Syllabus

English 668
Perspectives on Composition: History, Theory, Pedagogy
Judith Goleman, judith.goleman@umb.edu
Office: W-6-14; Office Hours: M 3-4 +app’t
617-287-6707 (voicemail)

Course Texts (in bookstore)
David Bartholomae, Writing on the Margins: Essays on Composition and Teaching
John Brereton, The Origin of Composition Studies in the American College, 1875-1925
Robert Connors, Composition-Rhetoric: Backgrounds, Theory, Pedagogy
Joseph Harris, A Teaching Subject: Composition Since 1966

Course Website: http://www.litandwriting.umb.edu/engl688-1/spg09/home.htm
Articles posted on website under Resources:
Ann Berthoff, “Learning the Uses of Chaos”
Patricia Bizzell, “Cognition, Convention and Certainty: What We Need to Know about Writing”
Richard Rodriguez, “The Achievement of Desire” from Hunger of Memory
________, “The Language of Exclusion: Writing in the University”

Articles available through Healey e-journals:
Lester Faigely, “Judging Writing, Judging Selves” (JStor)
Mary Louise Pratt, “The Literate Arts of the Contact Zone” (Google Book)
Mike Rose, “’This Wooden Shack Place’: The Logic of an Unconventional Reading”
(JStor)

Introduction

Welcome to Perspectives on Composition: History, Theory, Pedagogy. As the syllabus below suggests, we will trace the development of writing in the American college from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. As we examine this history and develop an analysis of its dominant pedagogies and theoretical assumptions, we will, to some extent, be developing a critique of past practices. This critique will inevitably prompt questions about alternative practices and theories. In the way I have chosen and sequenced the course readings, I have attempted to anticipate some of these questions by weaving in contemporary articles that provide alternative theories and pedagogies. In this way, the course enacts a way of thinking about composition that continually historicizes and theorizes its teaching. A way of thinking about teaching that is historically contextualized and theoretically aware is called a praxis. The ultimate purpose of this course is to give you experience generating a dialectic among the three perspectives-- history, theory and pedagogy—so that you may reflect on and clarify your values and begin to build a composition praxis of your own. (over, please)

Course Design

The weekly assignments are designed as sets of related readings. I will frame each week’s reading set with one or two guiding questions that invite you to form relationships among the texts as you read and think about them. In the last 10 minutes of each class meeting, I will ask you to make notes on how your understanding of the guiding questions have been advanced, complicated or disturbed and where you see opportunities for further work that interests you. By identifying and writing down these opportunities for further inquiry, you will have a record you can turn to for the course papers.

Grading Policy

Your grade for the course will be based largely on class work and the two course papers. You will be able to revise the first paper if it is handed in on time and I will confer with everyone in the drafting of the final paper. Should that final paper need revising in order to fulfill the assignment, it can be arranged for students in good standing. Required aspects of the course include: attending class regularly, coming prepared with reading notes (not just underlining) and active, vocal participation. Missing more than two classes, turning in late papers and coming unprepared to class will lower your grade. If you are having trouble meeting these expectations or need a paper extension, please talk with me as soon as possible. Your success in this course is very important to me and I want to be as helpful and supportive as possible.

Syllabus [REVISED 3/9]

1/26: Course and student introductions; Rose, “The Language of Exclusion: Writing in the University”
Guiding Question: What are the premises, effects and alternatives to a certain kind of language about student writing that Rose calls exclusionary?

2/2: Berthoff, “Learning the Uses of Chaos”; Bizzell, “Cognition, Convention and Certainty: What We Need to Know about Writing”; Rose, “’This Wooden Shack Place’: The Logic of an Unconventional Reading.”
Guiding Question: In what ways do these articles offer or enact alternatives to a language of exclusion?

2/9: Connors, Intro, 1-15; Chpt. 1 “Gender Influences”; Chpt. 7 “Invention and Assignments in Composition-Rhetoric, 296-325.
Brereton: 3-13; Ideal Themes, 491-506.
Guiding Question: Can you discern what Connors calls “gender influences” on invention and assignments in the Ideal Themes?

