Composition Textbooks
For a few years now I've been going bookless in English Comp I courses--the equivalent to English 101, freshman composition. The reason: perhaps the worst books I've ever read have been composition textbooks. It seems like comp professors--or those who pen comp/rhet texts--have the worst eyes and ears for what makes good writing. Or they might know what makes good writing, but they cannot do it themselves. I don't want to read those books, and I can't imagine any 17-25 year old college student wants to read them either. These texts are so dry, boring, formal, and disparaging of creativity. In lieu of a textbook I've been culling essays from websites or making photocopies or scanning into PDFs for reading, having class sessions where we play grammar games, etc., and running the class--essentially--as a creative nonfiction workshop. But I'm giving some thought to returning to a textbook. I'm so out of date, though (literally, I haven't used a textbook in about 5 years), that I don't know what might make good options.
Here are some examples of crappy composition textbooks: Wyrick's Steps to Writing Well, Rosa and Eschholz's Models for Writers, Lunsford's Everything's an Argument and The Everyday Writer. There are more that I've used and hated, but I don't feel like listing them all. A couple books (from one author, Bruce Ballenger) that I used to like using were The Curious Writer and The Curious Researcher. He seemed to have a more accessible style. But after 2 semesters or so he wore off on me also. This came about especially as a result of students not finding the writing engaging.
I will still use handbooks such as the Bedford, but don't always require that students buy them.
Anyway, anyone have any suggestions? I'm willing to try a textbook again. Textbooks make for less work on my end. Then again, it's not like it's problematic for me to keep reading contemporary lit, finding essays that I like in lit journals, and assigning those as readings for my comp students. Maybe the model I've been using for the last few years actually works.
Here are some examples of crappy composition textbooks: Wyrick's Steps to Writing Well, Rosa and Eschholz's Models for Writers, Lunsford's Everything's an Argument and The Everyday Writer. There are more that I've used and hated, but I don't feel like listing them all. A couple books (from one author, Bruce Ballenger) that I used to like using were The Curious Writer and The Curious Researcher. He seemed to have a more accessible style. But after 2 semesters or so he wore off on me also. This came about especially as a result of students not finding the writing engaging.
I will still use handbooks such as the Bedford, but don't always require that students buy them.
Anyway, anyone have any suggestions? I'm willing to try a textbook again. Textbooks make for less work on my end. Then again, it's not like it's problematic for me to keep reading contemporary lit, finding essays that I like in lit journals, and assigning those as readings for my comp students. Maybe the model I've been using for the last few years actually works.
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Jamie
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Aug 08, 2011 05:06PM
Great post and such a legitimate concern. I teach high school freshman and sophomore English and struggled last year with a reliable and engaging text and I, too, ended up collecting and using essays and ideas from websites as opposed to a composition textbook. This year I am going to try to use two books and see how well they work. They both seem to have great potential, but the true test will be the coming months as I put them into practice. The two books that I'm going to use are CRAFTING THE PERSONAL ESSAY: Writing and Publishing Creative Nonfiction by Dinty W. Moore and THE POEM'S HEARTBEAT: A Manual of Prosody by Alfred Corn. I'm also definitely interested in other suggestions.
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