Sergent – Payne 1

Ryan Sergent – Payne

Dr. Ashby

ENG 800

7 May 2019

Implementing Expressive Pedagogy in the Composition Classroom

First-year composition is often thought of as a chore or an unnecessary requirement that

must be completed for the student to make their way into the “real” college classes of their

major. Many students do not think of this class as a piece of foundational instruction that will

teach them strategies and give them tools that they will carry with them to their so thought “real

classes”. Other students and Pedagogical scholars, such as Janine Reed and myself, feel that their

first-year composition courses were “The most important writing course I had in college…” (1).

Reed states that in this class she “…wrote personal essays, learned to keep a journal and found

what I’ve come to call my own ‘voice’” (Reed 1). The techniques learned within first-year

composition classes do more than just introduce students to the art of academic writing and the

discourse of the academy, they allow students to learn something about themselves and how they

want to function as a writer. Because of the foundational nature of this class, the design of the

course is crucial and must focus on teaching students the importance of their writing, the ability

to use their own voice, and how they can use their voice both within the academy and outside of

it.

Before an educator can begin designing their classes they must first learn about

themselves and the goals they want to achieve at the end of the class. They must figure out what

they feel their role in the classroom is and how they plan to approach the act of teaching or their
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chosen pedagogical approaches. The goals that I wish to accomplish with the course I have

designed include helping students gain confidence in their ability to write, helping students find

their “true” voice, and prepare them for the future writing they will encounter in their pursuit of

higher education. I built these goals off the assumption that the students I may encounter in this

course all have something that they wish to share with the community in which they are entering

but may not have the language to express these ideas in a way that is accepted by the academy

and others in the community (Pfeiffer 60). Because my goals and approaches to the classroom

are based on the want to expand and empower student voices my approached to the classroom

are grounded in the school of Expressive Pedagogy.

Expressive Pedagogy “…works to undercut standard forms, the natural shape academic

discourse assumes, and invite[s] different roles for students and teachers to perform” (Burns –

McCoy 14), as well as pushes back against the assumption “… that academic writing must be

formal, conventional, and above all correct” (Harris 2), by stressing the importance of

“…empowerment, student voice, alternative writing forms, and… classroom dialogue (Burns-

McCoy 2). The foundation of Expressive Pedagogy is based in giving the students a voice within

a setting where they have historically been silenced for their lack of knowledge and ability to

express their ideas in a language that the academy accepts. This pedagogy also “Support[s]

classroom analysis and rejection of oppression, injustice, inequality, and silencing, of

marginalized voices and authoritarian social structures” (Elizabeth Ellsworth as quoted in Burns

– McCoy 2). By pushing back against the established academic structure, the educator is open to

different interpretations of writing assignments and can rework them to allow students to work

towards expressing themselves more fully within prompts and directions that may have once

restricted them. For example, Essay 1: Literacy Narrative – the first High Stakes Writing
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Assignment in my course – is structured in a way that includes many different types of literacies.

By adding in a student’s ability to choose works of literature outside of the normal book, poem,

or short story perimeter by including songs and video games as works of literature, not only am I

allowing students the ability to write about something that they know, I am challenging the

academies archaic definition of literacy, thus encouraging students to be comfortable with their

personal knowledge and giving them a platform from which to use the voice they have.

Even though it seems that the most important aspect of creating a classroom centered in

Expressive Pedagogy is giving students a voice, the educator must also be aware of the students

need for the ability to use that voice in more than just the writing of the class. Barthelomae

argues that “…the most empowered writers are those who can take authority with their relation

to the past [by] interacting with other text – those who feel confident in their right to join in the

conversation” (Hodgkins 2). Students ability to write with their voice and use it in ways that

place them at the table with others within the academy is the final step in completing the goal of

giving students a voice. Students begin their writing most often by conforming to what they

assume the instructor thinks is good writing because they either feel trapped or that they do not

have the power to “write naturally and truthfully”, so they produce writing that is empty (Reed

6). To combat this Expressive Pedagogy encourages the use of other forms of writing within the

composition classroom to give students a space in which they can explore and test out the waters

of academic writing without feeling the judgment that comes with other assignments such as

essays (Burns-McCoy 4).

One example of this, which I have included in my course design, is journaling. Journals

are a private platform from which students can task risk by jumping into new ideas, new writing

styles, and speak their mind when they feel uncomfortable doing it within the classroom setting.
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It is also a way for students to learn to “write for themselves” which, Peter Elbow argues is a

critical step toward creating confident writers with independent voices (Hodgkins 2 – 3).

