Solving Syllabus Problems: Using Rhetorical Formulas and Modes of Discourse to Teach English 104
A year or more after taking English 104 and English 105, Goucher students who were interviewed tended to favor English 105 over English 104, "partially because some of them had more freedom to choose their own topics in this class and partially because they felt the course to be distinctly different from high school classes. For some students, English 104 seemed like a rehash of high school writing [ . . . ] The most pervasive criticism was that teachers were not rigorous enough; many students thought faculty should be tougher in both their grading and their work demands" (Tokarczyk). This cluster of opinions might arise from 104 classes taught in a wide variety of ways, but taken together, they suggest a problem that may result from two specific ways of structuring the syllabus: teaching students rhetorical formulas for success, and teaching them to write papers that perform only one mode of discourse. Typical formula models are the "five-paragraph theme," "the introduction-concession-assertion-conclusion" paper, and the "state-the-main-idea-of-the-reading-and-agree-or-disagree" model. The rhetorical modes are well-known to us as "definition, description, comparison/contrast, argumentation," etc.
Both pedagogies are defensible as ways to focus students' attention on smaller chunks of the composing process and its products. In high school, however, students often are taught either the modes or the formulas as ends in themselves, perhaps to pass state-mandated proficiency exams or advanced placement tests. Students may have grown comfortable with the modes or formulas which worked for them in high school, despite the fact that few upper-division college papers will successfully be produced using such limited rhetorical tools or schemes of arrangement. Classes which focus on formulas or modes often are organized around strictly limited topic content to enable instructors to direct the discussion with confidence because they know in advance what turns it may take. They always can direct discussion back to the formula or mode in question. This can encourage complaints that the course rehashes high school because high school teachers use the same rationale to structure their courses, and this can seem like a less rigorous course because students can predict with little effort what will happen in discussion. Grading can become almost operant conditioning if tiny subunits of writing behavior are rewarded with predictable, proportionate feedback, without considering the writers' larger purposes for using either a formula or mode. For tips on guiding students toward successful freely-chosen topics, click here. The solution to the rest of the problem depends on how specifically the 104 instructors know what happened in their students' high-school writing instruction.
Find out how your students have been taught before the semester gets underway by assigning each class a first-day diagnostic essay in which students explain what kinds of writing strategies they were taught and how successful they think they became at using them. That will alert you to potential repetitions of concept or skill assignments that may be lurking in your syllabus, and you can respond to repetitions that appear to be most redundant. You can prepare your introduction of assignments which must revisit material your students have been taught before, and you can explain why it is necessary to repeat it (a lesson imperfectly learned, moving the concept or skill to a higher level or applying it to a new purpose, etc.). If your diagnostic essay reveals the class contains a large group of "five-paragraph-theme" writers, you can openly raise the issue of the formula's limitations as well as its strengths, and if your students are trained to be single-mode writers, you can show them how real-life analytical situations can require writers to use many modes in flexible combinations to get the job done. Sample essays from upper-division Goucher writers are available for this purpose, or you may have some in your own files. They will help break through your students' unfounded assurance that everything you are trying to teach them was something they already learned in high school. That comforting myth must be directly addressed in all required freshman year courses, and it can lead to a great discussion about what they expect from college, especially one with a liberal arts curriculum. How much they are prepared to be surprised by what they learn? Are they really unafraid to reveal they don't know the answers? Are they ready to unlearn bad habits of thought?
Work Cited
Tokarczyk, Michelle. "Self-Study: Writing Program." Internal Goucher Email Document. 26 July 2002.