I remember that when I was getting advice about job market interviewing, one of the "Questions to expect" was "Would you be willing to teach composition?" and the recommended answer was, "Of Course!" the underlying assumption here, is that we don't really want to be teaching comp, but that we should show ourselves to be willing to take one for the team.

I resent this attitude to a large degree. Even though my position is in British Literature, part of the reason why I was excited about this job was that even though we're a large research institution, we would have the opportunity to, and even be expected to teach writing courses, both in the major and as part of the general curriculum.

Some people make the counter-argument that we weren't really trained as compositionists, and that good literature scholars are not necessarily good writers, and I think this is hooey.

Accordingly, I've found myself deeply involved in composition since the beginning of my career, and am even now on the Undergraduate Writing Committee. I am deeply committed to this activity, and here's why:
* Teaching writing, though it may be housed in English Departments, is effectively outside the disciplinary structures of the university: students can try out majors, if they like, but more importantly, this setting provides me a way to ask them to think about their discipline from the outside. You want to do a topic based in economics? Fine, but make sure you think about the ethical implications. You want to write about public policy? Fine, but weigh those policies against the science / philosophy / sociology that gives you insight. It can teach students that disciplines can be blinkered, and that knowing that going in can give you a critical edge.

* Teaching writing is about citizenship. 18- and 19-year olds have just become citizens, and they don't necessarily know what that means. In few other classes are they asked to develop an idea that impacts beyond the walls of their classroom as they're learning. I want students to think about how their writing gives them power in the world beyond the university. This was easy for the hyper-polished and hyper-ambitious students I taught at GW. Here at WVU, that is a more difficult, and therefore more important task.

* Teaching writing means that students get to know you early on in a way that they don't often know their other professors. My writing students often ask for recommendations from me early on, because they claim that I know them better than most of their other profs--the smaller class sizes and high level of feedback facilitate a connection that research shows in crucial for retention and for students' satisfaction with their education.

* Teaching is so tangible teaching. Those in non-humanities fields may not find this to be a problem, but I know that teaching literature often means that it's easy into teaching the material, rather than teaching the students. I know that it's not an either/or distinction, nor should it be, but I find it very difficult not t0o actively teach my comp students.

Yes, composition pedagogy often means more time grading and less time reading the materiual that turns us on intellectually, but I have to say, I'm just as psyched to teach my comp class, (a prep I've been teaching more or less for 8 years) as I am about my lit classes.

I'm not going on this little line of reasoning just to be self-righteous about composition, though. I also want to change the discourse about it because of the social inequities in our field that come from regarding composition merely as a service class, and therefore, regarding those who teach it exc;lusively, or even a lot, as second-class citizens in the academic community.

This idea that teaching composition isn't intellectual production helps us justify the terrible inequities associated with adjuncts in English Departments. And never do I think about the act of teaching as hard as I do when I'm teaching comp. That's labor, and it's valuable, whether I also teach lit classes, or am "merely" teaching writing.