we sometimes do the same thing with our own students except we blame the internet or texting? Who, if anyone, is really to blame if our students don’t write well? What can we do about that?


-Candace Cooper