Dan Risinger

ENGL 361 Composition Theory

Conan Kmiecik
A statement of position.
Communication has spurred on every development in the known world. Writing is
the cornerstone of all human progress. Through writing we communicate across time,
across cognitive disorder, across space, across language boundaries, all so that we can get
a point across. The point is to get to the point. By writing we can create far more
elaborate and organized thoughts than we might naturally come across. Writing lets us
think pages-long thoughts without getting too lost.
I think writing is important because it does spread ideas. There are many ideas which
are way too big to actually speak. It would be hard to learn anything without writing. You
want to learn astrophysics? Good luck finding someone who is going to explain it to you.
Without writing everyone would have to discover everything on their own. Wed spend
most of our lives re-tracing steps which writing lets us skip.
Writing also opens a channel for people to speak who may not be able to, or who
speak only a different language. In a world of pure text, it is only through written
communication that people will be judged. We may be moving into that world. Writing is
also learning how to think in larger ideas, and also figuring out how to convey those
ideas.
The best way to teach writing is by getting students to enjoy writing. Get students to
see writing as an important and valuable craft and they will pour countless hours into
perfecting it. Writing has to be cool. It is apparent after reading (Guy Allens essay on
teaching composition that the very notion of good and bad writing is very damaging
for students. Thinking their writing is bad would give a student a reason to dislike
writing. I assure you, students are writing for the grade, but if you can get them to add
other reasons to the list, youll have made a writer.
Why should students care about writing? What do teachers need to impress upon
students? How do you make someone care about composition? Writing improves
discourse, thinking ability for complex thoughts, creates community, enriches the reading
experience. But it is hard to tell someone that and have them believe you. The best way to
get students to care about writing is to cause them to learn something about themselves
through writing. I think people generally learn things best when they are having fun.
Voice can be fun. Theres that stupid academic voice, but what about the others?
Have them do a paper in the style of film noir crime investigator, or a hillbilly, or a thug.
Any stereotype! suggest having them write in a number of dialects from a number of
different character perspectives. Call what ever comes from that the rough draft. Have
them re-write it using Academic voice for the final draft. Once they kinda have a feel for
how to write with different voices they can start to appreciate what it actually means to
write with voice. From there you can add conventions. Students should realize that
conventions are really there to improve voice; so that the writer can more clearly come
off the page. Students will write as long as its fun, and the best way to learn to write is
by writing. If students can connect writing with the world they live in, then it will be fun.

Causing students to see writing in the real world should not be too difficult. How do we
think? Do we think in paragraphs? Usually I do some flow charts too.
Composition is important for flow, it is through the composing that we actually
communicate what we want to say. only there were a way to make the composition part
fun, and not in some OCD way.
There are some definite bases that need to be covered. They NEED a topic sentence.
Topic sentences are crucial, thats how you know what the paragraph is about. If you dont
know that, there is no focus. Writing a focused paragraph is totally important. The topic
sentence is the idea and the paragraph is the expression of the idea. Then you have the
flow between paragraphs. So you need to see how one idea relates to the other ideas
This is where the flow chart comes into play.
A skilled writer can literally communicate exactly what they want through writing, or
atleast get close to it. If you cant structure your thoughts in a way that people can
interpret then you might as well scribble on a page. First you need the thought, which as
Merleau-Ponty says, is impossible with out language. The act of structuring thoughts into
a coherent line of logic is a good practice because it gets people to solve problems.
Composition is the organizing of thoughts. I think composition is what we should stress
in school. Grammar is tedious.
The MLA doesnt even get it, they keep changing their minds about things. Best way
to understand grammar is to be immersed in it. Grammar exists only to keep ideas
flowing, to act as mortar cementing the larger composition.
There is my position on any number of things. I hope this satisfies things...