I hope this pertains...

The closest thing to a composition course that I have taken at a university level would be my Introduction to Literature class or my Introduction to Fiction course. I’m not entirely sure if this counts as a course to respond to this topic with, but I really don’t know much about English 1010 or 2010, so I can’t really base my answer on those classes.

My introduction courses mostly consisted of reading short stories or books, writing responses on these, and then discussing what we read in class. I absolutely loved this way of teaching. I loved being able to read and write what I felt about each particular reading and then come to class to hear what others had to say about the same assigned text. Sometimes I would read a story and have an idea of what it was about and then come in to class to find myself completely mistaken in my response. I learned so much from the students that I was around and I was able to grow in my ability to critically think about these texts.

I just finished my response to Paulo Freire’s The Banking Concept of Education, and I can honestly see that his concept of problem posing form of education was implemented into my introduction courses. I’m not sure if this was a conscious effort made by my professors, but being allowed to question what I was reading made me feel that I was an integral part of my education. I loved being able to discuss the problems I found with my professor(s) and my peers regarding each piece of writing we were asked to read. This form of learning helped me to feel in control of my education and helped me feel that I could eventually analyze texts myself if I were ever asked to do so.

This form of teaching also made me feel open to being wrong about my notions of a text because it would help me learn more about the writing and the author. I wasn’t upset by another student’s opposing views because it helped strengthen my own ideas. I feel that my professors were very skilled in leading class discussions in a way that did not leave us feeling like students that were being filled with the professor’s knowledge. Instead, we left class feeling that we had contributed to each discussion and had gained from the opinions of others.

I really hope that my topic pertains to this prompt. I’m not entirely sure that I answered the question as you were looking for, but I do believe that this class was set up in a way to help the students learn as much as possible about each text through discussion and through an encouragement to question every text.