I made it back from the coast last night, and while my brain and nerves are telling me I should be working on planning my upcoming online class, I am here ready to read and write about another article. Even though I know I should be working on other things, I’m secretly—and not so secretly—glad that this project is itching my brain. I think it has taken hold. So, here it is folks:
Article 6:
Leonhardy, Galen. “Transformations: Working with Veterans in the Composition Classroom.” TETYC 36.4
(2009): 339-52.
I was pleased to find this article today because I’ve been interested in working with vets for a few years now. I encountered my first vet student my second semester teaching, and he scared the hell out of me. He came to me after our first class meeting to inform me that he had anger and authority issues and had a hard time controlling his temper in heated discussions. He wanted to know if we would be having heated discussions in my class. I honestly couldn’t answer—I didn’t know…I hadn’t ever taught the class before. He certainly had authority issues, as he warned me, but the issues weren’t directed at me, but rather at some other unseen figure. This guy unnerved me for several reasons. First, our initial meeting gave me the willies. Second, he referred to himself in the third person, AND by his last name (and, his last name was really, really funny, but he had no humor about it). Third, he wore a trench coat. Fourth, he came to class early every day and sat in the hall. My office was near our classroom, so I saw him there every morning, but he never made eye contact with me outside of class. We worked pretty closely over the course of the semester, and the semester ended peacefully: his writing improved; his anxiety seemed lessened; and, we went our separate ways—I haven’t seen him since. This first experience left me unhinged a bit—would working with vets always be this unsettling? The answer, of course, was no, and the remainder of my interactions with vet students have been remarkable. (I have a vet that was in my E90 class two years ago, and he still visits me once a week. I even keep a bag of doggie treats in my desk drawer for his service dog. It’s a highlight of my week every time he comes by!)
Leonhardy confirmed for me some things I already believed—vets are students like any other; they bring their life experiences with them. Leonhardy reminds us that vets aren’t the ones to bring traumatic experiences with them to our classes.
Leonhardy is able to offer a fairly unique experience for his students—he is a vet himself and is able to share narratives with them. Like many instructors at Leonhardy’s institution, I find myself asking, “How can I best work with vets?” Leonhardy offers a couple tips to folks like me:
1. “Good pedagogy in the compositionclassroom is good pedagogy for all students” (344). He also suggests leading by example; instructors could/should complete assignments alongside their students and share their work.
2. Instructors should have empathy (345). (This seems to line up with “good pedagogy is good pedagogy,” no?)
Ultimately, Leonhardy seems to suggest that we treat vets like any other students, and I agree with that. Good pedagogy is good pedagogy for all is a philosophy I have always subscribed to, and my basic writing students appreciate that, acknowledging in my evaluations that I don’t talk down to them. The advice I always give folks who are teaching basic writing for the first time is this: treat them with respect, and treat them as individuals. That’s it, and it goes a long way.
After reading Leonhardy’s article, I am questioning whether or not I provide enough opportunities for my students to do personal writing. I moved away from personal essays early on, trying to focus on “academic writing.” Leohardy argues that instructors should use assignments to help vets (and all students) move from the personal to the public, starting with freewriting and narratives and eventually moving on to research-based writing. I have been long thinking about trying to find ways to encourage my students to incorporate themselves back into their writing, and I’ll really be focusing on that in 201 in the fall. I suppose it all comes down to teaching students to be able to examine the rhetorical situation, so they can determine when it is and when it is not appropriate to bring themselves into the writing.
Okay, I’m going to try and cut it short today—I really need to start working on my online class!
More tomorrow,
mk
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