[Teaching_Composition] NEW MODULE

Laura D Card teaching_composition@mailman.eppg.com
Wed, 08 Mar 2006 09:02:54 -0700 

First of all, thank you for bringing up this module topic. So far, you’ve discussed some of the very ideas I’ve struggled with and I appreciate your insights. Right now I teach at a church-owned university, but I have taught at a state-run university and college where the division of church and state was a concern. Interestingly, at both the church-owned and the state-run institutions, I have taught people of various faiths who brought their beliefs into the papers they wrote for my classes, so addressing the process of making a logical argument where moral and faith-based values enter into play hits close to home and seems to hit close to home for many of you. 
At first, when I first started teaching, I was adamant about my students learning to make good arguments based on the sound logic valued by secular scholars. However, lately I’ve been re-thinking my stance as being narrow-minded and short-sighted. So, here’s a question: Have any of you talked about audience, purpose, and context in relation to the arguments being made? It seems to me that at times using scripture or ecclesiastical quotes might be absolutely in order if the purpose is to write a theological text or if the audience would also accept the authority of such texts. In fact, students with strong beliefs need to know how to write arguments within their belief structure. Then at other times it would be useful to know how to construct an argument supporting the same ideals or discussing the same topic, but using secular texts and examples as evidence. I haven’t tried it (has anyone?), but it seems like it would be an interesting and useful exercise to write about the same value-based topic from a religious standpoint, or environmental or whatever, and then write about it from a “non-believer” standpoint. Not everyone will be persuaded by the same type of evidence or argument, but there is a crying need to be able to see various viewpoints and be somewhat logical about them so we can communicate about common problems and understand where people with different perspectives are coming from and maybe come to some kind of productive consensus. Anyone had any success doing anything like writing from two different stances?

Laura Card
English Department
Brigham Young University

-----Original Message-----
From: Connie Schomburg <schomburgc@yahoo.com>
To: teaching_composition@mailman.eppg.com
Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 06:39:47 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: [Teaching_Composition] NEW MODULE

Hi Everyone,
  I can't imagine "banning" discussions of personal
issues like faith or politics; the best/most
interesting class discussions I've ever tried to
moderate revolved around those very issues.  And yes,
I know that some students are inclined to cite
religious texts as support for their arguments even
though that support is based on emotion, not fact...
but I think my job as their instructor is to try to
convince them that there may be and probably are other
ways of viewing the topic under discussion.  I believe
my job is to welcome (and challenge, if need be) ALL
of their viewpoints, whether I personally agree with
them or not.  As one who holds deeply-felt beliefs
about a number of topics, why would I want my students
to cringe from doing so?  I'm awfully glad we've been
invited to share our opinions in this module!
Dr. Connie Schomburg
Creighton University

--- Emmanuel Sigauke <esigauke@ccsf.edu> wrote:

