Teaching Of Composition Research Articles

The Language Ideologies of White First-Year Composition Instructors: Exploring Intersections between Writing Pedagogy, Attitudes toward Language, and White Identity

The Language Ideologies of White First-Year Composition Instructors: Exploring Intersections between Writing Pedagogy, Attitudes toward Language, and White Identity

Pandemic pedagogy from both sides of the screen: A Teacher/Scholar/Parent's reflections on online time

Inspired by lessons hard won during a pandemic year spent simultaneously teaching university students online and parenting reluctant online learners at home, this article argues for a radical rethinking of course policies and practices that use normative interpretations and applications of time. Online composition pedagogy is built on paradoxical temporal models: the field's longstanding belief in process-oriented theories of writing demands a flexible, recursive understanding of time while the demonstrated benefits of online student engagement seem to require more rigidly temporal policies and methods, like regular, graded discussion boards. This article draws from Alison Kafer's concept of “crip time” and a year's worth of observation and practice to recommend that online teachers prioritize the narrative shape of their online classes. Such a reframing, I argue, may create not only more successful classes but more just and accessible ones.

Producing Subjectivity in the Desert: Graduate Students and First-Year Composition Instruction in the Productivist University

Producing Subjectivity in the Desert: Graduate Students and First-Year Composition Instruction in the Productivist University

A Scholarly Edition of Samuel P. Newman’s A Practical System of Rhetoric

Beth Hewett’s Scholarly Edition of Samuel P. Newman’s A Practical System of Rhetoric provides an authoritative version of this underappreciated landmark in American rhetoric and writing instruction. The volume includes a foreword by a descendant of Newman’s, an eighty-four-page introduction, a thoroughly annotated text (that of the seventh edition [1839]), which Hewett contends is “settled” (71), a series of appendices featuring significant selections from earlier editions, an extensive bibliography, and an index. Hewett’s notes, among other helps, trace textual differences in the many editions Newman published during his lifetime and locate the sources of many—although not all—of the quoted passages unidentified by the author.Hewett’s enthusiasm for Newman’s work is quickly palpable. Although she acknowledges at the outset that, because of his devotion to eighteenth-century belletrism and his perceived exclusionary tendencies, “[Newman] has been disdained within most histories of rhetoric as more harmful to the discipline than facilitative of it” (2), her introduction and textual apparatus provide a rich sense of the book’s rhetorical and cultural context in the process of constructing a credible case for its enduring significance as “the first substantively original U.S. rhetoric” (61). In fact, her treatment constitutes an homage to the text and is clearly a labor of love.Aligned with Jeffrey Walker’s emphasis on rhetoric’s “pedagogical enterprise” (2011, 3), Hewett’s case for Newman’s importance builds on the contention that “it may be more in the daily practice of teaching that rhetoric scholars develop their most original and creative contributions to the field” (2–3). Following this trajectory, Hewitt ably demonstrates the special status of the Practice System as a teacherly bridge between eighteenth-century British rhetoric (characterized by Hugh Blair’s belletrism and George Campbell’s philosophical inquiry), on the one side, and nineteenth-century American composition pedagogy, on the other. She characterizes Newman’s “most original contribution to American rhetorical study” as “inflecting Belletrism with American models” (59) and carefully explains how Newman adapts concepts essential to the rhetorical scholarship of the Scottish Enlightenment such as taste, imagination, the sublime, and the beautiful for a distinctly nineteenth-century American pedagogy. Furthermore, she suggests connections between Newman’s pedagogy and contemporary writing studies such as his explication of the clumsy quotation practice now known as patch writing. And, although she explicates the considerable contributions of A Practical System of Rhetoric, she is not unaware of its limitations, as demonstrated by her discussion of Newman’s minimal coverage of rhetorical invention and reasoning, a deficit characteristic of nineteenth-century writing pedagogy.I find Hewett’s editorial work solid, her case for Newman’s enduring relevance to rhetorical study sound, and her textual glosses engaging. I do note that her account of A Practical System of Rhetoric’s nineteenth-century American context is stronger than her treatment of its eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British roots. Likewise, her bibliography of American rhetoric appears to be more up-to-date than its British counterpart (which is missing a number of important recent studies), and she exhibits an overreliance on older secondary sources for eighteenth-century texts. Nonetheless, I heartily recommend this edition for students of nineteenth-century American rhetoric and—more generally—compositionists with an interest in our complex, contentious, endlessly captivating family tree.

