Introduction: English Classrooms as Social Spaces: Using Collaboration to Foster Student-Centered Learning

Abstract

Perhaps one of the most persistent challenges we face as English instructors is finding ways to engage students from a variety of discipline-specific backgrounds not only with writing assignments but also with each other in the classroom. Because many of the classes we teach are general education requirements or general electives, open to students of all majors, the student make-up of the classroom can vary greatly. Sometimes this situation can have the unfortunate consequence of segmented classrooms where alienated students do not bother to learn even the names of their peers. No matter who enrolls in our classrooms, though, the central goals for all English classes—composition, professional and technical communication, creative wring, introduction to literature—remain similar: we want to foster critical and creative thinking and the skillful use of language and genre knowledge. We want students to build an understanding of themselves as writers who compose as part of a chain of discourse for an audience. Finally, we want students to learn that writing and knowledge can never be made productively in isolation, a belief perpetuated by the myth of the solitary author-genius.