Composition Forum 27, Spring 2013
http://compositionforum.com/issue/27/

Appendix 4 to Intractable Writing Program Problems: Teacher Response from Scott Launier

Scott Launier

This is an appendix to Intractable Writing Program Problems, Kairos, and Writing about Writing: A Profile of the University of Central Florida's First-Year Composition Program.

Scott Launier, University of Central Florida
eugene.launier@ucf.edu

Reply to Intractable Writing Problems: One Instructor’s Experience Transitioning to the Writing about Writing Curriculum

I never thought about leaving the program, but I probably had the most difficult time of the first four PCSI instructors in transitioning to the WAW curriculum. I imagine there were several reasons for this.

Primarily, I was teaching 11 sections across three campuses the semester I interviewed, and before knowing I was hired, had already committed to additional teaching obligations during the summer of WAW training, compromising the amount of time I could spend to better learn the new curriculum.

I believed in the purpose of a WAW curriculum, but was uncertain what it looked like, not really understanding that there is no one thing that it looks like. It felt prescriptive, and yet I knew that it wasn’t meant to be; it was clear we were asked to be flexible and innovative, and that our input was not only encouraged, but was necessary. It took time for me to figure out how to see suggested assignments as models, not directives, and to understand what it meant to create my own lessons and assignments, as long as they worked toward the outcomes.

And coming from a culture of adjunct life, I was too shy to ask questions, fearing I would come across as not a team player, and because I misunderstood the level of commitment, security and support I was being provided. My previous experiences did not help with this. As a “highway adjunct,” I didn’t experience how to invest in my department beyond teaching classes.

Early in the transition

Even though many of the following questions were addressed during our training period, I still had them, and I suspect other experienced instructors would as well: why is something as radical as a curriculum change necessary? Aren’t we already teaching composition well? How is this new curriculum really different, if we’re free to teach any assignments we wish, as long as they reach the outcomes? Aren’t other instructors already teaching beyond the assignments as well? And don’t students improve as writers just by doing a lot of writing?

At first, I could not understand how what I was being asked to do as a teacher was much different than what I had been doing. I didn’t realize that in many ways, I was being asked to keep doing what I had been taught to do as a composition instructor: challenge assignments, go beyond the assignment to reach the outcomes of the course, and teach students, not content.

I assumed that every instructor had at least some training in rhet/comp, and had been encouraged, as I had been, to reflect upon and develop our values and practices as instructors. However, I had no way of knowing this. There was little opportunity to discuss pedagogy with colleagues as an adjunct, and a great reluctance to share what we know (and don’t know) as employees with little job security.

Through the transition

Learning to teach the new curriculum was, and in many ways still is, difficult. There’s no doubt about that. Asking students to do difficult work in a field that many of them initially resist is challenging. But reasonable pay, job security, and a community of colleagues adds excitement and insight to support our difficult work. And students respond positively to the challenge. As they have repeatedly expressed, they feel that they are learning something valuable; that they notice within a few weeks a change in their reading ability, and how they think as writers. Most exciting to me personally is how the WAW curriculum gives students equal opportunity to do well regardless of past experiences or self-perceptions: “poor” writers have as much to say and explore as “good” writers, and students have an increased opportunity to understand and participate in writing assessment, in part by contributing to what should be valued when their own writing is assessed.

But the most significant change that helps our students develop into better writers must be our new community of instructors. WAW gives us a common language across our department (and across our university, e.g. UWC, WAC, vertical curriculum) for discussing our pedagogical goals and challenges. And the time and security we’re given allows us to share and discuss ideas and experiences freely with each other, informally in hallways and formally in workshops that we lead.

I think it is lucky that Wardle and Downs had to recognize that instructors with varied backgrounds outside of rhet/comp needed to be hired. Hiring us and offering us time and security has allowed us to start from our own backgrounds and become scholars in rhetoric and composition theory. We occupy our offices. We discuss teaching in and across the hallway between meeting with students, grading papers, and researching better lesson plans. We understand our assignments better, because they are about writing and because we discuss them with each other. We understand the program goals better, because we are asked to contribute to them and to participate in assessing final portfolios from students across the department.

After the transition

Three years in, and it feels like we’re getting really good at this. We dialogue with each other. We innovate our own assignments. We try new things and are able to reflect on why things work or not. Most importantly, our conversation has gone on for three years, with an entrenched group of instructors who welcome and assist the newcomers who join each year.

Our freshmen from our piloting year are now seniors. But it’s the group that I taught last year and this year that I wonder about. While students have benefitted from WAW since its inception at UCF, I believe that my students from last year and this year benefit more because of the work we do as a collective faculty to help us all develop individually. I’m curious to see what the students from these last two years will do (and know) as writers when they are seniors.

And some of the short-term results are clear and measurable. At our most recent Knights Write Showcase of freshman writing, three of my students presented papers written in their composition courses. Most noteworthy is the variety of their academic interests: an engineering major, a criminal justice major, and an education major, all chosen to present some of the best writing done by freshman students.

Another result is less formal but just as noteworthy. In end-of-semester student evaluations (written anonymously), several students have expressed positions similar to the one written by this student: “For a person who used to hate reading and writing in high school, I enjoy it much more now. I understand now why I was uninterested in writing, and I am now able to have my own voice when it comes to writing and reading.” And many students in a recent summer class wrote that the thing they disliked most about the class was that it was ending after only six weeks. I have always received positive comments in student evaluations, but never comments like these.

The transition took effort, an effort that needed support from above in the form of full-time, long-term contracts. Both the effort and support seem well worth it. The returns on this investment are unlike anything I’ve experienced in 15 years as a composition instructor.