Patrick

Certified Tutor

The climate of debate surrounding composition studies in today's college classroom requires both new and experienced instructors to cautiously examine the methods, intentions, and practical outcomes of their respective pedagogies. English departments across the country now recognize that "the claim that writing can enhance learning has been conflated with the claim that writing does enhance learning" (Leki 67), casting considerable doubt on the putative efficacy and necessity of the freshman composition course in post-secondary education. While many proponents of traditional pedagogy continue to support the idea of writing proficiency as a life skill whose development constitutes an integral part of students' general education, a growing number of academic professionals insist that "students should be able to see the relationship of the [writing] assignment to both the class objectives and their 'real world' future work" (Reid and Kroll 20). In the past few decades, the nature of composition courses and the assignments they involve have changed to reflect an increasing "emphasis on argument and research" (Lunsford and Lunsford 793) that stresses the importance of writing across the curriculum and of preparing students for the writing tasks that await them in the professional arena. Journalism, technical writing, business correspondence, and legal and medical documentation are just a few of the specialized writing genres have emerged to compete with academic writing for recognition in the composition classroom. However, these genres may be too occupationally grounded to meet the needs of entering students who have yet to choose a major and whose primary objective is to receive an academic degree. Accordingly, one of my chief pedagogical goals is to engage students with writing exercises and instruction that will strengthen their accuracy of expression while teaching the methods of description, narration, analysis, and persuasion necessary to the successful completion of written coursework throughout their college experience.