Complexities in social justice teacher preparation: A CHAT analysis of a preservice teacher navigating university and school contexts

Drawing on cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT), this case study examines obstacles to enacting critical composition pedagogy for a preservice teacher in a suburban, U.S. middle school. The teacher identified as gay, middle-class, gender nonconforming, and White. Analysis revealed interconnected individual and systemic factors presenting challenges to critical pedagogy. These factors included vacillating beliefs about the purpose of school, discomfort with criticality, minimal teacher autonomy, a skills-focused curriculum, excessive testing, and a lack of actionable models. Findings suggest justice-centered teacher preparation must integrate productive dissonance and intersectional identity work. Also, teacher educators should collaborate with schools to create systems supporting criticality.

Law and Order: Priests, Commandments, and Cosmic Mysteries in the Qumran Composition Instruction

Abstract In this essay I investigate the place of agricultural commandments, the significance of priestly authorities, and the concept of cosmic-historical order in the Qumran composition Instruction (a.k.a. Musar LaMebin) based on new reconstructions and improved readings of two agricultural passages. In the first part of the article, I present the passages and examine their connections with broader sapiential and exegetical traditions. Next I investigate the theme of priesthood and demonstrate the priests’ social authority and conceptual significance for the author of Instruction. Lastly I reconsider the relationship between Torah commandments and raz nihyeh, “the mystery of that which comes into existence,” and show how Instruction develops “Qumranic” ideas concerning the mysteries of both God’s predetermined cosmic-historical plan and God’s Law in a manner reminiscent of popular Hellenistic speculations concerning the Law of Nature.

MUSIC COMPOSITION AND EPISTEMIC INJUSTICE

AbstractThis article considers the implications of the consideration of epistemic justice within modes of composition pedagogy in higher education and is in part a manifesto, in part a reflection on my experiences of teaching composition in this setting. I ask how composition education can become, as described in 2015 by the North Macedonian dramatist and creative educator Goran Stefanovski, ‘the politics of the impossible’. I question how composition education could function without a canon of examples or assumed master–apprentice hierarchies and frame this as a question of epistemic justice, one that considers the composers themselves as individuals prior to the technical exercises that they may undertake. I describe why I believe that epistemic justice is a concept that is worthy of consideration in creative education in composition alongside the ways that current models of composition pedagogy might unintentionally cause students to experience epistemic injustice within their education experiences. Rather than a prescriptive model, I propose challenges that I hope can influence my educational approach now and in the future and conclude with some suggestions about what a model of hermeneutic epistemic justice might look like as a pedagogic model for music composition.

Back in my body, or, heuristics for embodied gameful course design

This article examines a case study of a video game based course relying on embodied gameful design as the foundation of its game-based pedagogy. Moving away from some of the more superficial means of gamifying (or, incorporating game based elements into) the classroom, this piece looks specifically at how composition instructors can integrate some of the more habitual and material elements of playing video games into the larger course design to further benefit student learning outcomes. Culminating in the creation of a set of heuristics referred to as The 4 R's (repetition, recognition, relation, and reward), the article ultimately argues for a process of course gamification that relies on Jane McGonigal's (2010) conceptions of gameful design. More specifically, the piece illustrates that the material habituations that occur through gameplay can be translated to the physical classroom in ways that help students achieve their personal and professional learning goals through the practice of embodied gameful course design.

VOLUME 52 (2022)

VOLUME 52 (2022)

Industry: Bang on a Can and New Music in the Marketplace, by William Robin

<i>Industry: Bang on a Can and New Music in the Marketplace</i>, by William Robin

Artistic innovation through African concepts: education for art music composers based on African traditions

African music studies are generally undertaken within the field of ethnomusicology. Instruction in art music composition is, however, almost always based exclusively on Western practice, with the potential of African culture as the foundation for new, experimental work remaining unaddressed. African music traditions feature unique approaches to musical elements, make extensive use of cognitive phenomena in ways different from Western music, and have different relationships with other art forms. Building upon ethnomusicological research and intercultural collaboration, my approach to teaching concepts from African traditions, which is not intended as an antidote to Western cultural practices but as a broadening of horizons, does not promote imitation or appropriation, leading instead to the development of innovative musical ideas through an understanding of African music practices. In this article, I address a curricular innovation in tertiary art music composition pedagogy: experimental music composition based on concepts from African music traditions. I describe my personal experiences in purposefully undertaking sustained activities in this direction; I explain why I believe this course of study to be valuable in decolonisation and enhancing creativity; and I suggest outcomes to which this might lead. I will refer to selected writings by the Austrian ethnomusicologist Gerhard Kubik as a thread connecting my arguments.

