Discussion Responses Required - Sample Response attached for Reference - 7 Hours

Final Project Proposal

For my final project I would like to write a report about the profession of teaching writing or composition, at a college level. My goal after graduating is to begin my career teaching in higher education, perhaps at a local community college, which is why I would like to look deeper into the most pressing topics within the field, or what seem to be the more commonly considered topics among published experts within the field. I would like for this to become a sort of guide for a beginning college writing instructor. I chose to write this project in the style of a report because I would like to consider the thoughts of experts on a variety of topics surrounding the profession rather than select one issue to do an empirical study on. As a beginner in the field, I am interested in what instructors prioritize in their lessons, important considerations for teaching online seeing as the demand for online education is very high, how to demonstrate pedagogical skills for students who are preparing themselves to teach writing, how to effectively implement peer review in the classroom, and other pedagogical skills valuable to the composition teacher. I know personally, I am most concerned with what concepts are most important to consider in my lessons and the best order in which to teach them. As a first year instructor, there will be a lot of trouble shooting, finding out what does and does not work and I would like to find materials that explain what other instructors have found did not work well to help strategize my own lesson planning better. I would also like to find roadblocks that instructors face with beginning writers in their classrooms. My method for research during this project will be to first consult academic databases starting with the databases available from the Liberty University Library. Perusing published journals and chapters from books, and other published works, will help to shape the organization of my report and recommend more specific topics for search as I continue looking for resources. This means that my report will take a clearer shape as I obtain more research. I will also likely consult writing instructors that I know in order to get their advice and personal opinions on topics of research which would be valuable to a beginning instructor, as well as resources they may find useful. Already I have found a variety of sources including essays, a letter to the editor, a pedagogical seminar, and a journal article regarding pedagogical focus for college writing. The Journal of Developmental Education has a relatively recent article published from 2016 which includes a small discussion by Doug Hesse, president of the National Council of Teachers of English in which Mr. Hesse states the importance of both product and process in college composition and as well as sustained and guided practice with examples such as, “providing generous opportunities to write,” and sequencing writing tasks (36). Reading this discussion has helped to guide me in searching for specific pedagogical ideas such as designing a course curriculum that is comprehensive. A pedagogy seminar by Janet Auten titled Teaching as Text, is incredibly useful for discovering how certain teaching outcomes can be reached with certain assignments. An example of this is a common assignment, weekly response essays where students write and respond to one another online after choosing their own prompts. Auten states that, “by putting students in charge of the response assignments, I cede more authority to them and also mandate a kind of peer reviewed tryout in the key skill of crafting writing prompts” (99). Using materials like this I can discover what methodologies instructors use to develop important writing skills in students. I plan to organize my findings in whatever way they can most fluidly and logically be ordered which will likely begin with pedagogical matters, moving into lesson planning and strategies, including considerations for online classes. Giving some isolated consideration to online writing classes is important due to the rapidly evolving technologies and their impact on higher education and teaching conditions. One resource that encouraged me to take a stronger interest the development of online writing courses is an essay by June Griffin and Deborah Minter who discuss just how the current state of online writing instruction is changing due to shifting technology as well as, “everyday literacies” (140). I appreciate the statement presented on the first page of the essay which states, “Online teaching requires professors and educators to constantly think about tone and the importance of follow- up,” they continue by stating, “You also have an intimate chance of getting to know your students through their ideas and not just who raises their hand or speaks first…” (140)”. They present conditions that differ from what most are used to in a traditional classroom setting which are important to understand as a writing instructor, especially one who has never had an online course. As my report takes shape, I would like to layout not only valuable pedagogical ideas, how they apply to lesson planning, and what classroom methods do and don’t work in practice, but also what considerations should be taken of the students. As a new college instructor, especially if given the opportunity to teach online courses, I will be interacting and forming relationships with a broader learning community than ever before. I would like to understand how best to serve a variety of learners all starting from different ability levels and coming from different backgrounds. After considering in my report what teaching methods are valuable and how they are used, I must also consider what approaches to teaching writing best serve students from a variety of backgrounds. My report should include ways to create meaningful writing experiences for students, ways to make students more comfortable with the process of writing, pedagogical ideas for developing students’ skills, structure, and strategies for writing, and common expectations for writing students which are universally clear. As previously stated, I want to deliver my findings in a way which is valuable to beginning writing instructors providing information that would give those like me, important basic considerations such as what basic foundational concepts of college writing are taught and an idea of how they are organized, efficient ways to teach those concepts to students especially beginning students, how to encourage higher thinking skills through peer review, as well as ways to translate lessons well in an online setting. I also want the report to consider how to best instruct students who may also be studying to teach writing themselves and students who come from a variety of backgrounds. This report should also include findings about lessons or pedagogical ideas which did not work when implemented or programs that have not been as successful for students. This report should give beginning instructors a better idea of what the demand of their field will entail and what areas of concern are most valuable to consider as they decide how to plan for their first position teaching writing. This information is useful because often after obtaining a masters degree instructors most difficult year, their first, begins with the search for a comprehensive textbook which will have to include a logical delivery of the most important topics for their subject, and will be followed with their own study of whatever class materials they choose and the structuring of a course based off of how they plan to deliver the material in the textbook. These beginning teachers will have to do trouble shooting of their own discovering as they go what works well and what does not within their lessons and assignments. Knowing what topics experts find most valuable and how to deliver them most effectively to a variety of students is helping when planning what text and class materials might be most effective. Knowing what ideas may have failed for other instructors and knowing how they delivered their same topics of study in an online format is also valuable when designing your own course of instruction.

Works Cited:

Auten, Janet. “Teaching as Text—The Pedagogy Seminar: LIT 730, Teaching Composition.” Composition Studies, vol. 40, no. 1, 2012, pp. 95–112. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43501813. Accessed 1 Feb. 2020.

Griffin, June and Deborah Minter. “The Rise of the Online Writing Classroom: Reflecting on the Material Conditions of College Composition Teaching.” College Composition and Communication 65.1 (2013): 140-61. ProQuest. Web. 1 Feb. 2020.

“Teaching Composition.” Journal of Developmental Education 40.1 (2016): 36. ProQuest. Web. 1 Feb. 2020.