ENGL 471 A: Theory and Practice of Teaching Writing

English 471: The Theory and Practice of Teaching Writing

This course, through reading and fieldwork, introduces students to the various approaches that guide the study and teaching of writing. In it, we will explore the different methods of teaching writing that have emerged in the last sixty years, ranging from methods for teaching students how to produce texts to methods for assessing these texts. We will also examine the research and theories that underscore these methods, starting with the emergence of the process movement in the 1960s and then inquiring into its various manifestations (and critiques of these manifestations) in the years since, including the impact of new media. Along the way, I hope we can begin to think critically about the various approaches that inform the teaching of writing, in particular, what values and assumptions guide these approaches, whose interests they serve, and their relation to power and difference, so that we all can become more self-reflective, ethical, and responsible readers, writers, and teachers. Most of all, I would like this course to give us all a chance to think about what it means to teach writing, to develop and share our own goals for teaching writing, and to generate and articulate practices that will help us achieve these goals.

Coursework will include keeping a reading journal, conducting a brief teaching ethnography, preparing a bibliography and curriculum design presentation, and creating a teaching portfolio.

This course may have an optional service-learning component which will bring students into local K-12 classrooms.

Course Text: Susan Miller, The Norton Book of Composition Studies (course reading will also be available on Canvas)