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Composition, Conviction, and Aesthetics: A Teaching Philosphy

Learning is a messy process, full of small mistakes that takes time, practice and active engagement to develop. My primary way of teaching that active engagement is through creative practices that helps them develop a love for art and literature and encourages them to become effective interpreters and finally producers of art and literature.

    In her essay “Homer to Hip-Hop: Teaching Writing through Painting, Performance, and Poetry,” Jane Gilrain, an elementary school teacher traces out a way of engaging with students’ creativity and imagination to transition from simple observation to interpretation, and even, as you can see in the above quote, to thinking in a writerly mindset. “In the beginning of the year when asked, ‘Have you seen a monster?’ [one of Gilrain’s student] answers, ‘No, I have not seen a monster.’ Of course not. Literal thinking. At the end of the year, she is thinking in metaphors: ‘Yes, monsters happen all of the time. The way I see it, problems are monsters’ (Gilrain 335). When it comes to the teaching of writing, this transformation from writing or thinking in literal ways to thinking in metaphors, exploring the hidden meanings behind creative metaphor and being able to produce your own creative metaphors, is my primary aim.

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    Gilrain says, “Listen to students talk while they paint, and watch them play while they act. Hear their stories and see them emerge as artists—painters, poets, and performers. Witness: Art transforms the classroom environment, forges connections, and inspires learning” (328). Of course, Gilrain is talking about elementary school students, but I do believe that, in many ways, this applies to college education as well. In my first semester of teaching First Year Composition, I noticed that students often know to say that a work of art makes them “feel things”, or they can identify what the art is literally mentioning in its words or lyrics, but rarely do they seem able to point out what exactly they are feeling and why the music they are listen to, the art the look at, or the stories they read elicit those feelings in them. “Why does this song move you?” I would ask, and would get replies along the lines of “it is very moving.” The same transformation that Gilrain’s student experience, I think, is possible even amongst college students. Through paying attention and actively engaging with a work of art, exploring how and why it touches or gives pleasure, and through practice, and messy mistakes, each student of first year composition has the potential to find the right words to articulate exactly how they feel.

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    My teaching methodology in practice keeps this in mind. I have found music to be one of the most useful tools to engage students in class, enable debates, lively discussions and bring out conflicting opinions about what songs are good or bad. As an example of practicing active engagement in class, I begin by simply playing a song. As a class, we then listen to it again with the lyrics in front of us. We discuss the meanings of the words in the lyrics. And finally play the song again and try to point out specific musical aspects of the song that connect to the meanings we have drawn out from the lyrics. As we break down the many elements of a piece of art we also explore the different kinds of terms and vocabulary that allows us to articulate specific details about that song, such as rhythm, beat or rhyme.

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    I believe that teaching through aesthetic engagement can benefit the teaching of rhetoric and composition in two specific ways:

    1. Encouraging students to approach the art through their vernacular language so that they are empowered to express their experiences of specific texts and the world around them.

    2. Bringing awareness to their senses and the use of that as the bases for recognizing exigences in the world that they have to capacity to respond to rhetorically.

     

    Jeffrey Carroll, in his book “When Your Way Gets Dark: A Rhetoric of the Blues” teaches students to identify the elements of the rhetorical situation by mimicking the “call and response” form of African-American Spirituals. While still relying on the basic rhetorical devices of “logos, ethos, pathos”, Carroll reframes his questions as follows:

    “Who did this blues talk to?

    How did it talk?

    What got talked back to this blues?

    Was the talkback blues too?

    What kind of language is this, anyway?” (Carroll 161)

     

    While these questions are asked specifically about the Blues, I do think they can be asked of art in general enabling an exploration of both the formal elements of that work of art, as well as the layers of meaning within it.

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    I finally also aim to encourage students to conceptualize their relation to art and the enjoyment and pleasure they find in that art to the cultural stories that they relate to. In her essay, “Gumbo Ya Ya: Tapping Cultural Stories to Teach Composition", Ampadu suggests that learning can be found through a “Gumbo Ya ya—a Creole expression that means ‘everyone talks at once.’ At times it has the jaggedness of an improvisational jazz or blues piece—a little Ma Rainey and Louie Armstrong rolled into one,” (73) which emphasizes “the interrelationship between orality and literacy and by teaching respect for the home language and culture of others” (Ampadu 73).

