Abisola Akinsiku
Decolonizing Teaching and Learning: Adopting Contemplative Pedagogy in Teaching of Writing
Brief Overview/Synthesis
Anderson et al. in defining contemplative education say it “consists of learning approaches that holistically develop awareness, insight, compassion for self, others, and the web of life” (46). They add, “the “fusion of critical– rational– logical– computational ways of knowing (for the sake of convenience, call it the “left modality” of knowing) with intuitive– perceptive– contemplative ways of knowing (call it the “right modality”), adds valuable “cognitive tools” to the intellectual repertoire” (47). Contemplative pedagogy as a useful tool in teaching writing has been the subject of many debates, and one of the biggest is that it is too self-driven. However, some scholars have counter-argued that it is an inclusive method that recognizes “the epistemic validity of first and second person ways of knowing, in its dynamic relationship with third person ways of knowing” (Anderson et.al 2020).
I believe it is an interesting scope of knowledge especially in a post-pandemic world where education is still being impacted by the corona virus. At this point in history, we “need an education that integrates the development of the mind with development of the heart” (Anderson et.al 48). In this annotated bibliography, authors provide diverse ways they have adopted contemplative styles in developing teaching goals, teaching writing to first-year students, and designing academic curricula.
Annotated Bibliography
Kinane, Karolyn. The Place of Practice in Contemplative Pedagogy and Writing. Across the Disciplines, vol. 16, no. 1, 2019, pp. 1-10. doi.org/10.37514/ATD-J.2019.16.1.02
Kinane in this article uses her class stories alongside contemplative pedagogy concepts to explain how she helped her class become a functioning playful, curious community where writing lesson is steeped deeply in process and building of character. She scaffolds her argument with personal class-room experience and process to explain how she adopts these practical contemplative procedures in teaching writing. Using material presentation blend with personal stories, she humanizes the students to one another thus creating a safe space, they gain agency, and have their voices heard. Using weekly journaling, (as-practice-process) first person critical enquiry, reflection compassionate listening, anonymous weekly validation, the reframing of feedback as gift offering, and the use of three-part-notes-response, she provoked playfulness which enriched their sense of community. Cumulatively, these helped them become more present writers who are more aware of their writing process and growth. Through the examples she gives and the result she records, we can glean possible practical ways of building strong writing community.
Burnham, Chris & Powell Rebecca. Expressive Pedagogy Practice/Theory, Theory/Practice. A Guide to Composition Pedagogies 2nd ed., 2014, pp. 111-126.
Burnham and Powell’s chapter is instructive and straddles a particularly important to contemplative pedagogy of writing because it settles on one free-writing, one of contemplative pedagogy's popular writing method. It situates the progressive journey by mapping the historical development of Expressive pedagogy. They both capture it succinctly, expressivism is not dead, it grew up. useful in this annotation because expressive pedagogy is linked to contemplative pedagogy, especially free writing and journal writing process. It maps the history and development of the perspective of scholars to the evolvement of expressive pedagogy over the years. It is instructive in the way it shows how expressive and contemplative methods connect with other pedagogical methods of teaching writing. Expressive pedagogy has grown from being an anti-textbook method to what bell hooks call “engaged pedagogy” which according to her allows holistic teaching and self-reflexive writing and brings student to voice which is self-actualization. As noted by Hawk’s, expressivism can be used in a vitalist way where writers adopt the personal in conjunction with social, historical, and material reality.
Zamin, Nadia Francine. Building a Contemplative Research Writing Course: Theoretical Considerations, Practical Components, Challenges, and Adaptability. Across the Disciplines, vol. 16, no. 1, 2019, 1-12. doi.org/10.37514/ATD-J.2019.16.1.03
Zamine’s article is unique because it hopes to equip students in a first-year writing class with intellectual and composition-based skills that may help them approach, engage, interpret, and contextualize complexity in writing and life. She advocates for a writing pedagogy that considers the student as a whole person and as a human. She argues that more than ever before, we are teaching and writing in the time of heightened crisis, and her postulations are useful in our post-pandemic world. Providing epistemological questions that can help writing teacher as they design their class, she also includes practical components that teachers can adopt as they design and teach first-year student writing class. She tackles the challenges that writing contemplative pedagogy faces on three levels, from the students, mentors, peers, and the teacher’s perspectives. It uniquely contributes to our understanding of writing because it situates practical methods within theoretical contemplative pedagogical frameworks. It is helpful for teachers who want to move beyond ideology to practical steps, methods, and styles that they can successfully use.