> Let me be the first to respond. When I teach
> research and the use of evidence, I often remind the
> students to be fair in the presentation of grounds
> and warrants for their claims. By fairness I mean
> they should provide evidence that leaves room
> objections. As a teacher I do not want to seem to be
> telling a student that his or her religious support
> for a claim is fallacious. While I may, I realize
> that this may have a strong effect on the way the
> student write after the feedback. While there is
> nothing wrong in inviting the authority of a
> religious document in presenting and supporting a
> claim, the invocation should be done is a way that
> weakens the writer's argument. I have often noticed
> that where religious grounds are used there is
> usually argument. Debates on issues like gay
> marriage, capital punishment are cases in point.
> Supporting a point of view on these issues soley on
> religious grounds may limit the student options, and
> worse, the reader's response. For instance, if!
>   a student were to use a Bible verse to support a
> claim, there is the possibility that objections may
> center on the verse, and not the argument; yet,
> respecting the authority of the Bible, some students
> may not be willing to argue against the stated
> message. 
> Additionally, given that some readers may be
> concerned with showing their sensitivity to the
> reader's religious faith, they may not be willing to
> seem to oppose what at the moment may seem
> "politically correct". 
> Some kinds of evidence, for instance what
> Shakespeare said, or the Oxford Advanced Dictionary,
> or the Webster's may have the same effect that use
> of faith may have in arguments. Their supposed
> authority may be used to "shut" readers up, hence
> contributing to the ever expanding field of
> fallacies. 
> 
> 
> Emmanuel Sigauke
> English Department
> City College of San Francisco 
> 50 Phelan Avenue
> San Francisco, CA  94112
> Phone:(415) 452-7059
> >>> chris_anson@ncsu.edu 03/03/06 7:38 PM >>>
> TeachingComp Listers:
> 
> 
> Perhaps you’ve heard or experienced the following in
> your work as a  
> writing teacher or WPA:
> 
> “I disallow the use of religious texts as
> appropriate evidence for  
> argumentative writing.”
> 
> “Expressions of faith are OK in my class as long as
> they’re in mostly  
> expressive writing such as journals, freewrites, and
> the like.”
> 
> “In class discussions, I shy away from highly
> personal accounts  
> because they are too emotionally charged, and these
> include matters  
> of political ideology and religion.”
> 
> “I was appalled to learn that my colleague tolerates
> the inclusion of  
> references to certain faith traditions in some
> students’ writing  
> (mostly among international students who are not
> Christians) but not  
> from others (mostly American Christians).”
> 
> “I welcome everything and anything in my course as
> long as it is not  
> discriminatory or hateful. Right, left, Christian,
> Muslim, agnostic,  
> Wikka, anti- and pro-abortion rights, tree-hugging
> and deer- 
> shooting . . . . anything.”
> 
> “I can’t stand it when I hear that a composition
> teacher ‘bans’  
> Topics X, Y, and Z from the spectrum of research
> topics*gun control,  
> abortion, the death penalty . . . we ought to be
> celebrating when  
> students tackle the most divisive, sensitive, and
> complex areas of  
> contemporary debate.”
> 
> “Academic writing is not about the private and the
> personal.”
> 
> This month’s module, led by Elizabeth Vander Lei,
> takes us deep into  
> some of the most interesting and complicated
> landscape of  
> contemporary pedagogy, where secular academic goals
> meet with the  
> wide range of students’ systems of faith and
> religious conviction,  
> from the most passionate devotees to the most
> adamant separators of  
> church and state to those who don’t want to profess
> anything but are  
> excited nonetheless to bring it all on. Elizabeth’s
> focus this month,  
> on religious faith in composition courses, comes at
> a time when  
> social forces are colliding in politics and  public
> life and making  
> their way into debates about education, especially
> what should and  
> shouldn’t be taught, allowed, given voice, or
> protected*on behalf of  
> both teachers and students*in those tangled,
> unpredictable, and  
> fascinating contact zones of our classrooms.
> 
> What do you think is the appropriate place of
> religious faith in the  
> teaching of writing? What have you told your
> students about religion  
> and its place in their writing? How have you
> responded to students  
> who bring religion into their papers in a personal
> way, or use their  
> own faith traditions to support points they are
> making in their  
> arguments?
> 
> Elizabeth Vander Lei is Associate Professor of
> English at Calvin  
> College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She teaches first
> year composition  
> and advanced courses in writing and the teaching of
> writing. Co- 
> editor of Negotiating Religious Faith in the
> Composition Classroom,  
> Elizabeth was first drawn to this topic by her
> research into the  
> effects of religious faith on African American
> rhetoric, particularly  
> that of the modern civil rights movement. She’s also
> one of the  
> nicest, smartest, and hardest working people you
> could hope to meet.   
> I know: she served admirably on the Executive Board
> of the Council of  
> Writing Program Administrators, and when her term
> was finally up,  
> there wasn’t a person on the Board who didn’t want
> either to sign her  
> up for life or clone her so she could stay around.
> 
> (Now, as to the ethical dimensions of cloning,
> different religions  
> approach this problem from several perspectives.
> First . . . .)
> 
> Check out Elizabeth’s module and resources at the
> TeachingComp Web  
> site, then come back to the list to start talking:
> http:// 
> www.mhhe.com/socscience/english/tc/
> 
> And it’s OK*sex, religion, and politics are all
> welcome here at  
> TeachingComp.
> 
> Oh, and before we launch into our discussion, many
> thanks to Suzanne  
> Blum Malley and Amy Hawkins for leading us last
> month in our  
> exploration of ethnographic writing, which, although
> it has played an  
> important role in research in the field and beyond,
> has been somewhat  
> underrepresented in treatments of pedagogy in spite
> of a strong  
> interest in its potential. We’re all the better
> informed as a result  
> of their knowledge, experience, and counsel.
> 
> Chris Anson
> Moderator
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Chris M. Anson
> Professor of English
> Director, Campus Writing and Speaking Program
> Interim Director, Ph.D. in Communication, Rhetoric,
> and Digital Media
> 
=== message truncated ===


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