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    Students will be required and encouraged to bring to class art from their own cultures, songs they grew up listening to at home, or which reflect their sense of ‘taste’ in order to recognize what they think of as ‘folk’ or as familiar and comforting. This approach will connect conceptualizing one’s aesthetic connection to music through the vernacular and folk, to the exigences of the “folk,” in the sense of one’s familiar local spaces, where students can recognize their ability to develop a sense of value and conviction that can they fuel their composition, be it artistic or utilitarian

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    Works Cited

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    Ampadu, Lena M. "Gumbo Ya Ya: Tapping Cultural Stories to Teach Composition." Composition Studies, vol. 32, no. 1, 2004, pp. 73-88. Web.

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    Carroll, Jeffrey. When Your Way Gets Dark: A Rhetoric of the Blues. Parlor Press, 2005.

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    Gilrain, Jane. “Homer to Hip-Hop: Teaching Writing through Painting, Performance, and Poetry.” Language Arts, vol. 92, no. 5, 2015, pp. 328–42. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24577590. Accessed 29 Oct. 2022.

    Teaching Reviews

    Old Books
    “Andrew incorporates literature into a composition classroom in a way that engages the students, getting them to see what fun literary interpretation and analysis can be..”

    Lydia Noland, PhD Student, GTA

    Peer Review of Teaching, by Lydia Noland.

    On March 8th, I observed Andrew’s 11:00 section of ENGL 102. As I entered the classroom immediately following the end of his previous class, Andrew was taking the time to answer students questions about their current project, before the next class began. The classroom had a really relaxed learning environment by relying on natural light from the windows rather than using overhead fluorescent lighting which can sometimes be irritating to students. 

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    Andrew began class on time, greeting everyone by saying, “Good morning.” He refreshed them on the larger project that they were working on, and introduced the class period’s assignment, a glossary of jargon and specific language used by each student’s community. After walking through the expectations for the exercise, he showed them an example, highlighting specific terms it used and explaining why those were important to the community.

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    From there, Andrew pulled up the short poem, “The Clod and the Pebble,” by William Blake on the projector and gave the students a few minutes to read through and understand it. He asks for thoughts on the poem, calling on students by name as they volunteer. I found this gave the class a really personal sense of community. As students shared their ideas, Andrew did a great job actively listening to the students’ views on the poem. He listened to their response and then repeated it to ensure he understood their ideas. This not only made each student feel validated in their ideas, but it reiterated their response to others who possibly didn’t hear them or needed clarification. He treated each student in this manner to facilitate further discussion throughout the class. Each person in the class had the opportunity to share information based on this method, either by volunteering or by being called on, which helped supply multiple points of view and included each student. After working through all of the students, Andrew tells them his favorite line and explains why it works well within the poem, moving them into more specific poetic language. This added a personal touch to the poem, showing the students that Andrew has a connection to it and it wasn’t just a random activity. It also served to introduce the ideas they’d be working with for the last half of the activity. 

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    Andrew jots down the following terms on the board: love, clod, pebble, feet/metre. He tells them that they’re going to work through the poem together to define these terms. He explains that each of these words had a specific meaning to the culture of that time period, and that they’d be working to discover those as they worked through the poem. Andrew reads the entire poem aloud, explaining each line as he goes. I thought this was a great move on his part because it allows for different learning styles, and works to reinforce the material he’s covering. 

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    The class gradually works through the previously mentioned terms, relating them to their use in the poem and using reference materials Andrew pulls. He provides them with context for the Romantic period in which the poem was written and explains how influential the Bible was during that time. They work through references given in the poem, building up a more complex understanding of each of the terms. Once the definitions are complete, he turns their attention back towards the glossary assignment saying they just worked through several of the topics. He restates the terms they just worked to define, framing them in the context of the questions on the prompt. 

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    Once they’re finished working through the poem, Andrew asks them to share out which communities they’ll be examining for WP2 so they can start thinking about important language in that community. Several students volunteer their ideas, ranging from gym life to religious communities, to dance; with each new community, Andrew asks the student to identify a couple of specified terms that would need further definition for an outside viewer. Andrew explains to the students that figuring out the glossary of terms helps answer questions at end of the prompt: Who’s invited/excluded? What roles are encouraged/discouraged? Values/beliefs/goals/assumptions? He refers them back to the example of the poem, looking at specific terms used and larger movements the poem falls into. 

