The CEA Forum (College English Association, Texas Digital Library - TDL E-Journals)
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Embracing Global Varieties of English in a Writing Safe Space—Exploring the Use of Comic Books in a College Writing Class with Second Language Learners
No full textOver the years that I’ve been teaching second language writers and preaching the importance of “standard” language use in academic English writing, I somehow secretly feel guilty when I grade papers that fall out of “standard” academic English writing, papers that nevertheless exhibit clear features of good writing in other languages/cultures. Such guilt comes partly from my sympathy for those who use English as a second language as I do, but mostly comes from my doubt as to what a claim of “standard English” implies in a world that is becoming increasingly built upon frequent contact of varieties of English around the globe. For example, when a Chinese student writes a long introduction that seems far-fetched from the topic of her essay and we tell her that she needs to “get to the point,” what does that imply to the student? Does it mean that being straightforward is always the golden rule in any type of writing in any culture
The Technology of Language
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Since the first grade, students are asked to master two core subjects: math and language, which, in the case of U.S. schools, means “English.” No other subjects get this priority. Why? Sure, college majors in math and English (having taken the other courses required for entering medical school) consistently score the highest on the MCAT, but the point of this dual “core” is not to make physicians (or lawyers or poets or engineers). The point is to make valuable citizens. Whatever its private rewards, requiring math and English reflects an unapologetically public goal, not that of making you more gloriously “you,” but that of making you more useful to others
Doesn’t That Sound Smarter?: An Analysis of the Writing Style of a Group of Advanced First-Year Writers
No full textThis project was born out of my preoccupation with my students\u27 struggle to articulate their ideas at the sentence level. After being assigned an English 102 Honors class, I realized that although the sentences of these advanced writes were grammatically correct, they were stylistically problematic because they were often obscure and evasive instead of precise and to the point. When the students resisted my request for clarity, I decided to conduct semi-structured interviews with each of them in order to better understand the motivations behind their stylistic choices. In this paper I analyze the interviews in the context of composition scholarship that has examined the style of academic discourse in order to determine what the interviews reveal about how this group of first-year writers tried to negotiate the stylistic requirements of academic writing
"This is London, How d\u27ye Like it?": Teaching the Streets in Eighteenth-Century London
No full textAs a professor of eighteenth-century British Literature I am often tasked (like my colleagues in other areas) with constructing a period based syllabus that "represents" this portion of literary history. Every semester, without fail, I am befuddled by the word "represents." How, exactly, do I want to "represent" the long eighteenth-century to students who are likely experiencing this rich era for the first time and, perhaps, will never experience it again? Do I employ what some may call a conservative approach with a chronological and canonical syllabus that includes the "best" of eighteenth-century authors? If I do, who are these "best" authors? Do I include as much as possible from Rochester to Austen (themselves a contradiction of epic proportions)? Instead, is it effective to organize the course around genre? Thus, a whole course devoted to the rise of the novel. If I choose this, how many novels can I expect upper-division students to read in fourteen weeks? How long will it take them to muddle their way through Tristram Shandy and Pamela? Or, instead, should it be thematically based? Perhaps a class organized around the formation of a literary marketplace? The effects of provincial presses? Changes in sexual mores? A class devoted to the rise of the middle class? Or, instead, maybe an entire class devoted to Grub Street hacks? These are only a few questions that plague me as I stumble my way through a syllabus that will inevitably be revised. These struggles, however, have led to interesting syllabi that provide the students with a rich and diversified approach to the eighteenth century. I have recently taught an author studies course devoted solely to Eliza Haywood, a special topics course devoted to changes in sexuality following the great fire, and an eighteenth-century course devoted to the rise of the female novelist. However, while these classes have been fun and, in my estimation, quite successful there are certainly drawbacks to teaching "street-level" content in an eighteenth-century course. One of the main concerns is that of content. Do I disservice the students and the period by not including authors such as Pope and Swift. Do I provide the students with a skewed (negative) view of Pope when only including the portion of his Dunciad that berates Eliza Haywood? Is it effective to teach something like Rochester\u27s Sodom? Cleland\u27s Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure? In the end, this essay explores and questions the efficacy of "street-level" content on the construction and implementation of effective syllabi in courses devoted to eighteenth-century British Literature
Black Lives Matter: Teaching African American Literature and the Struggle
No full textIn theorizing how we should pedagogically approach African American literature, especially in courses for undergraduates, I argue that we have to move away from questions of what was or even what is African American literature and, instead, find ways to teach African American literature in both its historical contexts—artistic and political—and its contemporary resonances. We can embrace the ways the field and each piece of literature simultaneously was and is. Importantly, we can think about what both African American literature and the course on this literature need to be in ways that focus on past, present, and future. For students, African American literature can be a living voice in a broader trajectory of civil and social death, de jure and de facto discrimination, and the struggle for social justice. Our current moment demands it, and the persistence of the Black Lives Matter movement—from its origins in the wake of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown’s deaths into the early stages of the 2016 U.S. presidential campaigns—warrants, or perhaps even necessitates, a pedagogy that positions African American literature courses as spaces on campuses where the vulnerabilities of and violent acts against black lives can be discussed. In this paper, I am particularly interested in examining both the praxis of teaching African American literature as part of a cultural and civic literacy program for our students and then in examining the larger stakes of our moment, both for racism in the United States and the role of literature courses of programs
Epistemology Shock: English Professors Confront Science
No full textThis article raises questions and concerns regarding students from the sciences working with faculty in the humanities in interdisciplinary settings. It explores the experience of two English professors facing the privileging of "facts" and a science-based understanding of the world in their own classrooms. It poses both questions and pedagogical possibilities for addressing conflicts around epistemologies, scholarship, and teaching and learning
Prioritizing Student Skill Development in the Small College Literature Survey
No full textThis essay describes the successes and challenges of skills-based literature survey courses in the small liberal arts college setting of Westminster College (New Wilmington, PA). It considers the overall purpose of the survey in the skills-based English curriculum and then focuses on the integration of literary theory and creative writing as means of developing student skills and meeting program objectives
Rethinking Process Through Design
No full textWe take a look at work on writing processes by examining design processes. Design processes offer a greater emphasis on empathy with users, feedback and critique during idea generation, and varied uses of materials. After considering work already done on design and composition, we explore a variety of design processes and develop our own five-stage writing design process. The stages are explained with classroom examples
Lived Experience as Pedagogical Resource: Towards an Auto-ethnographic Pedagogy of Writing
No full textThis is the report of a multiple case study of four writing students and their instructor as they participated in the trial of a writing pedagogy based on auto-ethnography at a small, private college in the Northeastern United States. The results displayed herein show that the pedagogy seems to have an impact on the development of the students\u27 identities as writers (and learners), increased confidence in their writing, and their ability to navigate the demands of college level writing with some degree of success
Actively Engaging Students in Culture, Gender, and Class Issues in Medieval Literature
No full textStudents often find it difficult to understand literature of another era and a world that differs from their own. From interacting with illuminated manuscript pages to conducting a mock trial, this article discusses ways in which visual and active learning techniques can be used to engage students in medieval literature and culture