Course: ENGL 566: Theory and Practice of Teaching Composition
Professor: Dr. Lindsey Spring
Location: The Citadel
Dates & Time: Summer II–June 24 – Aug. 11 Monday 4:00 – 6:45. Please note that these dates appear differently when registering through CofC. Dates posted here are the correct Citadel Summer II dates.
Room and Modality: Hi-Flex Synchronous–course can be accessed either online or in person at the designated course time. Please contact instructor for questions about modality. Room TBA
In this course, you will study pedagogical approaches for teaching composition, focusing specifically on writing as a social, rhetorical, and process-oriented act. Together, we will develop a critical framework for considering audience, genre, literacy, language difference, identity, and other writing-related issues. Most importantly, you will draw on what you learn to design materials—a teaching philosophy, writing unit or syllabus, and sample assignments—that could be used as part of an application to teach writing at the secondary or college level and elsewhere.
Pedagogy is the art of teaching, including the philosophy that provides a foundation for teaching methods and practice. We will examine educational philosophies, histories, and theories as they pertain to teaching writing and the teaching life. We will study scholarly texts for what they offer teachers and writers in terms of inquiry, reflection, and lived experience. We will read texts that will engage us in intellectual and ethical conversations about teaching in secondary classrooms, college classrooms, and one-on-one teaching that takes place in writing centers and teacher offices.
Composition is “the activity of writing” a creative, expressive, or academic text. It involves writing and responding to reading and writing with new writing, and the process of putting thoughts into language. Composition as an academic discipline can be broken into three areas of inquiry: written language as a practice; teaching written discourse as a practice; and inquiry into written discourse as a practice.
Rhetoric is the art of speaking and writing, particularly the art of persuasion, and teaching how a speaker or writer can communicate ideas to a specific audience for a specific purpose. Rhetoric typically signifies theory, while Composition typically signifies applications, process, or product, though these are controversial divisions. The field of Rhetoric and Composition within English departments has a rich history we will explore in order to learn more about where “Freshman English” came from, why the teaching and study of literature, writing, and creative writing have been contested and put into opposition with each other, and the heritage and legacy we’ve inherited for teaching writing and literature in secondary schools and colleges. As part of this institutional and cultural history, we will also explore the professional aspects of preparing to be a secondary school or college English instructor.
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