    To close the class, Andrew assures them that the glossary exercise is not an assignment, but rather a tool to help them more closely examine their community. He ends with several announcements relating to other assignments, the upcoming break, conferences, and drafts. Finally, he sends them off saying “Have a good day!” :)

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    Andrew’s attentive teaching style has clearly worked to make sure each person in his classroom feels valued and validated in their ideas. He creates a comfortable learning environment where students do not feel pressured to have the “right” answer but understand that any answers they offer are helpful to the collective understanding the class works to build throughout the semester. Andrew incorporates literature into a composition classroom in a way that engages the students, getting them to see what fun literary interpretation and analysis can be. This not only allows him to include his interests in the class, making for a more entertaining environment, but he also introduces students to the field of English scholarship in a gentle way that will hopefully encourage them to enjoy reading and possibly to take literature courses in the future.

    Topics-based 101 Course Proposal
    English 101: Composition –Writing through Music

    Course Description

    Using music to teach rhetoric, writing and composition seems counterintuitive. However, drawing students through an engaged aesthetic process, and teaching them to be engaged in that process, can contribute to the development of mature and thoughtful reflection. Students often know to say that music makes them “feel things”, or they can identify what the musician is talking about in the lyrics, but struggle to point out what exactly they are feeling and why the music they are listening to elicits those feelings in them. This course will provide a practice of understanding how one relates to works of art and how to articulate one’s thoughts and feelings in a clear, readable manner.

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    “English 101: Composition – Writing through Music” situates the concepts of composition and rhetoric within the framework of music listening to achieve the goals for English 101 at the University of Kansas. These goals are:

    1. Analyze how rhetorical choices vary across (musical) texts and contexts, such as genre, history, style, and technique.

    2. Demonstrate their rhetorical flexibility within and beyond academic writing.

    3. Revise to improve their own writing, as they mature and develop their skills over the course of the semester.

     

    Other goals include:

    1. Demonstrate the relationship between writing and rhetoric and the impact different kinds of music have had on public discourse, political movements, and aesthetic movements.

    2. Reframe writing and rhetoric not only as communication, but as knowledge production that is intentional and meaningful to the external world.

    3. Connect concepts and contexts of music pieces and their ideas to students’ own lives and experiences.

     

    Why Music?

    Teaching through music can benefit the teaching of rhetoric and composition in two specific ways:

    1. Encouraging students to approach the music through their vernacular language so that they are empowered to express their experiences of specific texts and the world around them.

    2. Bringing awareness to the senses, which serve as the bases for recognizing exigences in the world that they have to capacity to respond to rhetorically.

     

    Jeffrey Carroll, in his book “When Your Way Gets Dark: A Rhetoric of the Blues” teaches students to identify the elements of the rhetorical situation by mimicking the “call and response” form of African American Spirituals. While still relying on the basic rhetorical devices of “logos, ethos, pathos”, Carroll reframes his questions as follows:

    “Who did this blues talk to?

    How did it talk?

    What got talked back to this blues?

    Was the talkback blues too?

    What kind of language is this, anyway?” (Carroll 161)

     

    While these questions are asked specifically about the Blues, they can be asked of music in general, especially the many genres historically tied to the blues that students in American Universities (and KU specifically) are lot more familiar with, such as Rock, Bluegrass, Country, and Hip Hop.

     

    By asking these questions students will be able transition from understanding their aesthetic responses to music, to paying attention to the “calls” or exigences in the world around them, understanding the issue through their senses, and “responding” to it by affirmative and affective/effective action.

     

    The music listened in class will be organized in a generally historical manner. The course will begin with listening to a few pieces of Classical music, before moving to Ragtime, Jazz, then Blues, followed by Rock and Roll, Country, Bluegrass, Folk (including international folk and tribal musical forms), Rock (including Concert, Glam, etc.), Punk, Grunge, Indie, R&B, Hip Hop and Pop. Students will also be required to bring to class music from their own cultures, songs they grew up listening to at home, or which reflect their sense of musical ‘taste’ to recognize what they think of as ‘folk’ or as familiar and comforting. This approach will connect conceptualizing one’s aesthetic relationship to music through the vernacular and folk, to the exigences of the “folk.” Through this familiarity with one’s “folk” experiences, students can recognize their ability to compose a public awareness campaign and effectively intervene. From this perspective we can continue to ask the following to encourage a deeper questioning:

    “Who has power in the blues?

    Where did it come from and where did it go?

    Is this power different along race, class and gender?

    What language does the colonized speak in the blues?

    Does the blues solve a problem for the colonized or colonizers?” (Carroll 161). 

