Authority as a tension in the college composition classroom: Making the case for a teacher-centered, student-focused pedagogy

This study reconceptualizes a pedagogy for college composition that is teacher-centered and student focused. Working from the hypothesis that authority is a central classroom tension, the study utilized the lens of authority to examine teacher-student interaction in current composition classrooms at three higher education institutions in the Midwest during the Spring 2000 term. Thirteen composition specialists and more than one hundred college composition students participated in this study.; Specifically, composition teachers and students were observed and the research instrument of interaction analysis was used to depict teacher-student and student-student communication and interaction in real-life classroom situations. This method was used chiefly to develop support for the idea that authority in the composition classroom balances tenets of teacher- and student-centered pedagogies as they are extracted from current-traditional and process rhetoric respectively. The findings of the study suggest that more balanced pedagogies are already being utilized in college composition classrooms today. Therefore, a pedagogy based on the findings of this classroom research is rearticulated for college composition with teachers as its center and students as its focus. Based on this study's findings and rearticulated pedagogy, brief implications and suggestions for future research are suggested.