My experience as both educator and student has helped me understand the duality of a classroom. Essentially, both student and teacher must form a co-creation and creative roles in learning. One of my prominent goals inside of the classroom is not to produce a class of mimic pantomimes, but a student body that reflects and examines the world around them through a critical lens. To step away from pure-lecturing, one must input personal learning techniques. My classroom encompasses a multi-faceted approach; each class session, I try to set aside time for writing as a purpose (to communicate), writing as a process (to reflect or plan), and writing as reflection (self-assessment and authority assessment). For instance, after each summative writing assessment is returned, I set aside time during class to reflect and “talk back” to me about the comments on their own writing and what they did or did not find useful. Similarly, I set time aside for free writing at the beginning of each class session so students can begin to reflect and analyze what choices they will make in future writing or revisions after hearing back from their audience, or reader inside the secondary classroom.

 

I’ve tried to express to my students that each of us is involved in some rhetorical situation--whether we want to be or not. As an educator, I feel that I center my classroom around a more contextual and cultural oriented praxis. For instance, while grading, I plan to give only some feedback on stylistic or grammatical choices. This grading style will make students aware of the academic and professional expectations put on them as writers; however, I mainly focus on their ideas and their critical thinking with my comments. My feedback reminds reader-oriented; I will point out rhetorical weaknesses so that students understand the importance of writing not only for themselves but the necessity of persuasion targeted to their specific audience. 

 

I want students to feel in control of their environment and knowledge. However, I am aware that each of us, as writers, will and can become our own worst critics. Mere memory work is an antiquated style of teaching rhetorical writing and composition. I believe that it is an educator’s job to progressively exercise a student’s mind in ways that will sharpen a young writer’s judgment of the text and the world around them. With this in mind, I give students the freewill to pick a topic that they are passionate about after each novel read in class, which creates a classic role reversal. I want them to view me not as the grader of this assignment, but as a reader, they could persuade and/or call to action.

 

 First and foremost, I try to center my classroom around the role of audiences. I recognize that students need to find both the personal and critical within themselves as well as within the writer’s around them. I want each student that walks through my classroom doors to recognize the power that comes with meaning, language, and words. In addition, I want students to truly realize the important role of audience and how it plays mutual effects on both reader and writer—a student’s personal voice and outside voices will affect each author in different and influential ways. 

 

To meet my goal of avoiding the banking system of standardized testing and grading, I embrace “engaged pedagogy” as bell hooks put so eloquently in her book, “Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom.” My biggest aim for each student is to get them out of their comfort zones long enough to view the holistic and diverse world around them. I hope to demonstrate to students that I have carefully crafted the language of my prompts, assignments, and PowerPoints to be all-inclusive; that the tools I bring into the classroom showcase that I am aware of the varying opinions and expressions that each person will come across in the secondary classroom. I have found that this fosters equality and compassion between all who enter the classroom regardless of the ‘hierarchy’ between student and teacher.

 

 

When students leave my classroom, I want them to be able to think critically about the world around them, and how words, communication, and writing can be used against them or for them as a personal tool. My fundamental goal as an English teacher is for my students to be aware of words, their meaning, and how language is used to make meaning, persuade, and communicate.