Techne and Praxis

While reading Teaching Technical Communication: Critical Issues for the Classroom by James Dubinsky, I came across the following, "Teaching is both a making (techne) and a doing (praxis)" (4). Even though I found this in a technical communication teaching book, this idea is applicable for the composition classroom. Dubinsky goes on to write, "Our [teachers] work involves more than teaching our students strategies or forms; it also involves asking them to consider the impact of those strategies and forms on public policy. We teach them to become user-centered practitioners, to take their audience and its needs into consideration always" (5). In the composition classroom, we teach students to write in a variety of ways. Part of our goal (at least for English 110), is to prepare our students for writing in academia. However, we should also be preparing them to write outside of academia.

In my experience, many freshman don't realize just how important writing is, even for a simple task of writing a job application. I have had the experience of sorting through job applications and I can say that those that were not well-written were not even considered. When I introduce the assignments to my students I try to find a way to relate to things outside the classroom, whether it is simply relating to what they may do in their field later in their academic career, or relate to beyond that.

I realize that my students are not going to leave my class enjoying writing the way I do, but if I can get through to them just how important it is in everyday life, I feel I have, at least, accomplished something.