First-year composition and general education public speaking courses tend to be generic. Maybe there’s a good reason I don’t yet understand, but both courses tend to follow assignment patterns from school to school. The textbooks from which we can select structure their contents on these assignments. It feels like a holdover from secondary education. Let us write the personal narrative. Next, write a descriptive paper with some facts cited properly. On it goes.
The topics for these assignments seem like something an open-ended psychotherapy session might request: Tell about a moment you felt embarrassed. Write about a person who changed your life. Tell the audience about the value of your profession. Write about why others should care about a political or social cause.
These topics often seem like the dreaded college entrance essay. Tell us how you overcame great challenges. Tell us about your greatest weakness. I hate these essays (and variations of these questions in job interviews). Do we really want honest answers? Or are we reading and listening for the best storyteller? What is our goal, our purpose, our pedagogical defense for these topics?
Why do we assign such paper topics in FYC and speech? Do we actually wish to have conversations with our students, learning from them as we explore academic discourse? Or, more likely, do we assign topics merely as excuses for exercising form and grammar expectations? I am afraid a great many composition instructors rely on paper topics not as actual explorations of ideas but rather as means to correct students.
>Carefully consider the assignments given in most first-year composition courses. Are these assignments meant to engage the instructor in discussions with students? Doubtful. Most assignments are routine… nothing more than pretenses for editing.
What is the message we are actually sending to students? We are not indicating that their ideas and beliefs matter. We greet them with assignments meant to result in corrections… designed to expose errors in academic style. In their first-year composition courses, students experience a devaluation, not encouragement. They learn to play the game of higher education.
Photo by sholeh!! 