I’m taking a class called Composition Pedagogies this semester. Basically, we’re learning about how to teach Freshman or First-Year Composition classes. Well, not so much of how in a day-to-day sense of “this is how the computer system works,” or even “these are the kinds of things you should be teaching.” So far, we’ve been looking at some of the different “big picture” ideas of what Freshman Comp. is for, as in, “what purpose does it serve?” I thought I would have trouble with this, because as a high-school teacher, we’re already told what purpose our classes serve, which is to meet or exceed the state’s pre-determined objectives. I’m learning, though, that within that, there’s still a lot of room for “big picture” ideas, because, since there’s no way to cover every objective (I wish I had a source for this, but someone once told me that they had read an article in which someone had done a time-and-motion study with Oklahoma’s Priority Academic Student Skills, and found that the objectives for Junior English would take 250 clock-hours to teach to mastery, and what we have is 175 50-minute class periods, assuming class isn’t canceled or shortened for a pep assembly or a fire drill or something), teachers have to decide for themselves what is most important for their students to learn.
Continue reading →