Sound, captions, action: Voices in video composition projects

While music, voice-over narration, and sound effects are playing increasingly prominent roles in composition pedagogies, accessing the aural mode can be uniquely challenging for D/deaf and hard-of-hearing students who are asked to conceptualize, create, and monitor sound for their projects. To contribute to accessible sound research in composition and composition pedagogies, this article presents the interdisciplinary collaboration of Janine Butler, a Deaf rhetoric and composition scholar who teaches writing, and Stacy Bick, a hard-of-hearing visual communications studies senior lecturer who teaches filmmaking. We share our analysis of three D/deaf and hard-of-hearing college students in Stacy Bick's filmmaking course—a course that dedicates a full semester to the process of creating and editing videos with sound and captions. Our analysis unpacks the strategies that these students used to produce captions, voice-over narrations, and other sounds. Attending to their composing experiences can positively complicate the definition of “voice” by showing how students interact with other voices, individuals, technologies, and modes to express their own voices as creators of accessible video compositions. We conclude by sharing implications for how instructors and students with all levels of hearing can actively make sound studies and composition pedagogies accessible.

«Верное наставление в сочинении генерал-баса» Давида Кельнера: о первичном тексте русского перевода

The first translation into Russian of the European manual textbook on figured bass, David Kelner’s “Treulicher Unterricht im General-Baß” was made in 1791 and came out under the title of “Vernoe nastavlenie v sochinenii general-basa…” [“Accurate Instruction in Composition with Figured Bass…”]. Despite the apparent character of the source, there remained the appropriate question about the primary text for the Russian, since prior to the latter’s publication, Kelner’s work had undergone seven German publications, the half-century long history of which testified to bringing in changes of various types. A collation of the texts of the first three editions (1732, 1737, 1743) and the comparison of all of them with the publication in Russian has made it possible to establish the primary text of the “Accurate Instruction.” The author cites as his proof for this decision a certain number of discrepancies discovered in the German editions (insertions, abridgements, details of musical examples, etc.) the correlation of which with the Russian edition makes it possible to arrive at the conclusion of the first edition being the primary text for the translation. This conclusion discloses the path for further research of the translation of the “Accurate Instruction,” stipulating the objectivity of the analysis of its quality and technique and the understanding of the level of interference into the text’s structure on the part of the translator. Close examination of the terminology of the “Accurate Instruction” in the context of the formation of the special music theory apparatus of the end of the 18th century will be conducive to the development of such a new branch of contemporary scholarship as the historical lexicology of Russian musicology. Keywords: David Kelner, “Treulicher Unterricht im General-Bass,” 18th century Russian music theory, figured bass

Social presence in online writing instruction: Distinguishing between presence, comfort, attitudes, and learning

• Social presence is distinct from social comfort, social learning, and attitudes. • There is a difference between perceiving and performing social presence. • Feeling comfortable online is necessarily influenced by individual context. • Social learning is distinct from, but facilitated by, social presence and comfort. • Attitudes about online learning evolve throughout an online course. As a component of the Community of Inquiry Framework, social presence is typically defined as students “feeling real” enough to interact with and learn from peers online. This article complicates social presence for an online writing instruction (OWI) context, differentiating between social presence, social comfort, attitudes about online learning, and social learning. The study was initially designed to examine graduate students’ perceptions of social presence as an element of online teaching and learning in two sections of an Online Composition Pedagogy course offered in Spring 2020 and Summer 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic intensified the project, since students were now learning about hybrid and online pedagogy against the backdrop of their own experiences as emergency remote students and teachers. Analysis of 21 students’ reflections written during the courses indicates that distinguishing between social presence per se and social comfort, attitudes, and learning helps to account for the individual and social contexts of course participants. Ultimately, this article argues that simply inviting students to “feel real” or positioning yourself as a “real” instructor is not sufficient for establishing the types of social interactions that composition studies values.

