And So it Begins

At the close of every semester, after I've posted final grades, emptied the recycling beneath my desk, and shoved the high heels from my bottom drawer and the suit jackets from the coat rack into a reusable grocery bag, I scan my bookshelf to grab the books I'll likely use next semester along with a few runners up and jam them into my wheeled briefcase along with my overstuffed file folders, my padded portfolio, and my grade book.

I pretend I will pore over my teaching materials early in the break, while everything from the semester is still fresh, particularly the last few weeks when I jotted down less "notes for future semesters" and when daily agendas began to look less like stimulating lesson plans and more like desperate to do lists. During the latter third and especially quarter of each semester I begin to stare at the students who come to my office to go over revisions and wince as I realize aloud: "Known-new. Known-new! We still haven't gone over the known-new contract!" I will then rush to my scanned .pdfs and hastily throw the four pages from the old department handbook onto the class website and pray that at least a few students will read and digest it.

They won't.

Nor will I pore over any of the contents of my briefcase until long after the semester has ended. I will instead open everything only when I am within hours of the deadline to order books for the upcoming semester.

I seem to change books each semester. I have good reasons. I am balancing an almost impossible load of objectives. The program's objectives--the learning outcomes, as they are blandly known--are enough to fill three semesters. Everyone knows this. And everyone knows there is nothing we can do about it. I have my own objectives, which isn't to say that I have different ones than what the program demands; I simply prioritize certain things a bit differently (N.B.: I've given up on visual rhetoric. Of course it's important--it's vital in these times. But in a battle against the clock, when forced to choose between deconstructing an ad campaign and revisiting FANBOYS, I yield to the latter. I don't care if my students should have mastered comma placement by the time they started high school. They haven't. If not with me, then when?). And, of course, I my students': cost and credibility.

When my students get to the bookstore and go to the long aisles with books for English 101, they will see that most sections have three books: the main rhetoric/ reader, the handbook, and They Say, I Say. The first two will be packaged together in many instances, a special gift from Pearson Longman. My students will move past these piles, though; when they see my name, they will see a different rhetoric and a different handbook. They won't be packaged. They'll be more expensive. And this will be their first impression of me.

Regarding the reader: the program has for years had its own main textbook. Years ago, it was spiral bound with perforated pages. All of the assignments were explained within the first few pages, then large sections on rhetorical skills, arrangement, and style. Since I've been teaching here, this textbook has grown up and is bound like a normal book. It looks more professional. The content is basically the same, but more sophisticated, with lots of good material excerpted from other textbooks incorporated throughout. Everything that I am supposed to do in my classes is laid out in this book. For this I should be grateful.

I'm not. The book's strengths--that it's a special book specific to the needs of this program--are also its weaknesses: grabbing material from several other textbooks invariably leads to some repetition and a lot of confusion. That there are countless ways to approach, let alone teach, rhetorical theory and composition is, I believe, one of the biggest downfalls of my entire discipline. It's just too much. I know this firsthand; too often, I supplement the lesson or the chapter or whatever it is we're working on with another online handout, another way to approach something that's a little bit easier, more clear, I'll tell my students. "This is from a textbook I used to use," I said far too often last semester.

So, why didn't I assign that textbook?

The reasons I didn't assign it boil down to my program's preference. It's not one of the favored texts; it's not one of the six or so texts borrowed from for the program's custom book. I didn't want to stray too far from my boss's preferences; I am, after all, a humble adjunct. But the eighth edition of Ramage's Writing Arguments is too good to ignore. Argument as inquiry: check. The core of argument, Toulmin style: check. Rhetorical appeals: check. Rhetorical analysis: check. Stasis theory, here simplified to "claim types": check. It's all here.

My choice to adopt the DK Handbook over Diana Hacker will be explained in another post. Keywords: accessibility, visual aids, organizational logic, student feedback.

As I sign off here to finally order these texts, I nod my head in deep appreciation to my former students who let me know, directly and indirectly, what was wrong with the texts I used to use and look forward to meeting my new students who will likely never know how much thought goes into textbook adoption but will reap the benefits nonetheless.