McIntosh !

Brittany McIntosh

Dr. Ashby

ENG 405

21 October 2019

A Guide to Composition

Teachers are often forced to teach by trial and error, simply because they do not yet have

the level of experience required to know how to effectively teach writing (Lindemann 3). They

will read articles, listen to accomplished educators, and plan far in advance to know how to teach

writing the best way possible, but teachers do not know until they actually start their lessons

which strategies will work best for their students; they are forced to try numerous pedagogical

styles to see which will be the best for each individual student and for the class as a whole.

Utilizing new media to teach paragraphing and feminist theory can help the students gain a better

world perspective as well as become better writers all around and should be included in

classrooms more often.

Composition pedagogy is the various ways of teaching writing so the students get the

most comprehensive way of learning how to write well. There are new technological ways to

teach that involve online programs, devices in the classroom, and many more that help students

be able to use technology they are familiar with while also getting to learn the information in a

fun, inclusive way. This is also beneficial for students with disabilities or IEP’s because they are

given various tools for learning how to write instead of just one way for the whole class. For

example, in a class I taught during my clinicals at a high school, my partner and I used the

computers the students had available, the monitor at the front of the classroom, and a paper
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assignment so there were many different ways for the students to learn information without being

repetitive. As Zoe Mihalicz said in her blog post, “One thing that … is most important when

incorporating media and technology into a classroom is having a good balance of media and in-

class instruction” (October 15, 2019). Teaching composition means using the resources you as a

teacher have available and manipulating them so the students get the best education they can

possibly get while not focusing on one type of learning style. All too often teachers will use one

style to teach an entire class and half of the students get “left behind” and do not end up learning

the information. The easiest way to avoid this is by using various pedagogical styles to teach the

students in a classroom while still hitting all of the learning targets.

In my future classroom, I intend on including as many types of media as possible so I

have a diverse way of teaching my students and none of them fall behind the rest of the class. As

Collin Gifford Brooke in “New Media Pedagogy” said, “if our students have access to

contemporary information and communication technology, they will be using it” (Tate 177).

Students are often technologically advanced when it comes to what is new and if we as teachers

give them access to new technology, they will use to to the best of their ability to learn material

as easy as possible. An example of this is Google Docs; students have learned how to use Google

Docs in a way that makes learning as easy as possible and accessible. Now with this application,

students can have their information and notes with them at any time as long as they can log into

Google. This means they always have access to learning material and even have the ability to

help each other with the material as well.

The only problem I see with bringing in new media into the classroom is the potential for

students cheating, but I have the benefit of the doubt that they will not misuse the technology
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readily available to them, especially if I am the moderator for the Google Doc and can see what

the students put into it. As long as the students have the ability to learn the information in the

ways they want to, they will not have the desire to cheat on assignments. This type of pedagogy I

see being the most potentially problematic, but with supervision on assignments and exams, I

doubt it will pose too much of a problem.

When learning paragraphing, applications like Google Docs can be extremely beneficial

to students because the entire class can be in one document and see what everyone is doing. The

teacher has the ability to show the entire class in front of them what they need to do to paragraph

well. Lindemann says a paragraph is a “group of logically related sentences” and “a set of

sentences, all which deal with a common topic” (146). By using online applications, the entire

class is able to see what paragraphs should look like and the teacher has the ability to show

everyone at the same time what they should be. Anna Allen wrote in her blog post titled

“Teaching Paragraphing” that her teacher would give her students a zero on the writing

assignments if there were more that five sentences per paragraph (Sept. 3, 2019). This is an

example of exactly how not to teach paragraphing; by giving this teacher’s students a confined

box each paragraph must fit into, they started to lose interest in the writing process and in

English in general. Anna stated she was lucky enough to get a different teacher who did not have

these ideas and she was still interested enough in the subject to want to become an English

teacher.

As a writing teacher, I intend on using the most feminist, comprehensive pedagogy to

teach my students so they will become intelligent, thoughtful young adults. I want to teach them

how to effectively get their point across while still being politically correct and concerned with
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others’ well-being. This is a very humanitarian pedagogical style, but I feel it will be the best

way for my students to learn about perspectives other than their own while also learning how to

be good writers. In “Feminist Pedagogies” by Laura R. Micciche, she discusses how she was

fortunate enough to have instructors who focused on intersectional teaching that covered the

broad spectrum of people we have in society (Tate, 128). This pedagogical style was something

that struck a cord with me and made me want to become the best teacher I possibly can because I

have the privilege of teaching my students about how to be good people and good writers.

Micciche continues on to say “Feminist pedagogies, regardless of differences, share a

common goal of actualizing social justice through teaching and learning methods” (128). This

connects to Shantel White’s blog post titled “Feminist Pedagogies” where she discusses how she

“liked the emphasis on emotion because it validates the personal writing that students may do on

class” (Sept. 23, 2019). I thoroughly agree with both Micciche and White because they

emphasize how important emotions play a part in a student’s writing.

I remember having to write narratives about personal events that had happened in my life

and I remember putting all my emotion into it so it could be the best paper I could write, and this

connects to the feminist pedagogical style of teaching. Students want to feel like they are being

heard and there is no better way to do that than to let them write about something personal in

their lives. Feminism is not just about policies, it is also about each individual feeling like what

they say matters in a world where it can sometimes feel like it does not. Feminist theory has

helped me as a student and as a potential future teacher because I have the ability to put myself

in another person’s shoes and feel what they are feeling.

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Teaching composition does not just mean teaching writing; it means teaching how to

write well in a constantly-changing society where one needs to know how to write for any and all

audiences. Students need to be taught how to be politically correct as well as be good writers for

whatever career path they choose. Teaching paragraphing using new media and feminist

pedagogy can help students learn how to be good writers and stay on top of the new forms of

media they may have to encounter in future jobs and in future interactions with everyone they

meet.
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Works Cited

-put textbook citation