Campus Protest and Composition Pedagogy: G. David Houston’s Activist Rhetoric at Howard University

This article contributes to rhetoric and composition scholarship that develops localized institutional microhistories of rhetorical education at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) by exploring the pedagogically focused scholarship of G. David Houston, a Howard University professor of English during the period of the of the early twentieth century known as the New Negro Movement. I examine Houston's 1919 article "Reconstruction in the Teaching of English," placing the pedagogical priorities that it reveals within the context of the author's participation in on-campus activism at Howard, as reflected in his 1920 article "Weaknesses of the Negro College." Drawing on Susan Kates's concept of activist rhetorics, I demonstrate the ways in which Houston's work exemplifies an embodied pedagogy that responds directly to Howard University's unique institutional, historical, and social location. In his scholarship, Houston developed a plan for English instruction that sought to elevate the role of composition training, encourage a cross-disciplinary pedagogical model, and professionalize the teaching of English. Houston's plan reveals a kind of hybrid composition pedagogy that incorporates aspects of both the vocational and classical-liberal arts models of "Negro education" and responds directly to the needs of Black college students.

"An Art of Truth in Things": Confronting Hiphop Illiteracies in Writing Classrooms at Predominantly White Colleges and Universities

This article interrogates how hiphop composition pedagogies can interrupt what the author terms the "hiphop illiteracies" that circulate in predominantly white institutions (PWIs). An analysis of four college writing classrooms that integrate hiphop texts at one PWI reveals pervasive anti-Blackness in student attitudes, but also in the research and course design as well as in department-mandated course texts. The analysis demonstrates the need for writing pedagogies that name and teach Black language, writing, and meaning-making practices while also asking students, teachers, and administrators to reflexively examine their own identities' locations vis-a-vis those practices. The author advocates a reflexive pedagogy that asks students to locate themselves vis-a-vis power as a starting point for investigations of language and culture. The author concludes that hiphop pedagogies have significant critical social justice possibilities in institutionally white educational contexts, but these benefits are not automatic and demand pedagogies of reflexivity, sociolinguistics, and intersectional feminism.

Commentary on Why Pedagogy Attention Is Needed in CLAJ

Commentary on Why Pedagogy Attention Is Needed in CLAJ Monique Akassi (bio) In 2021, many educators and students of African descent have faced invisible barriers. These include whether critical race theory should be taught in schools during the novel Covid-19. Additionally, the #BlackLivesMatter movement responded to the ongoing routine of African Americans losing their lives during a time that mimics W.E.B. Du Bois' declaration that "the problem of the twentieth century is the color line." While the debates continue in higher education, a plethora of pedagogues have become disconnected from students of African descent due to a lack of effective Africana pedagogies to cultivate pupils' authentic voices through critical thinking, writing, oral communication, and research skills. Indeed, many pedagogues have been trained to apply mainstream pedagogical frameworks to all students as a one-size-fits-all approach. At the same time, little attention is focused on the rhetorical situation, such as the target audience. Indeed, a one-size-fits-all approach often results in many mainstream students benefiting from high-impact teaching methodologies that intersect with their Western culture. However, there is a disconnection for many marginalized students of African descent. Systemic racism is on the rise, and the colonizer is often in the classroom during these unprecedented times. Furthermore, the politics of diversity, inclusion, and critical race theory are in conversation with Stanley Fish's arguments. He contends in his controversial book, Save The World On Your Own Time, "[i]t is a question finally of what business we are in, and we are in the education business, not the democracy business." In comparison, bell hooks suggests in her work, Teaching To Transgress, that "[t]o dispel the notion" that the college writing class "should always be a safe, harmonious space" remains problematic for students silenced and ostracized in the academy. In Post-Colonial Composition Pedagogy: Using The Culture of Marginalized Students To Teach Writing, I challenge English composition educators committed to preventing a cultural underclass of English language writers to disrupt, interrogate, investigate, and publish more scholarship on research that helps shape high-impact practices for marginalized pupils. Using Africana based cultural practices to connect and identify with minority students will simultaneously build bridges to promote more cross-cultural connections through ongoing learning and teaching through an Africana gaze. Moreover, while students continue to be oppressed for using their own languages in schools and on the streets, Vershawn Ashanti Young and Aja Y. [End Page 250] Martinez acknowledge in Code-Meshing as World English: Pedagogy, Policy, Performance "the difficulties in implementing a code-meshing pedagogy" but argue that "all writers and speakers benefit when we demystify academic language and encourage students to explore the plurality of the English language in both unofficial and official spaces." Therefore, the need for more pedagogical attention in the CLAJ is more relevant now than ever before. During this moment in history where systemic racism in academia needs dismantling, educators can become liberators to assist minority students in changing from invisible to visible, unheard to heard, and alienated to appreciated. Ultimately, CLA members can consider contributing to this innovative pedagogical inclusion by implementing scholarly works in pedagogy, such as innovative lessons, lesson plans, unit plans, teaching ideas, articles, etc. In the words of James Baldwin, "[t]he paradox of education is precisely this—that as one begins to become conscious, one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated." As CLA members, let us raise pedagogical consciousnesses together and examine our society through insightful lenses. Monique Akassi Monique Leslie Akassi is an award winning, scholar, author, innovative leader, manager, and educator at Howard University and George Washington University. Works Cited Akassi, Monique. Post-Colonial Composition Pedagogy: Using The Culture of Marginalized Students To Teach Writing. Robbie Dean Press, 2011. Google Scholar Baldwin, James. "Color." Esquire, December 1962, pp. 224–229. Google Scholar Du Bois, W.E.B. The Soul of Black Folks. A. C. McClurg, 1903. Google Scholar Fish, Stanley. Save The World On Your Own Time. Oxford University Press, 2012. Google Scholar hooks, bell. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. Routledge, 1994. Google Scholar Young, Vershawn Ashanti and Aja Y. Martinez. Code-Meshing...

