I teach because language has material consequences in the world.

Language is inextricably bound to the social systems in which it operates; it both creates and replicates social value within those systems. Once we recognize the relationship between language and social practice, we must acknowledge that any use of language must consider the real social implications of language difference. I teach to help my students recognize and respect differences in opinion, cultural values, and perspectives. I teach to help them develop a yes-and orientation to other people that requires them to understand and accept the others perspective as the first step in communication. I hope to teach students to use language in ethical ways and to recognize unethical language use in other texts.1 Explicit is always better. Students learn more when they understand the why. Making pedagogical goals explicit enables students to better meet those goals and to see how those pedagogical goals can be helpful in contexts outside of the writing classroom. This requires that I am explicit about how individual pedagogical practices help us to work toward those goals. Perkins and Salomon argue that teachers can point out explicitly the more general principles behind particular skills or knowledge or, better, provoke students to attempt such generalizations themselves in order to promote high-road transfer that allows students to apply similar skill sets in dissimilar situations2. By explaining the purposes of our readings and assignments and asking students to consider the connections between those assignments and problems outside our course, I help my students to develop metacognitive perspectives that allow them to make the most of what they learn in my classroom. Reiff and Bawarshi argue that the FYC course is uniquely suited to engage, develop, and intervene in students purposeful reflection on their learning and application of this learning to new contexts3. By encouraging metacognition, I help my students to learn different skills and strategies for writing that they can transfer among different contexts in order to make effective rhetorical decisions in many writing situations. Students think critically when they are asked to think, explicitly. This is particularly important in understanding the relationship between language difference and social value. The theory of uptake contends that our responses to particular genres are conditioned by our social experiences. Bawarshi argues that these uptakes are what we have to contend with as we work to create classroom environments that are hospitable to dissonance and make strategic use of various discourses4. In order to get students to think critically about the relationship between particular discursive resources and social power structures, we must ask them to think explicitly about the kinds of social conditioning they have undergone. Bawarshi points out that [t]he key is to delay and, as much as possible, interrupt the habitual uptakes long enough for students to examine critically their sources and motivations, as well as for students to consider what is permitted and what excluded by these uptakes5 (Challenges and Possibilities 2010). Next semester, I will be using my students in-class journals to bring their attention to the processes of both uptake and transfer by giving them prompts that ask them to consider the resources and perspectives they bring to bear on course assignments, the skills and knowledges they have gained from those assignments, and the other contexts in which those skills and knowledges are applicable. Positive affect maximizes student learning. My work as a writing consultant has given me first-hand experience that the way students feel about their writing and about the situations in which they write affects how well they write and how much they learn about writing. When students are anxious or feel defeated, they dont absorb information and they arent able to make productive revisions to their own drafts. When students are in an environment that gives them control of their writing, they are more likely to remain engaged with the topic or argument, and take risks that ultimately result not only in a better product but also in a writer who has more control of her own writing process. In order to maintain a classroom environment and set of interpersonal relationships that facilitate this positive affect, I must acknowledge that students have very strong, often negative responses to grading that can prevent effective learning and writing. I have to eliminate my own negative affective responses to students failures in order to model the appropriate positive affect necessary for overcoming failure. I make it clear what the outcomes will be for failing to meet course requirements, and I enforce those outcomes as the consequence of students choices. By foregrounding the outcomes, rather than my responses to their behavior, I ask my students to take responsibility for their learning. In this way, Im asking them to make the same kind of rhetorical decisions in the classroom that I ask them to make in their writing. They must consider the effects of
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My view of language is informed largely by the works of Mikhail M. Bakhtin. Perkins, D.N. and Gavriel Saloman. Teaching for Transfer. Educational Leadership 46.1 (Sept. 1988): 22-31. 3 Reiff, Mary Jo, and Anis Bawarshi. Tracing Discursive Resources: How Students Use Prior Genre Knowledge to Negotiate New Writing Contexts in First-Year Composition. Written Communication 28 (2011): 312-337. 4 Bawarshi, Anis. Taking Up Language Differences in Composition. College English 68.6 (2006): 652-656. 5 Bawarshi, Anis. The Challenges and Possibilities of Taking Up Discursive Resources in U.S. College Composition. CrossLanguage Relations in Composition. Eds. Bruce Horner et. al. Southern Illinois UP: Carbondale, 2010. 196-203.

their decisions, evaluate their options, and choose strategies that will help them to be successful in achieving their purposes within a given situation. This sense of responsibility and positive affect allows students to make productive sequences of decisions in both their writing and the classroom.