Upon reading Janice M. Lauer’s Rhetoric and Composition, I found her research on different fields of writing interesting. She mentions the emergence of Rhetoric and Composition developed within English Studies in the 1960’s.
A lot of research went into the development of writing and teaching of composition over several decades.
At the beginning of the article, she talks about the study and teaching of different types of writing that educators should use to help students become better writers, or more effective writers.
Her research covers various areas of English Writing Studies within English Studies. Some of her research includes Writing and Teaching Strategies, Assessments, Differentiated Learning, Writing and Teaching Writing, Pedagogy and Audience. These are just a few of her research methods. There are more.
Her research helped shape what English Writing Studies is today. It helped develop new strategies that educators can use to enhance their teaching. For example: Writing Across the Curriculum. This helps students who struggle with their writing to strengthen their writing skills and become more effective writers.
As I read this article, I found myself engaged with how Lauer broke down the different approaches to writing. She breaks down the study on Rhetoric and Composition as being both exciting and challenging. She writes about the study and teaching of many types of writing in different contexts. Civic, Workplace, Academic, and Cross Culture. This was enlightening to me, because I am a former Science Teacher. I taught English Language Arts for one year. I am new to this area of teaching. As I read Lauer’s article, it helped me connect writing instructions from a different perspective. Science and English Language Arts writing have similarities to the writing approach. They both require writing strategies.
Two different approaches that stood out to me go hand and hand with teaching both Science and English Language Arts are: Interdisciplinary teaching and pedagogy. These stood out to me because of my years of teaching Science and my new experience with teaching ELA.
As I taught Science, I helped students conduct investigations, research, form conclusions, and apply the scientific method. It all required writing. Lauer’s article helped me think deeper into teaching ELA by using a similar approach to teaching students writing in science and now digging even deeper and learning how to engage students with their writing.
I am feeling very good about how this article connects to my English Writing Studies. It is helping me think about my teaching approach and thinking of other ways I can improve my instructional teaching methods. It also helped me focus on how I can challenge differentiated instructional learning to meet all needs of my students.
The way I see it, if I use these teaching approaches, I believe I can provide a better learning experience for my students through engagement practices that would create a better learning environment for all students, allowing them to feel supported by inspiring them to have successful outcomes in their writing.
Even though I am new to this, I think transitioning from Science to English Language Arts will be a smooth experience. Reading Lauer’s article was an eye-opening experience for me and a real wake-up call about how to teach students to become better writers. It made me think differently about students writing and how I can better support them as they learn to develop better writing skills.
Lauer’s article helped me look at teaching in a different light. Returning to graduate school while learning different aspects of teaching, is going to help me become an ever better educator. I am learning new perspectives and strategies that can help students become successful writers.