Anderson, Laurie et al. Pedagogical Infusion of the Contemplative SFU’s Contemplative Inquiry Master’s of Education Program in Canada. Contemplative Pedagogies for Transformative Teaching, Learning, and Being, sec. 2, chap. 3, 2020, pp. 45-67.
I am adding this book chapter because it narrates how contemplative inquiry and practice might be useful in education. It narrates the story of the design of a contemplative graduate program in Simon Fraser University, Canada. It also provides testimonials of students after the completion of their program. Although it tackles arguments about the usefulness of contemplative pedagogy and the arguments about classic mediation and contemporary, edition and how that might impact the practice of contemplative pedagogy, it is useful because it shows how contemplative pedagogy is useful not only in building an academic program but in the designing of syllabus. Using discourse communities, the continuous practice of check-ins, the creation of space for individual instructors’ unique contemplative style, the master’s program in contemplative education turned out successful. I believe this chapter might be useful for writing teachers who are wondering if contemplative pedagogy is in any way beneficial and others who might be wondering about how to adopt it in their course designs.
Works Cited:
Anderson. Laurie et al. Pedagogical Infusion of the Contemplative SFU’s Contemplative Inquiry Master’s of Education Program in Canada. Contemplative Pedagogies for Transformative Teaching, Learning, and Being, 2020, sec. 2 chap. 3 pp. 45-67.
Burnham, Chris & Powell Rebecca. Expressive Pedagogy Practice/Theory, Theory/Practice. A Guide to Composition Pedagogies 2nd ed., 2014, pp. 111-126.
Kinane, Karolyn. The Place of Practice in Contemplative Pedagogy and Writing. Across the Disciplines, vol. 16, no. 1, 2019, pp. 1-10. doi.org/10.37514/ATD-J.2019.16.1.02
Zamin, Nadia Francine. Building a Contemplative Research Writing Course: Theoretical Considerations, Practical Components, Challenges, and Adaptability. Across the Disciplines, vol. 16, no. 1, 2019, 1-12. doi.org/10.37514/ATD-J.2019.16.1.03
Further Resources
Bai, H. et al. “Contemplative Pedagogy and Revitalization of Teacher Education.” Alberta Journal of Educational Research, vol. 55, no. 3, 2009, pp.319– 334.
Barbezat, P. Daniel and Mirabai Bush. Contemplative Practices in Higher Education: Powerful Methods to Transform Teaching and Learning. Jossey-Bass, 2014.
Miller, Marlowe et al., editors. Contemplative Writing Across the Disciplines, special issue of Across the Disciplines, vol. 16, no. 1, 2019.
Dalton, E, Jane et al., editors. The Teaching Self: Contemplative Practices, Pedagogy, and Research in Education. 2018.
Byrnes, Kathryn et al., editors. Cultivating a Culture of Learning: Contemplative Practices, Pedagogy and Research in Education. Rowman & Littlefield, 2018.
Gunnlaugson, Olen et al. editors. Contemplative Learning and Inquiry across Disciplines. State University of New York Press, 2014.
Lin, Jing et al., editors. Contemplative Pedagogies for Transformative Teaching, Learning, and Being. Information Age Publishing, 2019.
O’Reilley, Mary Rose. Radical Presence: Teaching as Contemplative Practice. NH:
Boynton/Cook, 1998.
Roth, D. Harold. “Contemplative Studies: Prospects for a New Field.” Teachers College Record, vol. 108, no. 9, 2006, pp. 1787–1815. doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9620.2006.00762.x
Smith, Christian. “Contemplative Listening, Contemplative Literacy [Symposium]” Literacy in Composition Studies vol. 5.no. 1, 2017, pp. 81-84.
Todd, Sharon, et al. “Contemplative Pedagogy and Mindfulness: Developing Creative Attention in an Age of Distraction.” Journal of Philosophy of Education, vol. 49, no. 2, 2015, pp. 187–202.
Wegner, Christy I. Yoga minds, writing bodies: Contemplative Writing Pedagogy. Parlor Press, 2015.
