Vision Statement

OK, so in my last post I shared my teaching mission statement, which was

To create a quality environment where students experience, discover, and develop key critical-thinking tools for academic engagement.

Now I want to take a crack at writing a vision statement. Here goes:

To create a dynamic team of students who sharpen their analytic reading and writing skills through inquiry-based classroom dialogue.

Simply put, I want to create a virtuous circle where my students write thoughtful responses to challenging texts after (and only after) they've closely read the work and deepened their understanding through Socratic class discussions.

more notes on PBW

If I'm going to make Problem-Based Writing the centerpiece of my curriculum, I have to remember that many students are neither familiar nor comfortable with this type of learning. Lots of students want a structure that entails a "correct" answer, a linear "one and done" type of response. Thus, my pedagogical goals may be at odds with the norms, experiences, and desires of my students. To be effective, then, I'll need to explain the following: in my class, we are mainly learning how to pose thoughtful questions, how to engage in authentic inquiry around meaningful problems. We do all of this through active reading, text-centered class discussions, and process-based writing.

Now, of course, just explaining the aims of the course will not solve the fact that some students want to move quickly (if perfunctorily) from point A to point B. And yet, making sure my students know what to expect counts for a lot.

Here's the thing: students often come to their college composition class with a chip on their shoulder. They already know how to write, so they feel like the course is an arbitary enforcement of dreary rules and meaningless standards. Teachers, by focusing almost exclusively on "error" (mechanical, conventional, grammatical), often do little but confirm the students' sense of déjà vu, the feeling that they're enrolled in the same pointless class they've been forced to endure since 8th grade

So what I try to do, and what I want to do more of, is create a class focused around thinking—that is, a class where we use writing as a means to critically engage with ideas, issues, questions. The goal isn't to showcase that we've memorized the answer (the product), but rather that we're asking ever better questions on the road to the solution (the process). In short, my class is not a grammar garage; rather, it's a lab for discovery, for problem-posing, for inquiry.

In my next post, I want to explore some concrete ways students can develop these "habits of mind."

PBW: note one

Why do I find it easier to write on some subjects than others? To some people than others? Using certain platforms than others? I'm not sure, but I know that I write with ease and confidence when I'm authentically responding to an issue. Better yet, to a problem.

Tell me Kobe Bryant (who I loooooooooooooooooove, BTW) is better than Michael Jordan, and I'll write you a ten-page single-spaced essay on why you're out of your frickin' mind. Tell me you don't "get" The Strokes' Room on Fire album, and I can write for six hours straight on why it's an overlooked masterpiece. Simply put, I enjoy writing when I'm addressing some sort of problem. Not the "I lost my car keys" type of problem, but rather an issue (big or small) to which I want to add my voice.

All this is to say, as a writing teacher, I want to create more problem-based assignments in my curriculum. Importantly, I'm not suggesting my class suddenly bludgeon ourselves to death in service of the "Five-Paragraph Argumentative Essay." Instead, I'm just tinkering with the idea that perhaps one way to help my students produce quality prose is to help them thoughtfully engage with ideas that contain problems worth discussing. I mean, not only is that my favorite type of thing to write, but it's also my favorite stuff to read.

Coda: way more on this subject to come . . . just wanted to get some thoughts down on paper.
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notes on utopian thinking

One day, I'd like to run my College Composition course like this. In the initial week, the students huddle in groups of five—talking, listening, writing, reading, questioning—with the goal to nominate a group leader by the third meeting of class. In a room of, say, 25 students, five group leaders will emerge. I will then spend the next week conferencing with those five individuals, who will then conference with their teams. As group leaders meet with me, they will share their team's learning goals; I will respond with how I see my role in facilitating those aims. Next, I will meet with each group, doing my best to clarify our objectives, expectations, and standards for the following 14 weeks.

Each group will produce a team-specific syllabus—and spend class efficiently pursuing the goals and tasks and assignments therein. My role is to float from group to group, helping students, offering bird's eye observations, etc.

Of course, there will be times when I'll deliver whole-class instruction. And, importantly, there will be times when it makes more sense to deliver instruction to just the team leaders (that is, training the trainers). Whatever the case, I just want to create a classroom that functions more like, well, a classroom—which, in my mind, is place where we come to experience, participate, engage, discover, change.

As of now, this "class" remains purely theoretical and, thus, a million unforeseen challenges (and rewards?) await should I ever get the chance to put my vision into practice. And yet, I've always run a sort of process-workshop type of class, even if I've never tried something with this much explicit group structure, with this much student agency. If you have experience in this type of learning environment (formal schooling or otherwise), please share your thoughts.

Bottom line, I think people learn best in groups—but, at the same time, no one learns best in a milieu of persistent chaos and confusion. My goal, then, is to encourage as much group work as possible, while also providing as much support and scaffolding as necessary.