Tensions Between My Teaching Philosophy and SFSU's Learning Objectives

How I formatted my "teaching philosophy" mostly aligns with SFSU's Learning Objectives. If anything, I think there would be tension between what goals I prioritize.

Here are the SFSU goals listed with their original numbers, but in the order I would prioritize them:

1. Read actively and effectively and use information acquired from readings, research and other sources critically in their own writing.

3. Reflect on their reading and writing processes as an avenue to achieving greater control of these processes and increased effectiveness as readers and writers.

8. Grain and use knowledge of the academic community to support their development as learners, readers and writers.

2. Use writing processes and strategies for generating, revising, editing, and proofreading their work; collaborate with others during the writing process, developing ways to offer constructive criticism and accept the criticism of others.

6. Use evidence and analysis to successfully support the central purpose of their writing; demonstrate ethical conduct in their writing and the appropriate use and citation of the works of others;

4. Demonstrate a basic familiarity with rhetorical conventions, composing effective expository prose with regard to purpose, audience and genre.

5. Create and apply a research plan to locate, use and evaluate information from a variety of sources, including library resources.

7. Develop knowledge of genre conventions ranging from structure and paragraphing to tone and mechanics; control such surface features as syntax, grammar, punctuation, and spelling;

• Number one remains the same, since I believe that active reading creates critical thinkers who can write critically and analytically. 
• I bumped up number three, since I believe metacognitive self-awareness may greatly increase students buy-in to schooling as well as support them in their educational endeavors. 
• Both DoC and FAC influenced the repositioning of number 8 into the number three position, where constructing an academic community that introduces students into the larger college community becomes a main goal within the composition classroom. 

I notice, now, that I moved most of the mechanical aspects to the second half of the list. I still value these goals. (From my middle school teaching experience, I have seen how helpful grammatical and structural instruction is.) However, there is an inherent tension between my teaching philosophy (and probably many teacher's philosophies) and explicit grammatical instruction, in that without it, students cannot completely engage in the academic community.

Teaching rhetorical, critical, and analytical thinking, reading, and writing is the only way to truly introduce students to academia. The tension lies in the balance between the meta-objectives and the essay-level objectives.