Composition and Tragicomic Hope

Much of Gilyard's chapter can be applied in the teaching of composition. Gilyard points out that Emerson, recognized by West "as the most important forerunner of American pragmatism," valued "self-definition and people's perceptions" over knowledge created by philosophers.

Presumably, West also favors self-definition and participation in knowledge creation over knowledge created elsewhere and pressed upon students. If we are to value self-definition, then composition instructors must validate the knowledge students bring into the classroom with them. Otherwise, we are not helping students to compose, putting different things together into 1 cohesive whole, but giving them a whole and teaching them to swallow it, which is not composition at all and does not foster critical intelligence. As composition instructors, we would do better to make fostering critical intelligence our goal rather than having students create error free compositions. In West's analysis of Dewey, he says that Dewey's guiding purpose was "to demystify and defend critical intelligence.to render it more and more serviceable for the enhancement of human individuality, that is, the promotion of human beings who better control their conditions and thereby more fully create themselves"

(9). For me, language and composition are intrinsically tied to the "enhancement of human individuality." Now this may be because I am not a math teacher, but I think the composition classroom is the best place to help students figure out how to "control their conditions" and to "create themselves" through the expression of their own voice.

I realize that I haven't said anything about tragicomic hope. I am still struggling with the concept and how to tie it concretely to the teaching of composition.

Tragicomic hope is defined "as the ability to laugh and retain a sense of life's joy-to preserve hope even while staring in the face of hate and hypocrisy-as against the falling into the nihilism of paralyzing despair." I can't really think of another profession as marked by tragicomic hope than that of the profession of teaching. Of course, that may be because I am a teacher. Year after year, we are told that the education system isn't working that we are not adequately preparing students for the real world.

Teachers are both blamed for the inadequacies of students and hailed as heroes fighting for our future against huge obstacles, apathy not the least of these. Yet, year after year teachers go back and keep trying. We know that in some ways we are like Sisyphus, but sometimes we know that we can push that boulder just high enough to make a difference. Perhaps without the notion of tragicomic hope, there would be no teachers.