Sept. 21

What is a philosophy of composition or a philosophy of teaching? Are there different types of philosophies? What teaching and learning strategies do you think might go into your philosophy?

A philosophy of composition seems to me to be systematic way of combining one's ideas and beliefs about composing into a unified method. It is a set of personal guidelines that produce a desired outcome in composition. If you think about Poe's philosophy of composition, It was basically his way of producing a desired effect in the reader. To oversimplify: Poe believed that you must first know the end of the story before you begin writing it. All things in a composition then must work toward producing what he called the Unity of Effect.

It seems to me, a teaching philosophy is an organism. It feeds on experience and evolves. Having never taught before, my own teaching philosophy is highly geared toward my current experience as a DI. For example, I think of the role of commentary in the formative development of student writing, but give less consideration to peer group work techniques simply because I am not in the classroom yet. For my own teaching philosophy I prefer a strong foundation of understanding. I agree, for example, with Mike Rose in Take 20, who speaks about the necessity to view your classroom as a group of unique and nuanced minds. I believe in formative commentary, and disagree with the harsh penalization of students for grammatical error. I also agree with Nancy Sommers on the benefits of sequenced assignments. Sequenced assignments create a structure conducive to formative commentary as well as to creating a sense of ownership and pride in student work. They also allow teachers to track progress and force students to start thinking about ideas early in the semester. It's interesting how this blog prompt is doing that very same thing.