Spotlight On Composition Teachers
Composition teachers write about what writing—and teaching writing—means to them.
Karen Mitchell
The Big Red Book
"Math books. Second grade. Big, red ones. Numbers so large they can only fit a few problems on each page. Thin, newsprint pages, off-white with chunks of bark still in them. “Karen,” in black crayon (pre-marker days) written in the upper right hand corner of the red paper cover which, in today’s world, would have been titled Math for Complete and Total Idiots. It’s the biggest book in my desk. All the other stuff, including wadded-up pieces of blue lined paper with dashes in the middle, fit over, under, and around it."
Read more >>
Joseph Patrick Squance
A Textbook Comparison Between Two Cultures
"Some students in this culture blame the professors for choosing the most expensive learning tool they could find. Others blame the bookstores, which generally mark their products up by as much as 40%. But most blame the publishers themselves, accusing them of purposefully and malevolently fleecing a helpless market of consumers who have no choice but to buy their product."
Read more >>
Gina Patterson
Office Space: Perceptions of the Personalized Door
"An imposing cardstock sign reads: 'Enter at your own risk.' Another cluttered with clippings from various newspapers play on the sir name, Floyd: 'Dirty DJ Floyd, Every Wednesday Night,' next to album covers of Pink Floyd’s The Wall. Down the hall a tenure-track professor’s door displays professional black-and-white photos of Malcom X, Martin Luther King Jr., Tina Turner. Cattycorner is a graduate student office littered with bumper stickers which read: 'Hot Tom’s Tomato’s' and 'Drink a Pepper: Dr. Pepper.' Still, another door is left bare except for two 2x4 yellow pieces of paper denoting the office hours of graduate English instructors. What do these varying displays of cultural artifacts mean? For whom are these displayed? What is the purpose behind the office door persona and does this reflect the actual persona of the instructor? Finally, what does such a personal exhibit imply about the institution of teaching?"
Read more >>
How to Submit
We welcome submissions for this page from composition instructors. Pieces can be short or up to 1000 words. Please double-space and send as an attachment. Include name, address, e-address, affiliation. Provide a one- or two-sentence context and identify the class you teach.
By submitting you automatically grant us a one-time-only permission to publish on this site. Authors retain copyright. Send as a Word document to composition@muohio.edu