Conflicts and Crises in the Composition Classroom: and What Instructors Can Do About Them

Classroom crises challenge all writing instructors, especially when they are new to the field. But even an old pro's resources can be stretched thin when race or gender becomes an issue or, more insidiously, when a difficult student undermines the course, questions professorial authority, or―worst of all―creates an atmosphere of distrust and dislike. Situations like these can derail a semester, but they also can encourage a reexamination of composition theory and a reinvention of classroom practice.

Conflicts and Crises in the Composition Classroom takes you inside 17 real-life composition classrooms and explores how you can defuse potentially explosive situations and reinvigorate your teaching. Each story opens a window into day-to-day practice in classrooms where learning to write suddenly takes a backseat to dealing with conflict:

You strongly suspect a student of plagiarism, but you lack definitive proof. How do you address the issue?
One class member dominates discussions and disrupts students' sense of their own community. How do you get the class back on track?
External events cause an explicit and bitter division among your students along a racial divide. How can you restore a sense of community and foster productive discussions?

Dawn Skorczewski is Assistant Professor of Writing, Literature, and Publishing, and Director of Composition at Emerson College. She has recently completed Teaching Writing One Moment at a Time, a book that explores intersections between infant research, psychoanalytic theory, and the teaching of writing, and has published articles on composition and on representations of father-daughter incest in poetry.

Matthew Parfitt is Associate Professor in the Division of Humanities and Rhetoric at the College of General Studies, Boston University. He has been teaching composition for over ten years, and has published work on composition, interpretation theory, and the literature of the First World War. He is coeditor of Cultural Conversations: The Presence of the Past.