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Rebekah Naler

Dominic Ashby

ENG 405

19 October 2018

Layered Compositional Theory

Composition is a term used loosely and often in the English writing curriculum,

according the Webster Dictionary, composition is defined as the nature of something’s

ingredients or constituents, work of music, literature, or art, preparing a text for printing by

setting up the characters in order, and a legal agreement to pay amount of money in lieu of larger

debt or obligation. Composition comes in many styles and layers when students are learning to

write for personal use or assignments throughout their education. Reflecting on all the challenges

and motivation that English writing contains allows for researchers and students to develop their

own writing while using multiple methods of composition like research, feminist, and expressive

writing.

While reading about all the different pedagogies within composition, finding the

challenges and importance of motivation when it comes to developing as a writer takes many

years of trial and error. When thinking about writing, researched writing has always been the

downfall of many students within education mentioned in“Researched Writing” by Rebecca

Moore Howard and Sandra Jamieson, “The unidentified writer declares procrastination to be his

or her norm and then recorders the usual research process so that fellow procrastinators can start

the paper the night before deadline and finish it in just over ten hours” (Howard and Jamieson

231). Like most students, finding the motivation to start a research paper seems to take an army
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and then still students are waiting till the last minute to finalize the research and paper.

Researched writing is considered a “troubled genre” (Howard and Jamieson 231) not based just

on procrastination but also the lack of correct paraphrasing being considered “patchwriting”

(Howard and Jamieson 234). Even though researched writing lacks the interest for motivation

among student, the complex challenges are placed more on educators inforcing and producing

student work that meets the requirements of those reading assigned research papers. Research

writing was intended to “foster authentic, engaged learning” (Howard and Jamieson 237), which

has turned the complete opposite when it comes to students attempting to complete a research

assignment and paper. Howard and Jamieson conducted a well developed chapter in regards to

understanding, accomplishing, and assessing researched writing.

Each of the pedagogies seem to interconnect one way or another to form the broad

understanding that all composition is writing from different perspectives. In feminist pedagogy,

the research conducted prior to writing the chapter to understand the important stance in which

feminist pedagogy takes connects to researched writing. Annabelle Smith, a student at Eastern

Kentucky University (EKU) with a major in English, states that “Feminist pedagogy is grounded

in the idea that learning environments influence student writers.” Laura R. Micciche and Smith

understand and develop their publications about feminist pedagogies related to the challenges

and motivation in which this historical movement invented. As reading about feminist pedagogy,

the challenges in which women are described as “needed to toughen up to survive patriarchal

academic culture” (Micciche 128) but Smith also acknowledges that, “Removing the physical

social hierarchy in the classroom is not the only factor that promotes student participation and

engagement” which encourages students to develop as a motivated writer and face the challenges

that students can face in a typical classroom. Feminist pedagogy does have the motivation
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intertwined due to the knowledge of women not wanting to be labelled based on the societal

expectations for academic purposes. Micciche continues in the chapter with, “embracing conflict

as a reoccuring orientation of feminist compositionists” (Micciche 133) and “Urges female

teachers to practice ‘bitch pedagogy,’ an assertive, confident, argumentative stance aimed at

modeling how female students can occupy positions of power” (Micciche 132). More than just

female and ethnic minority students face the patriarchal society, in fact; when considering the

effect that feminist pedagogy contributes to education, overcoming the challenges and having the

motivation to have their voice hear in writing composition. Feminist pedagogy allows for

students, especially females, to have the motivation and overcome the challenges in which

society places on those in a patriarchal society.

Expression in writing completes the circle of composition. Expressive Pedagogy is

interconnected with the challenges and motivations that all pedagogies experience, “A people-

filled endeavor” (Burnham and Powell 111), which elaborates on the idea of finding personal

voices within an academic setting. The challenges that students like Timothy Grills, a student at

EKU with a major in English, mentions in his blog post that is “a way to help students express

their creativity by trying to get them to compose and analyze in forms other than what they are

used to,” which supports the accomplishments of challenges when trying a different style of

writing. The motivation to overcome the challenge of expressivism pedagogy which Sarah King,

a student at EKU with a major in English Education, states expressive writing personally is an

“alternative writing instruction was really interesting to me.” The authors of the chapter along

Grills and King were able to praise the advantages to having motivations in teaching expressive

pedagogy as an anti-textbook composition to break the barriers which textbook composition

creates for teaching. Expressive pedagogy includes the endless possibility of motivation that
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students can break the stereotypical academic verbiage which teachers instill in students at a

young age. Expressivism encourages students to break out of the stereotypes, challenges of being

in a different in the academic world can cause more problems than success. The challenges of

breaking that students can not use “I” and “me” in a academic paper but also showing students

that personal expression in academic writing makes it their own. Burnham and Powell explain

expressive pedagogy as, “Writing thus become a form of political or social activism” (114-115),

which is a challenge for students to overcome as they are developing as writers that creates a link

between “private and personal and the public and social” (117).

Composition is created by the layers that create challenges and motivation for students to

understand and accomplish writing as a art of life. Research writing, feminist, and expressive

pedagogy builds the student into the citizen on the social world that is wanted in composition.

Works Cited

Burnham, Chris, and Rebecca Powell. “Expressive Pedagogy: Practice/Theory,

Theory/Practice.” A Guide to Composition Pedagogies (2nd ed.), edited by Gary Tate,

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Amy Rupiper Taggart, Kurt Schick, and H. Brooke Hessler, Oxford University Press,

2014, pp. 111-127.

Grills, Timothy. “Expressivism and Individual Expression in the Classroom.” Grills Guides. 25

Sep. 2018, guidinggrills.wordpress.com/2018/09/26/expressivism-and-individual-

expression-in-the-classroom/. 18 Oct. 2018.

Howard, Rebecca Moore, and Sandra Jamieson. “Researched Writing.” A Guide to Composition

Pedagogies (2nd ed.), edited by Gary Tate, Amy Rupiper Taggart, Kurt Schick, and H.

Brooke Hessler, Oxford University Press, 2014, pp. 231-247.

King, Sarah. “Expressive Pedagogy.” 25 Sep. 2018,

sjkingportfolio.wordpress.com/2018/09/25/6/. 18 Oct. 2018.

Micciche, Laura R., “Feminist Pedagogies.” A Guide to Composition Pedagogies (2nd ed.),

edited by Gary Tate, Amy Rupiper Taggart, Kurt Schick, and H. Brooke Hessler, Oxford

University Press, 2014, pp. 128-145.

Smith, Annabelle. “This is so sad. Alexa, play God is a Woman.” ENG 405, 1 Oct. 2018,

omgitsannabellelee.wordpress.com/2018/10/01/this-is-so-sad-alexa-play-god-is-a-

woman/. 18 Oct. 2018.

Tate, Gary, et al. A Guide to Composition Pedagogies. Oxford University Press, 2014.