One of the primary aims of this course is to prepare graduate
students across the concentrations to teach composition at the college level,
whether this occurs at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, local community
colleges, or at future sites of employment.
Thus, we will read research in composition studies that is set in
Hawaii, as well as important institutional documents such as UH-M’s hallmarks
for the general education Writing Foundation, the English Department’s
recommendations for teaching composition, and findings from the Department’s
first-year composition various assessment programs. Our examination of our
unique site of teaching and researching writing will occur, naturally, within
the context of current national conversations on the theory and practice of
teaching college-level writing; thus in addition to extensive reading in
current composition scholarship, we will examine the National Council of
Writing Program Administrators’ outcomes statement and guidelines for teaching
composition, as well as electronic conversations on the Writing Program
Administrators’ listserv.
Students will be
introduced to the history of composition studies and its emergence as a
discipline within English studies, research methodologies in composition
studies, leading composition pedagogies and their theoretical underpinnings,
primary journals in composition studies and their various theoretical and
methodological leanings, as well as composition’s ongoing responses to
important theoretical developments in English studies, such as cultural
studies, feminism, queer theory, working-class studies, and critical theories
of technology.
Assignments:
This course will require that students write a series of short
papers, including, for example, a literacy autobiography and a statement of
teaching philosophy. In addition, students will, in small groups, prepare an
oral presentation on a monograph in composition studies; a list of possible
titles for students to choose from will be provided. Students will also write a
course description and design a syllabus for a college-level writing course
that is informed by current composition theory, situated within a particular
institutional structure, and pedagogically feasible. As the course progresses,
each student will work on an individual major research project, which will be a
critical theoretical essay on a contemporary pedagogical theory and/or
pedagogical practice.
Likely Texts:
Books:
Cheryl Glenn, Melissa Goldthwaite, Robert Connors. The St.
Martin’s Guide to Teaching Writing. 7th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s,
2014. (if available, otherwise the 6th edition)
Miller, Susan, ed. The Norton Book of Composition Studies.
W.W.Norton & Company, 2009.
Articles and
on-line texts will also be made available as necessary.