 Mentoring
Philosophy of Gail Offen-Brown
College Writing Programs
Being a teacher and being a
student are constant dual roles: The best teachers are always students,
constantly questioning, constantly learning. And the best students serve
as our teachers, pushing us to new approaches and insights. It is this
dual role that I take on and promote in the classroom, whether I'm working
with freshmen or graduate students, whether I'm teaching writing or teaching
teachers of writing. In teaching College Writing 300, Introduction to
Theories and Practices of Teaching College Composition, I can embrace
both roles openly and enthusiastically, moving back and forth between
conveying pedagogy and examining it.
The 300 classroom as model
and as teaching laboratory
Instead of serving as the only authority on teaching in the room, I encourage
GSIs to think of themselves as authorities on education since they have
a wealth of experience to draw upon, as student-teachers and as teacher-students.
From the first moments of the first day, every element of the class is
up for examination under our microscope. How does the arrangement of the
chairs affect the class atmosphere? Why is it important to learn everyone's
name as soon as possible and how can it be done? What happens when we
devote the first ten minutes of class to a quickwrite? How does the quickwrite
help us as writers? How does it jumpstart discussion? What happens when
a discussion flops? The 300 class serves as a testing ground for ideas
and strategies. GSIs can then make their own decisions about which strategies
they will incorporate in their own classes as they develop their own teaching
styles. They have not only studied and talked about them; they have seen
them in action in our own group.
Dialogue and inquiry
Each week GSIs read selected articles drawn from the fields of composition
and pedagogy presenting significant research, theory, or practice. Some
readings are paired to be in dialogue with each other; all readings spark
the group's critical inquiry. Class discussion becomes a mutual intellectual
investigation in which we evaluate the ideas of one article in relation
to another, and test them against our varied experiences as writers, as
students, and as teachers. Dialogue and inquiry are the keys. I don't
want GSIs to be wedded to a single approach or theory, nor to dismiss
approaches without examining them. Good teachers are always changing and
learning.
Reflection
Frequent opportunities for reflection on teaching and learning-within
the classes GSIs are teaching as well as within 300-are woven into the
course. Early on, GSIs are asked to reflect on and articulate in writing
their purposes as teachers of reading and composition. This piece is revisited,
and often revised, at select points in the semester.
Quickwrites at the beginning
of class provide informal opportunities for reflection and spark discussion.
The required Midsemester Reflection assignment (yes, that's its name)
is a four-page essay on "how your thinking about and practice of
the teaching of writing or the role of writing in the university have
been shaped thus far by the course." The final project (see below)
includes a rationale section so that GSIs consider why, for example, they
select the readings they do for a certain course; why assignments are
presented in a specific sequence; how a rubric might be used not only
to clarify grades but also to convey lessons and attitudes about writing.
Reflection helps GSIs move beyond the anxiety of novices worried about
filling their class time to a more productive stance. With reflection,
every course document, every class discussion, every failure and every
success is transformed into a rich source of learning. These reflections
are, of course, the beginnings of a teaching portfolio that can be used
for the job search and developed throughout a teaching career. The frequent
opportunities for reflection in 300 are intended to foster reflection
as a habit of mind and pen beyond the semester.
Teaching by doing; learning
by doing
We don't simply read about, discuss, and reflect on teaching strategies
in 300; we practice and enact them so as to plunge ourselves into the
roles of teachers and students.
In working on assignment design,
for example, GSIs create their own assignments on a text they are teaching
or planning to teach, and bring copies for the rest of the class to examine.
We practice responding to student writing by responding together to papers
that GSIs bring from their classes, and then compare and critique our
responses. After reading about the virtues and drawbacks of collaborative
learning, we work together in small groups (and then reflect on the experience)
to experience collaborative learning as students.
Teaching as a process; writing
as a process
To gain a deep sense of what it means both to teach writing as a process
and to experience writing as a process, GSIs for their final project experience
a process parallel to that in a writing class: They select a project from
a range of choices; submit a proposal defining and explaining their choice;
bring copies of a rough draft to class for response groups; receive response
from peer response groups; receive response from the instructor; revise
and polish the draft; publish a collection of final projects. Such an
experience simultaneously pulls GSIs into the world of the student-composing
drafts, dealing with peer and instructor response-and pushes them into
the role of teacher-deciding how such a sequence or process might be adapted
to their own discipline and classroom.
The not-so-secret secret is
that I take great joy in the 300 class. That is yet another aspect of
the course that I think is vital. It's not just the teachers as students
as teachers and the various experiences we have in the class. I hope that
I convey the joy that I experience as a teacher.
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