Making a composition curriculum is not easy. The roots of composition approaches go back far enough to recognize that.
Accessibility is one of the issues of the readings for the curriculums. When reading all these articles, I feel like all of these concepts can be explained in simpler terms and phrases. For example, how come every 7-12 page article will usually having large paragraphs of all these words scrunched up together? In Richard Fulkerson’s “Four Philosophies of composition” the paragraphs’ format is all jumbled up like glue was stuck between each line. This feels inaccessible to most people because learning and reading disabilities makes these readings seem so daunting.
Another important issue is that philosophies change throughout the learning process. The philosophies of the class are expected to be consistent and fair. Yet, most of the room for change and growth is mostly absent from current curriculums. When writing within institutions, you have to stick to strict syllabus roots. Sometimes the things that student writers learn need to teach things outside of the norm. Most students don’t even learn memorable lessons about genre that they can apply outside of the classroom.
In the aforementioned reading two paragraphs prior, there is a mention of students being able to write about an issue if they read about both perspectives on the topic. Although, it’s also mentioned that most students will not be required to write outside of schools. These are two important issues to remember when it comes to the roots of composition approach.
Leave a Reply