The Teaching Philosophy is the basis for my approach to teaching and is
also the basis for this website. The lesson plans found on
this site tie directly back to this philosophy.
Since I have not yet begun my teaching career, my current philosophy on
teaching composition is influenced by classes I’ve taken at
GMU as well as by memorable teachers I have studied under.
With the knowledge I’ve taken from these areas I have come to
the conclusion that there are two main important aspects to teaching
composition: to teach students to write clearly and to teach students
to write often.
Composition is an important study because it is a means of
communication. Communication is the basic form of interaction
between human beings, therefore, students need to learn to communicate
effectively through composition. In this age of technology
businesses focus on written, specifically email, correspondence with
their clients-yet another example of the necessity of clearly written
composition.
In order to bring the aspect of clear writing into the classroom, peer
review groups can be used. The easiest way to determine
whether writing is understandable and straight-forward is to have
another person read it. Even in creative writing exercises it
is important to have a reviewer to check for clarity.
The second approach to teaching composition that I intend to enact in
the classroom is to have students write often. Through
frequent writing students will put what they learn in the classroom to
use. Students improve their writing ability through frequency
and exploring different writing approaches.
To put the “write often” approach into action in
the classroom I would have the students keep journals. At
times free-writing would be acceptable, but it is also important to
have guided writings for the students to step outside of their comfort
zones to try a different approach.