A Pedagogy of Collaboration in the DC/DE Classroom

Abstract

There are three approaches to teaching rhetoric that James Berlin and others in the field have written about extensively. The three types are current traditionalist, expressivist, and social epistemic. This paper consists of two major components. The first of which examines the differences in three different approaches to teaching rhetoric at the post-secondary level. The paper specifically advocates for adopting a social epistemic pedagogical approach to teaching rhetoric when designing a first-year composition course that utilizes frequent low stakes writing assignments and peer review for high stakes assignments rather than a current traditionalist or expressivist approach. The paper aims to look at what efforts can be made through pedagogical approaches to build a community in the classroom. A social epistemic approach to rhetoric focuses on how writing improves through a community effort. In conjunction with the social epistemic approach, the paper also examines social constructivist educational pedagogy. The paper explores ideas presented by Nancy Sommers, Peter Elbow, and Lev Vygotsky. The paper also examines other studies conducted on peer review for higher-stakes assignments. To create a meaningful peer review experience for students, a variation of Sommers's "dear reader letter" was created to help students consider what kind of feedback they want from their reviewer. There is also a reviewer checklist to help assist the peer reviewer during the review process. In connection with the rhetorical pedagogy, the paper also features a syllabus that can be modified for use at the post-secondary level to show what the low stakes writing assignments and peer review process would look like if implemented.