MAE 209 – COMPOSITION THEORY AND PRACTICE

JOSEPHINE ASUNCION R, EMOY, PH.D.

 MAE 209 – COMPOSITION THEORY AND PRACTICE

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

• THISCOURSE IS INTENDED TO HELP STUDENTS CREATE A FRAMEWORK FOR GENERATING

THEIR OWN PHILOSOPHY OF WRITING. IT IS INTENDED TO HELP STUDENTS DEVELOP A DEEPER
UNDERSTANDING OF THEIR OWN WRITING PROCESSES, TO RECOGNIZE THE COMPLEXITIES OF
LITERACY AND WRITING, AND TO BECOME MORE CONSCIOUS OF THE RHETORICAL CHOICES
WRITERS MAKE IN DIFFERENT WRITING SITUATIONS.

ORIENTATION
ORIENTATION
ORIENTATION
 Orientation for MAE 209
Major Requirements:
✓ Virtual reporting (by pair)
✓ a softcopy of the report in pdf/word file must also be posted.
✓ Reflective journal (at least 300 words; w/ preliminary pages & layout)
✓ Attendance every virtual meeting
✓ Attendance during the set schedule for physical meeting.
✓ Tests and activities every virtual meeting
✓ Institutional mandated exams
✓ Other major tasks/outputs (personal composition for each theory)

ORIENTATION
 Reminders for the individual reporting:

- There shall be 3 reporters per meeting. Meeting is every other week.

(Saturdays / 1:00 PM – 3:00PM)
- Duration of report is 20-30 minutes. You may add videos, clips,
images to further elucidate your topic.

- At the end of the discussion, reporters must prepare tasks for the
rest of the class to do (at least 2 questions/ activities).

- After the report is an open forum. Everyone is encouraged to ask

questions (with plus points).

ORIENTATION
Reporting must be a comprehensive detail and discussion of the topic
based on the following:
▪ Major proponent (s), its nature, description, function,
characteristics/features/elements, and major claims and constructs of the theory.
▪ Applicability/practicability in the current academic practice.
▪ Finally, give an example (a prose or poetry) and analyze it based on how it elucidates
your chosen theory.

- visit the group’s fb page regularly for important updates / announcements

- Don’t forget to always take a screenshot as proof of attendance and post it in

the comment section after every virtual class.
- A Reflective journal/ and personal composition (prose or poetry) based on the
theories reported, will be two of the major outputs for the course.

ORIENTATION
 COURSE OUTLINE WITH
SCHEDULE FOR REPORTING

ORIENTATION
Composition Theory and Practice

An Introduction to Its History and

Pedagogic Development
Composition Theory and Practice…

has taken different directions in the last

40 years, with a shifting focus on:

▪ Writers/learners
▪ Texts
▪ Contexts
A. Focus on writers/learners

 Pedagogies:
◼ Expressivist
◼ Constructivist
◼ Progressivist
 Emphasis is to direct these concepts in the
learners’ writing process.
 Learner/writer-focused practices in the classroom
 emphasizing informal writing; generating ideas before worrying
about final form;
 paying attention to the composing process--to the idea that writers
move through cycles of inventing ideas, planning, drafting, and
revision, that the process isn't linear, that new discoveries may be
made at any moments in this process, even during revision, and
that editing is a separate process that should not be confused with
composing;
 working in writing groups with readers who can respond to the ideas
a writer is expressing and the ways in which the writer is expressing
them
 suggesting teacher response that focuses first on helping students
extend and elaborate on their ideas and become more fluent writers
B. Focus on Texts
 Pedagogies:
◼ formalist
◼ rhetorical modes (logos, ethos, pathos)
◼ Genre

 Emphasis on form (the 5 paragraph essay);

modes (persuasion, argument); recently, how
genres develop from purpose and setting
The rhetorical triangle is typically represented by an equilateral triangle, suggesting that logos, ethos, and
pathos should be balanced within a text. However, which aspect(s) of the rhetorical triangle you favor in
your writing depends on both the audience and the purpose of that writing

Rhetorical Triangle
Recent text-focused practices in the classroom

 looking at classroom and community genres and identifying some

of their key features;
 seeing how such features arise from the shared purposes and
assumptions of particular communities of people;
 focusing students' attention not only on what is being said, but on
why and how in the texts they read and the texts they write;
 developing rubrics and templates that represent the shared
purposes and assumptions of members of the classroom
community about classroom genres while discovering and naming
the assumptions behind the genres that predominate in various
academic discourse communities;
 using such rubrics in writing response groups as well as for teacher
response
C. Focus on Contexts
 Pedagogies:
◼ social-constructionist; social-epistemic (seeing
knowing as social)
◼ critical pedagogy (changing existing social relations)
◼ cultural studies (seeing meaning in all cultural
practices, in everyday life)
 Focus on social contexts for writing and
knowledge
Context-focused practices in the classroom

 emphasizing the notion of discourse communities and inviting

students to look at the shared ways of talking, thinking and
valuing in these communities;
 considering the different ways in which writing is used and
shaped in different academic communities across the disciplines;
 paying attention to the sort of community that is created within
the writing classroom itself;
 responding to student writing in terms of questions and choices
related to the writer's goals and purposes within a particular
community, rather than with directives about what to do.