Teaching Composition : A Field Report

Teaching Composition : A Field Report

In my use of the term, a field report is a somewhat detailed written report that relies less on the deployment of a full scale academic apparatus to support a theory or reach conclusions than a paper which uses a somewhat less formal approach. This approach is perhaps a more immediate one than a more scholarly approach would be. It draws heavily on actual classroom experience and attempts to describe how the process of teaching composition actually unfolds in the case of one practitioner. At the same time, such a paper must, of necessity, be more tentative in the conclusions that it draws about the teaching process. I would characterize it as an approach that attempts to describe the writing process and identify how the various elements in this process are taught and which seem to be working at this moment and in this given situation, but which might not work as well or very well at all in different circumstances. To one degree or another, any teaching methodology rests on the success or failure of students to reach a goal. In a composition class, this goal can be loosely described as reaching a certain level of competency in the use of written English. To my mind, such a goal, is, by its very nature, relative, the opposite of absolute, and influenced by a host of factors some of which are beyond the teachers control, but which, for better or worse, have a large bearing on the results of his work.