People have been asking me--friends and my parents mostly, but also the professor who hired me--why I am so bent on teaching developmental composition (ENG 095) instead of traditional first-year composition courses. After a couple months of letting the question rattle around in my mind, I think I've got an answer.
My friend Sparky called me a humanitarian for my reasoning; whether or not I am remains to be seen, though my reasons for wanting to teach developmental comp. are my own--and are not geared toward casting myself as "humanitarian."
As we sat in his office the day he hired me, I could not give the professor an answer past "I dunno, I just feel like I should," when he asked me why I was determined to teach developmental comp. instead of "Freshman" Composition I & II. Another friend of mine, Jason, told me he felt like he learned more from his students than they him, and I sort-of feel that way about my future students.
My logic is thus: at my university, every bachelor's degree student, to my knowledge, is required to take ENG 101 and 102; those needing additional assistance enroll in ENG 090 and/or 095, depending on the results of their SAT or ACT score. The verb "require" is a major factor in my desire to work with developmental students. Not only are they required to take ENG 090 or 095, they also need the assistance.
Need is a much, much better verb than require, and I think it can work to subvert the assumptions usually associated with requirements: namely that a requirement is something a person does because she or he has to do it, not because she or he might benefit from it, or, perish the thought, enjoy it.
I hope quite a lot that I can further the cause of need towards a goal of a desire to at least clearly articulate oneself in writing. If students can be shown the value of satisfying such a need--and most importantly, if they are shown directly how to satisfy that need outside of the classroom incubator--they might indirectly desire to better their writing. By "indirectly desire" I mean I want my students to develop the zeal of a novelist toward their writing assignments, but I expect them, realistically, to engage their writing clearly and effectively only when they see the vocational and "for school" sorts of applications. If I happen upon an Einstein of prose I would be elated, but I'm not illusioned by the thought that everyone has the desire to write like Einstein did physics.
As with a lot of fields, the middle ground is the most fertile; in my case, the middle ground is between need and requirement.
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