2/16: Presidents’ Day, no class

2/23: Connors, Chpt. 3, “Composition-Rhetoric, Grammar and Mechanical Correctness,” 112-162; Brereton, 437-439, 514-25 (8 Harvard Themes); 526-28 (2 Proficient Themes);
241-260 (Gertrude Buck); 343-57 (Scott and Denney)
Bartholomae, “The Study of Error” in Writing on the Margins
Guiding Questions: What is the historical logic and effects of the focus on mechanical correctness? To what extent does Bartholomae offer an alternative logic of error?

3/9: Connors, Chpt. 6, “ Style Theory and Static Abstractions,” 257-79, 291-95.
Brereton, 332-343 (Wendell); 57-72 (Harvard Admissions Essays)
Faigley, “Judging Writing, Judging Selves”
Guiding Questions: What are the past and present effects of static abstractions on the teaching and evaluation of student writing? What do you understand the alternatives to be, at this point?

3/16: Spring Break, no class

3/23: Connors, Chpt. 4, “Licensure, Disciplinary Identity and Workload, 171-209;
Brereton: Frank Aydelotte, 300-311 (Attacks on Harvard Program);
Bartholomae: “What is Composition and (If You Know What That Is) Why Do We Teach It?
Guiding Question: What are the historical forces responsible for college writing’s simultaneous decline in status and rise in demand? To what extent is Bartholomae within a tradition that includes Gertrude Buck and Frank Aydelotte?
Discussion of paper assignment #1: Revisiting/Revising a guiding question of interest

3/30: Paper #1 due
In class: written précis and description of process; independent reading of papers; discussion

4/6: Harris, Chpt. 1 & 2, “Growth” and “Voice”
Bartholomae, “Inventing the University”
Richard Rodriguez, “The Achievement of Desire”
Guiding Questions

1. In his chapters/interchapters on “Growth” and “Voice, ” Joseph Harris argues that students need to learn to struggle with competing perspectives and discourses especially as this involves working with quotations. Mark passages that stand out to you as articulating and illustrating Harris’ ideas. As you read Richard Rodriguez’s essay, “The Achievement of Desire,” pay special attention to the way he works with quoted passages from Richard Hoggart. In what ways and to what extent would you say that Rodriguez exemplifies Harris’ ideas about negotiating discourses?

2. Point out one or two places where a connection between Harris’ chapter and interchapter allows you to advance or amplify your understanding. Or contrarily where the relationship between a chapter and interchapter provokes questions, resistance or difficulty for you.

Note: Please come to class with extensive notes in your notebooks on these questions.

4/13: Harris, Chpt, 3 & 4, “Process” and “Error”; Handout of En 101 assignment sequence
Guiding Question: In his chapter on process, Harris writes, “To really change the teaching of writing . . . a view of process must go beyond the text to include a sense of the ongoing conversations that texts enter into, a sense, that is, of how writers draw on, respond to, and rework both their own writings and those of others” (68). Harris goes on to describe this method as “an ongoing process of inquiry” involving revision “at both textual and sequential levels” (75). In what ways do you observe these features of an inquiry process in the En 101 assignment sequence?

4/20: Patriot’s Day, no class
(See assignment for 4/27 below. I would like to receive emails by 4/18 that lists the 4 articles or the book you will read for 4/27. I will be glad to meet with you before 4/20 to discuss selections; I will be glad to meet after4/20 to discuss the readings you have selected.)

4/27: Harris, Chpt. 5 “Community.” Review Chapters 1-5 in Harris. Choose 4 articles or 1 book referred to by Harris that you are interested in reading in relation to the history, theory and pedagogy revolving around his five keywords: Growth, Voice, Process, Error. Community.
Guiding Question: How have the articles or book you have chosen enabled you to expand or alter your understanding of one of the key words Harris investigates? Prepare a 10-minute presentation around one or two sections from your reading. Help us to understand why you pursued a particular source—what prompted you to read it in the first place? Help us as well to understand what you have found in the reading that has been useful, surprising, thought-provoking, enlarging or troubling in relation to Harris’s work and your own interests.

5/4:

For next class, please prepare a 1-2 page work-in-progress report on your final paper:
• What are your guiding questions?
• What prompted your investigation in the first place?
• What have you read so far that has expanded, altered or complicated your thinking?
• What would you like us to read that you have read and why would it help you to talk with us about it?

5/11: Research in progress reports: Reporting students assign one reading in advance relevant to work in progress

5/18: Peer review of final papers

Note: In the event of a snow day, please continue reading.