Multiple utilities of infographics in undergraduate students’ process-based writing

Although infographics have been used for educational purposes, their specific use for teaching process-based writing in undergraduate writing courses is not documented in the literature. When integrating infographics into a process-based writing instructional approach, they may offer students multiple means of representation, engagement, and expression – universal design for learning principles. We examined one undergraduate writing course that integrated infographics into a process-based writing approach to understand student experiences and uses of this multimodal communication form. Results show that infographics have unique benefits and challenges to supporting student writing. Results also reveal that students used their infographics for revising, transferring, and rethinking the content of their subsequent, text-only research papers. This work has implications for college composition pedagogy.

ANTONIO SALIERI PEDAGOGICAL SCHOOL

The article deals with the pedagogical school of Antonio Salieri, which was formed in the last quarter of the eighteenth – first quarter of the nineteenth centuries. This school was an artistic phenomenon, given that A. Salieri taught not only one instrument, but a whole set of musical disciplines (composition, counterpoint, conducting, solo and choral singing, harpsichord, stringed instruments, etc.). A. Salieri's &#x0D; School is also unique because of the highest professional level preparation of a whole plaid of talented and even brilliant musicians - Ludwig Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Johann Nepomuk Gummel Franz Xaver Süsmayr, Anselm Hüttenbrüsner, Ignaz Carlethal Moscheles. Cavalieri, Anna Milder-Hauntmann, Anna Kraus-Vranitsky, etc. Based on sources and scientific works, the author of the article argues that the contribution of A. Salieri to the music pedagogy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is invaluable. Antonio Salieri's pedagogical legacy is a unique phenomenon – he taught composition, instrumentation, instrument, vocals, counterpoint, homophony, polyphony, and most importantly - musical thinking. Many ingenious composers have left a unique legacy, but not many of them can boast of such a large number of students who have shown themselves in all spheres of musical life in the European world. We will not be mistaken when we say that Antonio Salіeri was unique in this. It is unlikely that the pedagogical legacy of another great musician will include pedagogue and methodologist Johann Nepomuk Hummel, the genius composer of all ages L. Beethoven, one of the first romantics – F. Schubert, vocalists - "opera stars'' Catherine Valba-Kanz, Fortunate Franquette, Amalia Josef-Mozatta. And this list can go on and on because the total number is over sixty.

Self-Regulation and Adult Learners

The ability to write effectively becomes increasingly essential in our global community. Writing is a cognitively complex and demanding activity. Thus, writing instruction assumes an increasing role in language education in general, and writing proficiency heavily depends on the acquisition and development of self-regulation and transcription skills. With self-regulated learning (SRL), students create better learning habits, strengthen their study skills, monitor their performance, and evaluate their academic progress. The body of research in composition and language teaching highlights the self-regulation impact on beginning and developing writers' competencies in diverse cultural backgrounds. Hence, educators should be aware of the factors influencing their manipulation of SRL in their writing classes. This article addresses some of these factors directing the composition pedagogy for more adult learners' deliberate practice and high self-regulation beliefs. It pinpoints some research-based classroom strategies for more effective teaching.