Zajonc, A. Love and Knowledge: Recovering the heart of learning through contemplation. Teachers College Record, vol. 108, no. 9, 2016, pp. 150-159
Contemplative Freewriting Prompts (Organized During a Semester)
These exercises are curled from Nadia Francine Zamin’s “Building a Contemplative Research Writing Course: Theoretical Considerations, Practical Components, Challenges, and Adaptability” and Karolyn Kinane’s “The Place of Practice in Contemplative Pedagogy and Writing” The prompts will be used on Fridays to help my class in 7minutes of contemplative writing. The class will agree on an instrumental music that they love to hear play solemnly, as they write. Consider it as an experience.
The goals are to help students,
At the end of every unit, we will take time to do what Karolyn Kinane calls first-person critical inquiry into contemplative Journaling. This critical enquiry will help student practice “noticing” and shift students’ attention to the way they work, write, and think. I adapted the Friday prompts from Nadia Francine Zamin and added my prompts. I also adapted the first-person critical inquiry into contemplative Journaling from Karolyn Kinane.
Early-semester
At the end of each unit, I will ask students to randomly open their journal, read an early entry, and critically investigate their own experience. That is, rather than writing a summative reflective response to the process or product of journaling overall, they looked closely at one journal entry and simply noticed: Where is the writing interesting? Where do you, as a reader, get bored? Then I will ask them: What do you remember about your contexts for writing this entry? Where were you? Why did you write on this topic? What mood were you in? What were your somatic experiences—hunger, thirst, sleepiness, pain, etc.? Then, for fifteen minutes, they will take time to write about their thoughts and feelings about their observations.
Brief Overview/Synthesis
Anderson et al. in defining contemplative education say it “consists of learning approaches that holistically develop awareness, insight, compassion for self, others, and the web of life” (46). They add, “the “fusion of critical– rational– logical– computational ways of knowing (for the sake of convenience, call it the “left modality” of knowing) with intuitive– perceptive– contemplative ways of knowing (call it the “right modality”), adds valuable “cognitive tools” to the intellectual repertoire” (47). Contemplative pedagogy as a useful tool in teaching writing has been the subject of many debates, and one of the biggest is that it is too self-driven. However, some scholars have counter-argued that it is an inclusive method that recognizes “the epistemic validity of first and second person ways of knowing, in its dynamic relationship with third person ways of knowing” (Anderson et.al 2020).
I believe it is an interesting scope of knowledge especially in a post-pandemic world where education is still being impacted by the corona virus. At this point in history, we “need an education that integrates the development of the mind with development of the heart” (Anderson et.al 48). In this annotated bibliography, authors provide diverse ways they have adopted contemplative styles in developing teaching goals, teaching writing to first-year students, and designing academic curricula.
Annotated Bibliography
Kinane, Karolyn. The Place of Practice in Contemplative Pedagogy and Writing. Across the Disciplines, vol. 16, no. 1, 2019, pp. 1-10. doi.org/10.37514/ATD-J.2019.16.1.02
Kinane in this article uses her class stories alongside contemplative pedagogy concepts to explain how she helped her class become a functioning playful, curious community where writing lesson is steeped deeply in process and building of character. She scaffolds her argument with personal class-room experience and process to explain how she adopts these practical contemplative procedures in teaching writing. Using material presentation blend with personal stories, she humanizes the students to one another thus creating a safe space, they gain agency, and have their voices heard. Using weekly journaling, (as-practice-process) first person critical enquiry, reflection compassionate listening, anonymous weekly validation, the reframing of feedback as gift offering, and the use of three-part-notes-response, she provoked playfulness which enriched their sense of community. Cumulatively, these helped them become more present writers who are more aware of their writing process and growth. Through the examples she gives and the result she records, we can glean possible practical ways of building strong writing community.
Burnham, Chris & Powell Rebecca. Expressive Pedagogy Practice/Theory, Theory/Practice. A Guide to Composition Pedagogies 2nd ed., 2014, pp. 111-126.
