my paper 2

[This is a very bare-bones draft. I needed to get my ideas fleshed out. I haven’t included much from outside sources, but I will. I wanted to post this so I could see how this idea works out. Then I’ll add the research.]

In the quest to provide a bridge between high school English Language Arts and first-year composition courses, many opportunities are offered to teachers of writing. There are professional development opportunities for high school teachers of writing. There are workshops for high school teachers of writing. There are opportunities for all teachers of writing. College composition teachers offer programs for high school composition teachers. Writing institutes offer programs for all teachers of writing.

Unfortunately, teachers of high school English serve different writing gods than college composition educators. Teachers in secondary schools have to teach skills and knowledge according to state-mandated curriculum. They have standardized tests for which to prepare their students. They have district-mandated assessments to prepare for. So, how to form a bridge between the two parallel-existing entities? How can we find the middle ground in the Venn diagram of college composition and English education? How can we bridge the gap between these two units of writing education who “currently live separate academic lives, fenced off from each other in largely separate bureaucratic compounds” (Tremmel 1)?

In the senior English class I taught, I tried to offer as many compositional techniques as possible. From free-writing to structured outlines, I showed my students as many different styles of composing as I had learned from personal experience and professional development opportunities. We started out the year with the research paper. I provided a list of topics to the students, but if they came up with their own topics and had them approved by myself and the librarian, they were able to follow that route, too. Before we started our research, I would give several lectures through the use of power point and hands-on training for the students to learn about citation. The next step in the process would be the outline. The students received a strict example of an outline by way of my own example. I would pick out a topic and walk them through the process of the outline. Then, they would create their own. Next, we would go to the library and research according to the outline. Throughout this pre-writing process of research and composition, the students were well aware of the necessity of revision. After their outlines were completed with the information gathered in the library, we would come back together as a class and begin the process of drafting. The main aspect of the draft I stressed was the thesis. I explained to them that now that they were “experts” on their topic, they could form an educated opinion of their topic. I would give them a stem of a sentence to help them in creating the thesis, then they would finish the stem with their thoughts.

Once again, I would create a draft of my own paper, showing them different ways of composing my ideas with support from the sources. The students would draft their essays, and we would have several opportunities for revision, proofreading, peer editing, and teacher support along the way. I intentionally spread the research paper over two nine weeks grading periods so the students would have virtually a full semester to revisit their papers. I got the research paper out of the way in the first of the year so the students would have the classic, structured form of composition they were used to from the 11 previous years of writing. The research paper was used as a segue to subsequent writing techniques. They would be comfortable with this form, but I could use this big project to open up the idea of writing choices.

Throughout the year, I integrated several other techniques of writing which they had the freedom to choose from at the end of the year for the final exam. Another of those techniques we explored was prewriting a paper as a class. We would brainstorm together using several different methods: bubble maps, trees, lists. We would discuss what we’d like to do for the next step, whether we wanted to create an outline like we had done for the research paper or go straight into a draft. If they had any other processes they had heard about, we would try those out as well. We would have all 6 chalk and marker boards covered with different methods of prewriting for the same topic. At the later stages of composition, the students would write in groups or individually, whatever they chose to do. This particular writing project would be held on small levels throughout the course of the research paper to guide them in thinking about the processes involved in composition.

Later, I incorporated creative writing, journal writing, business writing, and literary response into the class as a way to offer different techniques of writing. One of the main forms of creative writing I used was the free write. For a few minutes every week, the students were to write. At the beginning of the year, students had trouble because they were used to being given a topic to write about. When I would say, “For five minutes, I just want you to write,” they would look at me with questions in their eyes. So, for the first few rounds of writing, I would have to remind them of the different forms of writing they could follow: letters, notes, lists, songs, poems, etc. If they still had trouble, I would write several quotes or questions or topics on the board and let them choose to write about one or all of them. The point was just to write for several minutes straight. Eventually, students began to write on their own. They wrote about personal, school, or family problems; fleshed out ideas for their future or assignments; asked me questions they were too shy to ask in class; and eventually they did not need topics or quotes or questions from me. They would write about quotes they had heard in other classes or poems from the posters on the walls. They would create songs and raps. They would figure out their lives. The point was, they were learning about their own writing styles and academic interests in this simple assignment. The free write turned into journal writing which was slightly more structured. Occasionally I would give them more curricular-guided topics to help them with future composition assignments. Sometimes I would use the journals to learn about my own teaching. I would conduct evaluations of my teaching through the journals. But, I used the journals more for the students to explore assignments in my class, or any other class for that matter, and to ask questions and get answers, not just from me as the teacher, but from themselves.

