When Teaching Composition Becomes an Art Through a Futuristic Book-Writing Pedagogy

Introduction

Much of what we do in our Composition classrooms is learned, or taught to us by others, usually long-skilled persons who have been teaching for a very long time. What they teach us is usually something they themselves have learned from those who have gone before them, or things they have learned as a result of experimenting in their classrooms. For the Composition teacher, much of their knowledge is gained by what S. M. North (1987) calls “practitioner inquiry” (p. 15). Practitioner inquiry is knowledge that is largely gained through experience or experimentation to determine its usefulness. North (1987) calls this knowledge “lore” (p. 24). Lore is an accumulation of practices that have been tried and tested in the classroom, and determined to work. As Composition teachers we hone what we learn, put our own twist on some of the wisdom we learn until we make it our own. A lot of what we learn is the fundamental, usually boring, but necessary knowledge. It is important that we learn and understand rhetorical elements such as a thesis statement, topic sentences, the five-paragraph essay and especially the various writing patterns or rhetorical modes. It is when we take this so-called boring, but necessary source and make it our own, making it more meaningful and engaging for our students, that we create something different. We become not just skilled at what we do, but we become creative. In addition, North (1987) confirms that teachers will take something that has proven to work and “make it over in a way that suits their needs in a particular time and place” (p. 25). The art of teaching writing in the 21^st century is the ability to take novice forms of ideas that may seem tedious and mundane, but fundamental, and make it more meaningful, useful, engaging, and enlightening, and to do so with passion and with love.

Indeed, with globalization it has become more important that we look for ways to make teaching writing more meaningful in our increasingly diversified classrooms. The impact of globalization and its subsequent diversification was highlighted for me when I returned to school at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) in 2011 to pursue my doctoral studies. My cohort consisted of approximately four native English speakers, three from the United States, and me, from Bermuda. The other students were from many different countries including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, Israel, Libya, Russia, and South Korea. The diversification of this cohort was indicative of the changing academic landscape. Therefore, those who teach writing in the 21^st century need to do more to be culturally relevant to all students, which is a philosophy Hurlbert (2012) argues in his book National Healing: Race, State, And the Teaching of Composition. Composition teachers need to develop a more “internationalist perspective on the teaching of writing,” a perspective that demands that we learn how writing is taught around the world and how writing is researched around the world (Hurlbert, 2012, p. 51). Going to college is usually a choice; students are not required by law to be there, not like they are when in elementary or high school. When students choose to enter our classroom, especially students of different cultures and backgrounds, we owe it to them to make their time in our class as meaningful and relevant as possible. I have to admit my time at IUP was an interesting and enlightening multicultural experience, especially for me coming from a very small island of approximately 65,000 people where almost everyone speaks English. When I returned to Bermuda after my studies, I saw my students in a different light. I no longer saw them as just a group of students; I recognized all of their diversity. While Bermuda may not have a large number of second language (L2) students, we do have them. Most of them, however, are raised balanced bilingual, so it is easy to forget that English is not their first language.

When I went to IUP to pursue my doctoral studies, I had been teaching for fifteen years, and I figured I was already an expert at what I did. My student evaluations spoke to my effectiveness. I figured that at IUP I was simply going to learn how to do what I already was doing, but better. However, my experience at IUP under the tutelage of renowned Composition Professor, Claude Hurlbert, radically changed me, and subsequently that experience changed what I do in my classroom.