Burnham and Powell’s chapter is instructive and straddles a particularly important to contemplative pedagogy of writing because it settles on one free-writing, one of contemplative pedagogy's popular writing method. It situates the progressive journey by mapping the historical development of Expressive pedagogy. They both capture it succinctly, expressivism is not dead, it grew up. useful in this annotation because expressive pedagogy is linked to contemplative pedagogy, especially free writing and journal writing process. It maps the history and development of the perspective of scholars to the evolvement of expressive pedagogy over the years. It is instructive in the way it shows how expressive and contemplative methods connect with other pedagogical methods of teaching writing. Expressive pedagogy has grown from being an anti-textbook method to what bell hooks call “engaged pedagogy” which according to her allows holistic teaching and self-reflexive writing and brings student to voice which is self-actualization. As noted by Hawk’s, expressivism can be used in a vitalist way where writers adopt the personal in conjunction with social, historical, and material reality.
Zamin, Nadia Francine. Building a Contemplative Research Writing Course: Theoretical Considerations, Practical Components, Challenges, and Adaptability. Across the Disciplines, vol. 16, no. 1, 2019, 1-12. doi.org/10.37514/ATD-J.2019.16.1.03
Zamine’s article is unique because it hopes to equip students in a first-year writing class with intellectual and composition-based skills that may help them approach, engage, interpret, and contextualize complexity in writing and life. She advocates for a writing pedagogy that considers the student as a whole person and as a human. She argues that more than ever before, we are teaching and writing in the time of heightened crisis, and her postulations are useful in our post-pandemic world. Providing epistemological questions that can help writing teacher as they design their class, she also includes practical components that teachers can adopt as they design and teach first-year student writing class. She tackles the challenges that writing contemplative pedagogy faces on three levels, from the students, mentors, peers, and the teacher’s perspectives. It uniquely contributes to our understanding of writing because it situates practical methods within theoretical contemplative pedagogical frameworks. It is helpful for teachers who want to move beyond ideology to practical steps, methods, and styles that they can successfully use.
Anderson, Laurie et al. Pedagogical Infusion of the Contemplative SFU’s Contemplative Inquiry Master’s of Education Program in Canada. Contemplative Pedagogies for Transformative Teaching, Learning, and Being, sec. 2, chap. 3, 2020, pp. 45-67.
I am adding this book chapter because it narrates how contemplative inquiry and practice might be useful in education. It narrates the story of the design of a contemplative graduate program in Simon Fraser University, Canada. It also provides testimonials of students after the completion of their program. Although it tackles arguments about the usefulness of contemplative pedagogy and the arguments about classic mediation and contemporary, edition and how that might impact the practice of contemplative pedagogy, it is useful because it shows how contemplative pedagogy is useful not only in building an academic program but in the designing of syllabus. Using discourse communities, the continuous practice of check-ins, the creation of space for individual instructors’ unique contemplative style, the master’s program in contemplative education turned out successful. I believe this chapter might be useful for writing teachers who are wondering if contemplative pedagogy is in any way beneficial and others who might be wondering about how to adopt it in their course designs.
Works Cited:
Anderson. Laurie et al. Pedagogical Infusion of the Contemplative SFU’s Contemplative Inquiry Master’s of Education Program in Canada. Contemplative Pedagogies for Transformative Teaching, Learning, and Being, 2020, sec. 2 chap. 3 pp. 45-67.
Burnham, Chris & Powell Rebecca. Expressive Pedagogy Practice/Theory, Theory/Practice. A Guide to Composition Pedagogies 2nd ed., 2014, pp. 111-126.
Kinane, Karolyn. The Place of Practice in Contemplative Pedagogy and Writing. Across the Disciplines, vol. 16, no. 1, 2019, pp. 1-10. doi.org/10.37514/ATD-J.2019.16.1.02
Zamin, Nadia Francine. Building a Contemplative Research Writing Course: Theoretical Considerations, Practical Components, Challenges, and Adaptability. Across the Disciplines, vol. 16, no. 1, 2019, 1-12. doi.org/10.37514/ATD-J.2019.16.1.03
Further Resources
Bai, H. et al. “Contemplative Pedagogy and Revitalization of Teacher Education.” Alberta Journal of Educational Research, vol. 55, no. 3, 2009, pp.319– 334.
Barbezat, P. Daniel and Mirabai Bush. Contemplative Practices in Higher Education: Powerful Methods to Transform Teaching and Learning. Jossey-Bass, 2014.
Miller, Marlowe et al., editors. Contemplative Writing Across the Disciplines, special issue of Across the Disciplines, vol. 16, no. 1, 2019.
