Letter Owed to a Candidate.(Brief Article)

Dear--

You are one of seven candidates we will be interviewing for the three-year lectureship in composition here at Santa Clara. A thirty-year veteran composition teacher, I wanted to share some thoughts with you on what I saw in your file.

Like the other six candidates, you wrote a long letter to the director of composition describing your academic background, research, and teaching interests. You also provided a statement of your philosophy of teaching, and your packet included letters of recommendation, writing samples, and then, as an appendix, some course syllabi and student evaluations. I read the materials in just that order.

Oddly enough, it was only when I got to your syllabi that I could tell for sure that you actually try to teach students how to write better. I was gratified to read that you offer lessons in thesis development, summary vs. analysis, paragraphing, sentence structure, even punctuation. It will help you present yourself favorably here if you stress that you do in fact instruct students in writing, and can do it well.

Your other materials indicate a marked generational difference between us. You repeatedly emphasize in your letter and your statement of philosophy that you have been influenced theoretically by Paulo Freire, Gramsci, French feminism, semiotics, and anti-foundationalist epistemology and teach from a stance of critical pedagogy, aiming to destabilize textual hierarchies and guide students toward a borderlands subjectivity in the contact zones of ludic postmodernism. I find all of that nonsensical.

My own background is typical of a 54-year-old "lifer" composition instructor. My academic background included no training in composition. I learned to teach it on the fly--in class, at staff meetings, and in informal conversations with experienced colleagues. I started my career in 1968 in Birmingham, Alabama, at an all-black open admissions college. Miles College proved to be an excellent place to learn to teach English. I had underskilled and very highly motivated students. Five days a week I taught three classes of Freshman English and worked with students nose to nose over papers, often long into the night. I came to California in 1974 already a terrific writing teacher, won an appointment to the Santa Clara faculty, and have stayed on since.

Most of what has come to pass in the field of composition I find off-topic, too clever by half, and sometimes hugely objectionable. I haven't been to a national convention in eighteen years, put off by the irrelevance to my teaching, the pretentious language use, the relentless politicking, and the sucking-up to "composition theorists" and "composition researchers" without a tinge of teacherly attitude to them. I have canceled all my journal subscriptions and professional affiliations as well.