     

    Textbooks

    Becoming Rhetorical: Analyzing and Composing in a Multimedia World by Jodie Nicotra will be the primary composition textbooks.

    Composition and Literature, Department of English, University of Kansas.

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    Musical Texts (a WIP list)

    Unit 1

     

    The Rhetorical Appeals:

    1. Eine Kleine and Leck mich im Arsch by Mozart to discuss Ethos.

    2. and 9th Symphony, Ode to Joy by Beethoven to discuss Pathos.

    3. Electric Counterpoint by Steve Reich to discuss Logos.

     

    The Expanded Rhetorical Situation:

    1. The Entertainer by Scott Joplin, to begin the discussion of the Expanded Rhetorical Situation.

    2. I’ll Fly Away, gospel song; Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, gospel song, along with jazz and rock interpretations; These songs will be used to discuss exigence.

    3. A Hard Day’s Night, Sgt. Pepper, and Abbey Road by The Beatles; Radio Ga Ga by Queen. These songs and albums will be used to discuss historical, geographical, and socio-economic contexts.

    4. London Calling by The Clash; The Wall (including clips from the movie) by Pink Floyd, to discuss historical and political contexts.

     

    Unit 2

    1. King Kunta by Kendrick Lamar; Rhymes like Dimes by MF Doom. The lyrics of these songs will be in focus to discuss textual analysis.

    2. Bitches Brew by Miles Davis, Enema of the State by Blink-182. These are examples of some of the album covers that will be used to discuss visual analysis (https://www.billboard.com/photos/best-album-covers-of-all-time-6715351/).

    3. The Rip by Portishead. The music video will be used to discuss multimodal analysis.

     

    Writing Assignments

    Like English 101: Composition, over the course of the semester students in Writing through Music will write four papers.

    1. Writing Project 1 : The first assignment is like the “Rhetoric of Self-Presentation” essay, though it asks students to analyze a piece of music that represents themselves and a specific community they belong to. They will attempt to identify the chosen song and be expected to clearly articulate how and why they do so.

    2. Writing Project 2 : The second assignment asks students to write a (textual and contextual) rhetorical analysis of a song or music video that has had significant impact on the world, be it in a larger political movement or for a specific community. An example of this would be to look at how Kendrick Lamar’s was used in the BLM movement.

    3. Writing Project 3 : The third assignment will be a group project. It asks students to demonstrate their rhetorical flexibility by exploring real exigences in the local spaces around them. A moment of exigence could be understood as a “call” that they must “respond” to, much like the Blues does, in a thoughtful and critical way. The calling should preferably be something each group of students collectively feel passionately about, for which they will create a multi-genre campaign that responds to that call. While the project itself is a group assignment, students will be required to produce a brief, individual reflection on the rhetorical choices they made while creating the campaign.

    4. Writing Project 4 : The final assignment is a revision, or re-envisioning, of the first or second assignment and a reflection essay on those revision choices. The students will first explore the concept of “re-envisioning” a piece by first looking at songs covered by different musicians, who reinterpret the same song. The students will then apply that concept to reworking their previous writing based of their improvements and knowledge acquired over the course of the semester.

     

    Works Cited

    Ampadu, Lena M. "Gumbo Ya Ya: Tapping Cultural Stories to Teach Composition." Composition Studies, vol. 32, no. 1, 2004, pp. 73-88. Web.Clark, Daniel A. “English 101: Composition Students, Popular Culture and Discourse Communities”. The Journal of General Education 43.5 (1996): 224-236.

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    Anton, Karen. “‘My Country! ’Tis of Thee, Strong Hold of Slavery’: The Musical Rhetoric of the American Antislavery Movement”. Young Scholars in Writing, vol. 7, Sept., 2015, pp. 30-40, https://youngscholarsinwriting.org/index.php/ysiw/article/view/93.

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    Carroll, Jeffrey. When Your Way Gets Dark: A Rhetoric of the Blues. Parlor Press, 2005.

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    Gilrain, Jane. “Homer to Hip-Hop: Teaching Writing through Painting, Performance, and Poetry.” Language Arts, vol. 92, no. 5, 2015, pp. 328–42. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24577590. Accessed 29 Oct. 2022.

    Contact

    I'm always happy to discuss and share similar ideas, philosophies and approaches to teach English

    andrew.korah@gmail.com

    516-912-5680

    andrewkorah.wixsite.com/teaching-profile

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