Dalton, E, Jane et al., editors. The Teaching Self: Contemplative Practices, Pedagogy, and Research in Education. 2018.
Byrnes, Kathryn et al., editors. Cultivating a Culture of Learning: Contemplative Practices, Pedagogy and Research in Education. Rowman & Littlefield, 2018.
Gunnlaugson, Olen et al. editors. Contemplative Learning and Inquiry across Disciplines. State University of New York Press, 2014.
Lin, Jing et al., editors. Contemplative Pedagogies for Transformative Teaching, Learning, and Being. Information Age Publishing, 2019.
O’Reilley, Mary Rose. Radical Presence: Teaching as Contemplative Practice. NH:
Boynton/Cook, 1998.
Roth, D. Harold. “Contemplative Studies: Prospects for a New Field.” Teachers College Record, vol. 108, no. 9, 2006, pp. 1787–1815. doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9620.2006.00762.x
Smith, Christian. “Contemplative Listening, Contemplative Literacy [Symposium]” Literacy in Composition Studies vol. 5.no. 1, 2017, pp. 81-84.
Todd, Sharon, et al. “Contemplative Pedagogy and Mindfulness: Developing Creative Attention in an Age of Distraction.” Journal of Philosophy of Education, vol. 49, no. 2, 2015, pp. 187–202.
Wegner, Christy I. Yoga minds, writing bodies: Contemplative Writing Pedagogy. Parlor Press, 2015.
Zajonc, A. Love and Knowledge: Recovering the heart of learning through contemplation. Teachers College Record, vol. 108, no. 9, 2016, pp. 150-159
Contemplative Freewriting Prompts (Organized During a Semester)
These exercises are curled from Nadia Francine Zamin’s “Building a Contemplative Research Writing Course: Theoretical Considerations, Practical Components, Challenges, and Adaptability” and Karolyn Kinane’s “The Place of Practice in Contemplative Pedagogy and Writing” The prompts will be used on Fridays to help my class in 7minutes of contemplative writing. The class will agree on an instrumental music that they love to hear play solemnly, as they write. Consider it as an experience.
The goals are to help students,
- Build a writing practice, a continuous and consistent culture of personal journaling.
- Help them initiate first person critical inquiry into their own writing
- Awaken them to their rhetorical choices in writing about their experiences.
- Ultimately, help students practice awareness in writing, which will help them become engaged and present in writing to any audience.
At the end of every unit, we will take time to do what Karolyn Kinane calls first-person critical inquiry into contemplative Journaling. This critical enquiry will help student practice “noticing” and shift students’ attention to the way they work, write, and think. I adapted the Friday prompts from Nadia Francine Zamin and added my prompts. I also adapted the first-person critical inquiry into contemplative Journaling from Karolyn Kinane.
Early-semester
- Describe three realistic goals you would like to achieve this semester.
- Complete this thought: “I wish I spent more time…”
- What are the most important questions in your life right now?
- What do you need to say that you have not said yet? To whom do you need to say this?
- Have you ever experienced something that just could not be logically explained?
- Describe one thing in your life that is simple and one that thing that is complex.
- What do you know is true?
- Describe a time when you said “no.”
- How can you help?
- List 25 things that you love about yourself.
- What was the last thing that you read, heard, or saw that gave you hope?
- Describe the last time you felt proud of yourself.
- Consider your goals from the beginning of the semester. What do you know now that you did not know before? then? What have you learned? What more do you have to learn?
- Describe your most memorable billboard experience. What message was on it and why did it stick forever?
- What was the most memorable letter or message you wrote or received? Why was it memorable?
- What matters to you
- What social issues matter to you?
- If you can change the world, what would you change first?
- In your view, how can the world be a better place?
At the end of each unit, I will ask students to randomly open their journal, read an early entry, and critically investigate their own experience. That is, rather than writing a summative reflective response to the process or product of journaling overall, they looked closely at one journal entry and simply noticed: Where is the writing interesting? Where do you, as a reader, get bored? Then I will ask them: What do you remember about your contexts for writing this entry? Where were you? Why did you write on this topic? What mood were you in? What were your somatic experiences—hunger, thirst, sleepiness, pain, etc.? Then, for fifteen minutes, they will take time to write about their thoughts and feelings about their observations.