comp without lit

There was a thought in my head that I wasn't really sure how to articulate in class today. I know that our goal as composition teachers is to engage our students in critical thinking. We want to help them articulate ideas, make arguments, and generally think in new and challenging contexts. How we go about doing this, it seems, is pretty flexible.

I did my first class observation this morning and the experience was completely unexpected. I’d anticipated a discussion relating to a short story or novel, or at least some vaguely social or literary topic. Instead we watched a student play Mega Man 3 for the Nintendo Entertainment System.

Well, that’s not fair, we didn’t just play Nintendo. The video game was part of a larger lecture regarding semiotic domains and the distinction of specific motifs in specific contexts. The course is themed around popular culture. This particular section focused upon video games and how they can be seen (and are therefore useful) as a series of problem solving exercises. The teacher draws much of his theory, and his class readings, from James Paul Gee.

I'm not saying that simply because the class involved video games that nobody learned anything. On the contrary, I witnessed some challenging concepts being conveyed through a medium that students today are likely to accept and embrace. This particular teacher is achieving his goals: he's getting students to think critically.

That said, I did feel a twinge of disappointment. It strikes me that one can teach a composition class without ever reaching into the body of works that would traditionally be called "literature." We can use New York Times articles in our class readings; we can use articles on culture, politics, gender; we can use movies and video games. We can use so many things to dissect so many different issues that there's really no absolute need to include a story, a novel, a play, even a comic book.

It makes me wonder if I am overstepping my bounds to want to go beyond helping my students to think critically and "learn how to learn." I know they won't all be English majors. Maybe none of them will. But I would like to at least try and instill in them an appreciation for literature. It's so common today to hear people say "Nobody reads anymore." This clearly isn't true. Everybody reads. But what we read is definitely changing. Maybe novels and short stories really are going out of style. I'm just surprised that you can already have a comp class without them.