Suzanna Phillips

Dr. Shana Hartman

Teaching Writing
May 6, 2015
My Teaching Philosophy
What is the most effective way to teach writing? Scholars, parents, teachers
and students have argued about this point for generations. Some, like lecturer
and publisher Andrew Pedewa, believe that a workbook like Teaching
Writing: Structure and Style is the answer. That methodical study and
drill will produce better writers. Perhaps in many high schools you will find
those who believe in one rigid, formal paper after another. Rubrics, red ink
and lots of long nights spent alone at computers forcing words onto the page
that students neither love nor produce willingly. Students feel threatened
(their grade is at stake) so they put words on the page. I dare not even call
this writing as writing is a shared love, not something taken by brute force.
Still others, perhaps many students, may believe that nothing can be done
about a their writing. They are either born with the ability or not and all
teachers are to do is enjoy the talented ones and shuffle the others through.

Fortunately this last lot is becoming fewer and further between over time. My
philosophy of teaching writing is none of the above.
My Philosophy
Many times I talk about my insatiable love of the written word (reading it,
writing it, studying it) as a sickness. Sicknesses get inside you, give you
symptoms and then downright take you over. This is the only way to turn
students into writers I believe. By keeping them in the room with me two
times a week for an hour and a half, I hope to spread this contagious sickness
to the next generation. In my current courses I marvel in front of my students
over Fitzgerald, Isnt this a beautiful sentence? Who else would have
thought of saying it this way? smiling and meeting their eyes while I talk
about the beauty and importance of the well-chosen word. I write in front of
my students, composing on the spot to fill the board with my own creation,
inviting their critique, advise and approval. I bring in newspaper, online and
advertised examples of other great writing as well for them to taste and see
more from the larger world of literature outside what we study. I want them
to feast on the written word, another vital step to taking in the contagion
and contracting the writing bug for keeps.

I am truly blessed to say that today I love my job teaching a blended

classroom to 11th and 12th grade students of American Literature. I can pass
on the insatiable love of masterful works that I have feasted on since I was
small and also try to light, or fan, a flame for writing in my students. I love to
make them laugh about it, get serious about it and downright have a blast
together about it and then see them grow as writers. In my classes we write
into the day in daybooks (an empty composition notebook), work in writing
groups, give peer feedback, and hold Socratic discussions using journals from
last nights homework. We talk about writing from the perspective of writing
instructor and scholar, Donald Murray: its an organic, autobiographical,
sometimes inconvenient and surprising endeavor. It takes lots of practice and
even more patience but the result is beauty, expression and art for the world
to see.
My philosophy on writing is bolstered when I see how very effective it is at
the end of the school year. Students that were once frozen in fear about
writing find citations, summarize, analyze and converse over their written
creation with confidence and joy. I see teaching the love of literature and
writing like currency. If I spend it on my students hopefully they will grow

and flourish and bloom into lit-loving, pen-wielding ambassadors for

humanity. And I will have made some small difference in the Great
Conversation.

Works Cited
Murray, Donald M. "Rehearsing Rehearsing" Rhetoric Review, Vol.
5
No.1 (Autumn 1986). pp. 50-56.
Murray, Donald M. "One Writer's Secrets" College Composition
and
Communication, Vol. 37 No.2 (May 1986). pp. 146-153.
Murray, Donald M. "All Writing is Autobiography" College
Composition and Communication, Vol. 42 No.1 (Feb
1991). pp.
66-74.
Murray, Donald M. "Writing and Teaching for Surprise" College
English, Vol. 46 No.1 (Jan. 1984). pp. 1-7.
Vetter, Amy et. al. "Reframing Resistance in the English Classroom"
English Journal, Vol. 102, No. 2 (2012). pp. 114-121.