Of course, throughout the full year, we would also read various forms of literature from the curriculum and from my own store of readings and whatever the students wanted to focus on. We analyzed passages from the Bible, contemporary songs, short stories, Shakespearean plays, novels, and whatever else we could read. The students would respond to the literature in various techniques of composition. They would give a visual representation of certain parts of a story, act out difficult passages, rewrite the endings of stories, write the next chapters of stories, answer critical questions in classroom discussions, research the author and write critical responses from his point of view. Most literary responses were not composed in the form of an essay, but they still understood the process of composition in responding to a piece of reading.
The culmination of the writing project through the year was the final exam. I would give a question that would allow the students to cover any literature they wanted from the year and to respond in any fashion they wanted. Most answered in written form, but there were a few who would feel the need to compose their answers in the form of a presentation or speak their responses in the form of a rap or a poem. A topic like, “Explore the concept of fate vs. free will. How do you see your life through these two concepts? What particular experiences do you have which would lead you to believe in one or the other? What things have you seen happen in the world, in this school, in this class, or in your reading which would help you shape your opinion on this topic?” This was their time to reflect the knowledge they picked up throughout the year, but also a time for them to compose something on their own without any say of the process or the technique they chose to us.

The beauty of the writing project was that the students never had to deal with the labels of composition or English; I never told them, “This is what we’re doing; it’s called audience or voice or bubble-mapping.” So, they weren’t bogged down with learning techniques’ names and the theory behind the technique. They simply learned different ways of composing and created their own terms of learning. One of the main things the students tacitly understood about my class was that they had the full nine weeks to revisit writing assignments. It was an unspoken rule that my grades were never complete until the last day to turn in grades. All this is to say that I tried to give the students a diverse foundation of composition techniques from which to develop their own processes, styles, and voices and without the usual hindrances of grades and writing to a particular form that they had gotten used to for eleven years.

This project worked even better when I had several classes of high school English to teach in a day. In the year I taught 9th grade pre Advanced Placement, regular 10th grade, regular 12th grade, and AP 12th grade English, I was able to set up the program on a bigger scale. I did the same thing for each grade, and if I was able to see the 9th and 10th graders advance to my senior English class, I could see the results of the diverse composition techniques they learned in the earlier years. Taking into account the fact that there would be a skip in the project if they were in other English classes, I could tell which students had been in my 9th and 10th grade classes. They were more confident in their writing and able to get into compositions easier than other students. They were able to handle processes and delve into projects with little guidance from me. They were more self-sufficient composers.

From what I have experienced as a high school English teacher, this is what I have seen: teachers do not go to workshops unless they have to; when they are in workshops, they’re grading papers or not participating in one way or another; they don’t really implement the techniques they learn in workshops in their own classrooms; and they stick to their own methods of teaching regardless of the success. If a program could be implemented which would give teachers more breathing room in the curriculum while giving students a wider variety of composition techniques, I think there would be better success in the secondary English classroom as far as composition.

A new way to try to establish a more diverse foundation of composition techniques is to offer a wider variety of composition courses to students starting at the 6th grade level. It would act as a degree plan acts for college students, except it would be focused solely on composition courses. Beginning in the 6th grade, students will have the opportunity to choose the composition course they want to take that school year. Each year, the student will have several options of different composition courses. There will be so many requirements needed by the end of their high school career, but they will have advisors each year to make sure they get enough credits by the 12th grade.

Let us follow fictional student Tracy. In the 6th grade, the courses her school will offer in composition will be: Writing Like Your Favorite Author, Historical Essays, Persuasion in School Matters: Lunch Extensions and Other Things That Matter, and Write Your Own Computer Programs. These courses will be cross-curricular as well as based in several, if not possibly all, of the key rhetors: expressivism, literary canonical response, persuasion, social preparation, authentic voice, learning through exploration, and discourse being just some of the main rhetors reflected in these courses (Bedford). This type of cultural, curricular, composition, and academic offering will be available to Tracy every year of her secondary school career. By the time she reaches the 12th grade, Tracy will have needed to fulfill the following credit completions for composition: one credit in creative writing, one in persuasion, one in historical rhetoric, one in cultural studies, one in technical communication, one in business/professional writing, and one open credit of her choice. Tracy will have freedom to choose her own courses each year, but there will still be an administrative structure to the curriculum. By the time Tracy graduates from high school, she will be a more functional student ready for the academic rigors of composition in whatever college she attends.

There is also the possibility of breaking these opportunities down even more by offering them semester by semester. Semester offerings would be even more beneficial for the teacher and the student. The teacher will be able to teach something new twice in one year or offer one course twice in one year for more students to get the chance to take the course. Students will have the opportunity to take a course they might really want to take if they miss it one semester, or they will be able to take two different courses in one year to satisfy their own academic interests.

Not only is this an advantage for the students to have a more diverse foundation in composition, this can also be seen as an opportunity for educators. Especially in the field of English [insert research statistic here], there are fewer and fewer job opportunities. With the implementation of this program, more opportunities for employment would be available as well as the freedom to create one’s own course based on academic interest.