Critical Expressivism- Theory and Practice in the Composition Classroom, 2014a

Critical Memoir and Identity Formation
scholars under their banners to battle the opposition in disciplinary skirmishes.
Taxonomies of theory groups are misrepresentations at best and divisive propaganda
at worst. Our critiques should historicize such labels to make these
groups more dynamic and even revisable.
Richard Weaver (1953) warns against an over-emphasis on theory godterms.
These potent terms are vague and therefore discount the complexities of
the daily classroom experience. Patricia Harkin (1991) has forwarded a more
grounded notion of teacher lore as employing multiple theoretical approaches
in service of the teacher’s many responsibilities. Thus, a theoretically informed
teacher might devise a writing course that draws from multiple approaches: traditional
skills, process procedures, expressive needs, cognitive development, academic
initiation, critical concerns, rhetorical demands, logical argumentation,
genre practices, civic responsibilities, disciplinary knowledge, local imperatives,
postmodern alienation, and real-world communicative activities. To make such
determinations in curriculum design is not eclectic but rather dynamic in which
multiple theories must interplay in a changing, local context. As someone who
might be labeled as a practitioner, I am advocating for more theory to complicate
our practices, rather than pitting one mythologized theory group against
the other.
CRITICAL MEMOIR AND IDENTITY FORMATION
I am somewhat surprised that the personal narrative survives as a writing
assignment. Although students favor it, the personal narrative has been critiqued
for promoting a naive notion of a singular, static, authentic self. Abandoning the
personal narrative in favor of the combative, polarizing argument assignment
seems to be in fashion in first-year college writing courses and has trickled down
into high school assignment initiatives and the Common Core standards. Some
teachers will even say that the personal narrative is too easy for students to write
because it is organized chronologically while others would counter that using a
familiar structure makes it possible to focus on other more important skills. The
personal narrative has been condemned as everything from too emotive to too
culturally scripted. While examining her teaching in a personal essay course,
Amy Robillard reveals her disciplinary guilt:
Personal essay assignments become subject to the same by now
well-honed critiques of personal narrative assignments. The
personal narrative is too easy, uncritical. We shouldn’t assign
personal narratives because we’re only inviting students to
confess their most embarrassing experiences to us. We’re not
therapists, after all. (Sharp-Hoskins & Robillard, 2012, p. 324)
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