Teaching in the 21st century: Merging critical theory and practice for the writing and rhetoric class.

Abstract

This dissertation seeks to assist teachers of first-year composition as they move into the 21st century. Focusing on the two-year institution, but also asking for the assistance of University Writing Program Administrators as they train graduate students, it delineates a program that requires training, theory, experience, and attitude on the part of 21st century first-year composition teachers. My theoretical base draws on Freire, Berlin, Shor, Vygotsky, many feminisms, Crowley, Hillocks, Halasek, and Welch. Chapter 1 sets up the critical, liberatory, and student centered class as it offers a basic literature review for the critical writing and rhetoric teacher. Chapter 2 explores student resistance and suggests ways to make the many resistances productive. Through a Hillocks inspired analysis, Chapter 3 offers a fictional writing and rhetoric teacher in his first year as a model. Chapter 4 theorizes technology in the classroom and suggests ways to connect film, video, and computers to students' lives so that they may become judicious cybercitizens. Chapter 5 concludes that 21st century first-year writing and rhetoric must become a discipline in which those who teach it are dedicated to the course, well-trained, and well-compensated. It takes into account the continuing proliferation of the current-traditional paradigm as it seeks to insure that students emerge from the first-year writing sequence with critical, activist, and open minds, and that they can write persuasively and effectively for chosen specific audiences.