Whenever I begin teaching a new composition class, I tell my students the following “As far as I am aware, there is no physiological difference between any of you and, say, Aristotle, or Socrates.” It is an important part of my philosophy to acknowledge that college students aren’t stupid. If they have difficulty with thinking critically or expressing those thoughts in writing, it is because they lack the tools and experience to do so, not because they’re dumb. I believe it is every teacher’s responsibility to remember this fact. What that translates to in the real world is mostly “elbow grease,” and comes in the form of pre-class preparation, after-class help sessions, and an emphasis on the “process” aspects of writing.
Probably the aspect that I have most had to work on for my own improvement is the preparation. It can be difficult to prepare an effective class when one is an adjunct at two or three different colleges (with different syllabi and textbooks). But, over the past four years, I have developed better strategies for preparing my classes, and I have seen the improvement that good preparation brings.
I feel that most students can become good writers once they internalize the idea that writing is a process. This is a difficult lesson for many students because, while they are exposed to writing every day, it comes to them as a completed product. For example, many of my students think of Twilight or similar books as good writing. I see it as my job, then, to help them see that Twilight wasn’t written in a day. Like any piece of good writing, it went through several revisions and probably doesn’t look much like the first draft any more.
Good teaching, like good writing, is not magic. Rather it is a long, but rewarding, process of developing the tools and the experience needed to communicate ideas effectively.
