About My Project
- Traveling Back
- About My Project
- Spontaneous Praxis
- Sample Assignments
- In the FYC Classroom
- References
Overview and Aims of the Project
In this webtext, I present a model for using spontaneous composing as an invention strategy in FYC. This style of writing mimics the mind in motion and relinquishes style and form for the sake of capturing the essence of a thought. Particularly, I suggest this method as an alternative to—though not an entire replacement of—the traditional essayist literacies that remain at the heart of many composition classrooms. Building on Nedra Reynolds’s (2004) call for an increased interaction between composition and rhetoric and the field of geography, I suggest spontaneous composing as a form of place-based composing to engage students in situational, everyday, and new media literacy practices. This place-based writing acknowledges students’ own literacy practices and the technologies they employ in service of their everyday literacies. In so doing, I argue that a cognitive preoccupation with the forms and standards of academic writing can thwart students’ creativity, devalue their literacy practices, and discourage them from producing their best work. Conversely, spontaneous composing strategies enable students to focus on the ideas they seek to convey and place value on students’ knowledge and experiences. This webtext aims to achieve the following:
- To provide an overview of Jack Kerouac’s spontaneous prose, identifying some of the central tropes that characterize this method of composing.
- To discuss my rationale for opening up the FYC classroom to experimental forms, namely arguing why using a single, usually essayist model of literacy in FYC is problematic.
- To present a spontaneous composing praxis by describing some of the assignments and lesson plans I’ve created. Here I also illustrate some of the intersections and distinctions between spontaneous composing and freewriting.
