All teachers were once, or perhaps still are, students. In those years of studenthood, we become conditioned to the classroom. We draw close to the teachers who inspire us and shy from those who intimidate or bore us. We make choices: to rise to expectations, to throw in the towel, or to rest on our laurels. The nature of the classroom is that it is teacher-mediated. As a result, our pedagogies reflect those who came before us—those techniques and approaches that worked for us, made us shine, allowed us to “get it.” I realize that the diversity of my students—whether in personalities, learning styles, or cultural backgrounds—greatly influences my success in teaching them. Our students’ diverse positions in the world can be difficult to pinpoint, and even more difficult to penetrate. It is for this reason that I uphold a kind, reflective, multiple-perspective, student-centered approach to teaching in the composition classroom.
My first belief is that the classroom dynamic should be defined by caring. In his 1993 article, “Ranking, Evaluating, and Liking,” Peter Elbow subtly concludes: “Good writing teachers like student writing (and like students)” (200). To perform their best, students need a comfortable, safe location within which they can critically think and respond. To create this dynamic, I pursue methods of teaching that are reflective, open-ended, and response-driven. For example, I often ask my students to translate or summarize each others’ comments rather than relying on my own analysis of their views. As a result, the classroom becomes a self-empowering space where students and teacher care about each other’s perspectives, thoughts, goals, and struggles. Caring, I believe, is born from an interest in and curiosity towards the thoughts and perspectives of others.
I trust in the power of curiosity; when we are curious, we place ourselves in a position through which to understand, to see, to care. As with all classroom dynamics, this must be teacher-demonstrated. By practicing curiosity through questioning and reflection, I invite students to do the same. I wish for this kind of interaction because I believe in the power of communication to catalyze change—whether in social understanding or critical outlook. To arrive at such change, I’ve found it necessary to grapple within and about difference in its countless forms. Current discussion of teaching within contact zones is appealing to me, and justifies my interest in issues of difference. It is my hope that my students can articulate their positions; listen to and respect those of others; and work towards knowing how to communicate about issues of difference. To facilitate such moments, I believe it is important to emphasize multiple “mediums” in course assignments. I appreciate the multimodal pedagogies of Kathleen Blake Yancey, Patricia Dunn, and Susan Delagrange, who all grapple with
translations between written, oral, aural, visual, digital, and affective communication. Inspired by their work, I often ask students to create written and oral (recorded or performed) work—from digital editorials to on-campus public service advertisements. With an emphasis on circulation, I believe we can achieve student writing that is more situated and open to feedback. It is my hope that in the course of our time together, my students learn to navigate multiple discourses, identifying and exercising the strategies necessary for operating within each.
To achieve this, I examine student scholarship for moments of curiosity—for moments where they allow themselves to ask questions for which they do not have answers. In my syllabi, I always quote Eugene Ionesco’s wisdom: “It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.” “No question,” I tell them on the first day of class, “Is too simple or too complex. We’ll listen and give authority to all voices desiring to be heard.” I ask students to arrange their desks in the shape of a horse-shoe, so that they can see each other as they speak. I often ask them to share their writing or ideas publicly, with the rest of the class. When they’re finished, I thank them and ask them questions about their process—how do they relate to this topic? How do they perceive their written texts? When they answer, I listen and lean slightly towards them, often nodding or asking for other students’ reflections on the same question. More than anything, I want students to know that I am available and interested in what they have to say. I am invested in their growth and personally energized by their efforts. These approaches help them own their writing and think critically about how writing works best for them.
This focus affects the structure of my syllabus as well. I work hard to shape each project as a continuous movement toward an overall goal. Informed by Keith Hjortshoj’s work on writing blocks, I attempt to guide students away from the kind of “binge writing” that is so common among college students and instead develop more incremental, committed, and synchronous approaches to writing. By discussing how I grapple with issues of artistic inspiration and habitual dedication, I position myself as an approachable writer dedicated to self-reflection. This is what I hope they become in the course of our time together.
Our students arrive to us as products of every classroom dynamic they have ever been a part of, and as participants of the one we create anew. In this sense, we as teachers hold the possibility for renewal, the opportunity for creatively reinventing and rethinking our methods and approaches. I believe that teaching philosophies must remain open to suggestion, ready for change and influence. For this reason, I keep a reflective blog about my teaching—www.trauthke.wordpress.com—where I insert new ideas and get feedback on creative approaches. I position my commitment to renewable pedagogies at the center of my teaching philosophy because without new discourses, approaches, and exercises, our classrooms remain the same as our students continue changing.