Journaling within the course I have designed will work as a personal platform where students can

ask questions, give feedback, or just vent about what is going on within the class and their lives.

It will also consist of a few lightly structured writing exercises that will be used as a starting

point for the essay that they will be writing. Each journal entry will be graded based on

completion, not content. By not grading on content the journal becomes somewhere that they can

test the waters and figure out the writer they want to be and apply the tools they are learning in a

low-stress environment where they can do so incorrectly without ramifications.

Besides the want to encourage students to use their “true” voices, the writing assignments

designed for this course focuses on the importance of the writing process over the product that

the students will create. Many students approach the act of composition by anticipating the grade

that they will receive for the paper once it is done, placing the final product over the steps, or the

process, they will need to take to get to that final product. Because of their fixation on the final

product, it becomes important for instructors to model the importance of the writing process to

their students, but they must do so in a way that allows the student to find their own process.

John Clifford argues that the only way to help students grow to appreciate the writing process is

“…by avoiding rigid rules, constant evaluation, and an obsession with socializing students into

the conceptions of ‘normal’ academic writing. They can, instead, develop interactive writing

workshops imbued with a sense of the writing process as multifaceted evolving and exploratory”

(Hodgkins 9). Creating assignments that show students that academic writing, or any kind of

writing, is not something that should fit into a box but should be a flexible, adaptable, and

personal work that begins as an idea, not as a grade.

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To implement this in my course design I place an outline of steps to be completed on

each High Stakes Writing Assignment to show students the steps that will get them to

completion of the assignment. I begin these steps with a journal entry that allows the students to

explore the reading that corresponds with the writing assignment. This will work as their

proposal and planning stage. I then move into requiring them to complete a draft and to see a

Noel Studio Consultant and me during blocked off conference times for feedback on their

writing up to that point. I have also set aside classroom discussion time to allow for peer review

towards the due date of each assignment so that students can obtain different voices of feedback

and continue to revise their essay throughout the weeks they will have to complete the

assignments. With each of these steps’ students will receive points towards their final grade and

if they do not complete the steps they will lose those possible points. The points being given or

taken away are only going to be worth one-fourth of the overall points, meaning that they will

influence the grade significantly, but not to the point that the student cannot pass the assignment

if they do not complete them. This, of course, is not a perfect model because I feel that assigning

points to the steps will continue to enforce the focus on product over process, but I also feel that

students will not complete the steps without some sort of incentive. I hope that as my career as

an educator progresses I will figure out a way to instill the importance of process over the

product without having to enforce the writing process with points.

The course I have designed is built upon the importance of encouraging student the find

and use their “true” voices to find their space within the discourse of the academy. I feel that I

will be able to accomplish this by challenging the power structures of the classroom and the

academy, applying real-world problems and student interest to the assignments I have created,

and encourage them to appreciate and indulge in a writing process that allows them to explore
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their own ideas. By setting the goals that are student-centered and based in Expressive Pedagogy

I hope to inspire students to have confidence in their writing ability and the possibilities that

come with writing. I also hope to create a classroom that teaches them the importance of first-

year composition and removes their restrictive understandings of this course as an unnecessary

chore.
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Works Cited

Burns-McCoy, Nancie. “Expressionist Feminist Pedagogy and the Politics of Form”. Mar. 1996.

EBSCOhost,

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045&site=eds-live&scope=site&authtype=shib&custid=s8356098.

Reed, Janine. Who’s Expressing in “Expressive Writing”? Mar. 1988. EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,shib&db=eric&AN=ED292

127&site=eds-live&scope=site&authtype=shib&custid=s8356098.

Pfeiffer, Verbra, and Christa Van Der Walt. “Improving Academic Writing through Expressive

Writing.” Journal for Language Teaching, vol. 50, no. 2, July 2016, pp. 57–77.

EBSCOhost, doi:10.4314/jlt.v50i2.3.

Hodgkins, Deborah. “Constructive/Constructing Dialogue: Students, Teachers and the “Self” in

the Writing Classroom.” Mar. 1993. EBSCOhost,

http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,shib&db=eric&AN=E

D361743&site=eds-live&scope=site&authtype=shib&custid=s8356098

Harris, Jeanette. “The Role of Expressive Discourse in the Teaching of Writing: A Review of

Current Composition Texts.” Freshman English News, vol. 15, no. 1, 1986, p. 2.

EBSCOhost,

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.43518894&site=eds-live&scope=s FDEite&authtype=shib&custid=s8356098.