This course provides an overview of the key theories and methods that have informed writing instruction, assessment, and curricular design since the emergence of the process movement in the late-1960s. The “process” approach shifted focus from the formal features of a finished writing product to the process writers undergo to produce effective writing. The movement opened space, furthermore, for conversations about student voice, self-expression, political resistance, and exclusion.

We will explore and challenge composition theories that have evolved out of and in response to the process movement. The breadth of such work, among other things, pays greater attention to the challenges of teaching within “diverse” classrooms, to the social dimension of writing in various genres and contexts; and to the possibilities of service learning and community-based writing initiatives.

In practical terms, students will be expected to write weekly position papers in response to course readings, complete a literacy investigation project, facilitate a teaching forum discussion, and develop a teaching philosophy statement and portfolio. We will further ground our theoretical work by examining the Washington state mandates for student learning and assessment in secondary education, including the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) and the Essential Academic Learning Requirements (EALRs).

This course encourages lively dialogue about the teaching of writing with the hope of collectively clarifying and enriching our teaching practices (or aspiring practices) in relation to the history of composition theory and practice, within the constraints of our various institutions, within the political climate of classrooms, schools and communities, and with respect to our personal convictions about what it means to teach writing to real students in a specific time and place.

Texts:

• Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein. They Say, I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing.
• Joseph Harris. A Teaching Subject.
• Paul Heilker and Peter Vandenberg, Eds. Keywords in Composition Studies.
• A course pack of selected readings.