Feeling Accoplished ...

I'm feeling fairly accomplished this weekend.

While I have not completed my draft, I have made quite a few edits to my initial draft and feel confident in the concluding pages I have to come. I added to my introduction as well and feel it has helped to tie the full ideas I tried to express in the paper together.

Feeling accomplished after this weekend is a good thing.

Friday Goals/Accomplishments

Between Wednesday and Today I have completed a lot of my draft. I am currently at 6 pages - I am, however, worried a bit about my draft and that I may be shifting my focus a bit. I think I intended for my focus to shift coherently through the paper, but my goal for today will be to re-read my draft and make sure I'm still on target with my purpose. From there I still have some writing to do about the implications of my research for teachers - my ultimate audience. This work I think will be saved for later today and over the weekend.

In re-reading my work I have decided I need to address the privilege I feel is associated with academic discourse. My thesis and over all concern with this paper I want to focus on is how while academic discourse is a source of power and privilege that acts as a source of opporession of minority students, for the time being there may not be a way to overcome this source of power but there is a way to engage minority students in the discourse and bring them up in the hierarchary present in academic writing.

Along with this decision - I wrote a few more paragraphs (at 7 pages now) and penciled in some edits and questions to my draft.

Wed. goals/accomplishments

Today's goal is to get the foundation for part II of my seminar paper written. I am about half to 3/4 of the way through, so I should be able to finish it.

... and I did it! I also filled in some missing quotes from earlier paragraphs along with the 3 full paragraphs written. (I think I have more than just a foundation done for parts I-II now because I actually spent some time revising those today.)

I will try to work a few hours later today and complete part III of my outline.

Seminar Paper - Update

Today I worked on creating an outline and updating my annotated bibliography more. As far as writing pieces of my seminar paper - I pasted quotes into my outline from sources I wanted to use and wrote some key statements about different parts of my outline.

From here, I need to go through and begin pulling together my thoughts and the sources I have pasted into the outline into paragraphs and eventually ... the paper.

I feel like this process (which is new for me) will be much more beneficial to ensuring I have all the information included in my paper I want to .

My outline - without the sources and thoughts included - looks like this :
I. There are many voices in writing
II. The Academic Voice
a. Comprehension – Humphries
b. What is it? – Bartholomae
c. History - Rose
III. The Minority Voice
a. Royster
b. Melix
c. Lu
IV. Meshing of the minority and academic voices
a. Lydia
b. Glau
c. Majidi
d. Lu
e. Royster
f. What doesn’t work / What does work
V. Teaching – Engaging the minority in academic discourse
a. Northedge
b. Lu
c. Bizzell (Outer-directed theory)

My current Thesis reads:
The academic voice is one often misunderstood or not understood altogether by many students. For minority students for whom English is a second language and/or academic discourse is not represented in their day-to-day lives, engaging in academic discourse communities is particularly difficult and teaching these students to engage in the community requires particular attention.

Annotated Bibliography Revision Plan

My revising plan will be to:

1. Classify Sources
2. Find more sources – Probably will use Lu, Bartholame and Royster and complete survey of students.
3. Relate sources to each other

Annotated Bibliography

Humphries, Stella. "On Language as a Mirror." Reflections, vol. 1, no. 1: 87-90.

Humphries uses her article to relate her experience in the sciences to writing. In Humphries experience, which I think relates to academic writing, "intellectual elites" have a tendency to write in what she calls a "disembodied voice". This type of writing often results in incomprehension by many both within the "intellectual elite" community and outside it. Humphries argument is relevant because she points out how people within certain communities can get wrapped up in their particular style of writing and forget the original purpose of the writing. I think academic discourse communities are guilty of this, especially when it comes to minority students.

Rose, Mike. "The Language of Exclusion: Writing Instruction at the University." College English, Vol.47, No. 4. (Apr., 1985), pp. 341-359.

One of the most beneficial pieces of Rose's article is the history of writing he gives. Rose brings an understanding of literacy and what it has to do with writing and the instruction of writing, particularly at the university level. When studying the different ways cultures learn, Rose's article will be useful to determine if the ways teachers are teaching match up with the ways students learn how to be part of the discourse community.

Inquiry Project - 'Factness'

Whom could I talk to who could provide me with information that has factness about this question?

I could talk with Roger Moreano, Director of Intercultural Student Affairs - who works on a regular basis with students of differing social and economic status. Also, Kathy Rust, a coordinator for the Intercultural Studies Program, or Ann Frank Wake, a coordinator for the Intercultural Studies Program and Chair of the English department. Also Ron Wiginton who is well versed in writing as well as topics related to people of differing social and economic status. I would also like to talk with students who may have experiences with writing in academic discourse and how their social or economic status has benefited or hindered their education and access to the discourse community.

What could I read that would provide me with information that has factness about this question?

There are several areas I could turn to for reading on this topic. Newsletters or magazines related to issues of diversity might be particularly interesting to get a feel for the experience of the individuals I am most interested in understanding the experiences of. Also composition theorists, but also work by scholars in other academic discourse communities, such as science or maths. These scholars in particular may help me to gain a better understanding of the broad spectrum of how people of differing social and economic status are affected when it comes to academic discourse.

What else could I do besides talk to people and read to acquire information or factness about this question? (Jolliffe 75)

Observation. Observing people in their comfort-zones of discourse (both talk and writing) could be important. How do people talk or write differently within their own communities outside the academic discourse community? Are there differences between the social/economic groups?

Inquiry Contract: Reflecting on your own writing

When the general public considers the subject I'm working with: they will probably want to know what is meant by "academic discourse" and what are the general rules that make something "academic discourse." Scholarly discourse communities along with the general public will be interested and it will be important to discuss why access to academic discourse is important (or not) for people of differing social and economic backgrounds.

Status quo assumptions in discussions of my topic are that people from minority groups are not as good of writers as people from the majority. It is almost universally believed that people from minority groups have just as equal access to academic discourse communities as people from majority groups.

People who write on my subject typically would like to make academic discourse communities more accessible to students from minority groups. They would expect readers to strongly believe in equality - especially when it comes to education.

Inquiry Contract

ENG 401: Inquiry Contract

I am interested in looking at academic discourse and the accessibility of academic discourse to people of differing social and economic statuses. I am interested in this topic and motivated to research it first because I have an interest in understanding people of different cultures and the communication mechanisms between them. Secondly, I am interested in this topic because I would like to find out if academic discourse is effective and able to reach a wide array of audiences.

While I try to keep an open-mind regarding academic discourse, my current perceptions are that academic discourse, as it is normally presented, is alienating of several audiences. I think one of the main reasons there are less traditional-minority students in higher education is because of their lack of proper instruction and understanding of academic discourse. I agree with some theorists who have said academic discourse is confusing and often incomprehensible to those outside the particular discourse community. There are clear rules and guidelines for academic discourse that I believe students, particularly from social and economic minority groups.

The questions I will try to address in my inquiry project are:
1) Are students from differing social and economic minority groups less likely to effectively engage in academic discourse than students from majority social and economic groups?
2) How can teachers make academic discourse communities more accessible to all students?

Sources:

Primary – I will do interviews and possibly survey College students of differing social and economic backgrounds.

Secondary – “On Language as a Mirror” by Stella Humphries, Reflections Vol. 1, No. 1

“The Language of Exclusion: Writing Instruction at the University” by Mike Rose, College English, Vol. 47, No. 4

“Trends & Issues in Postsecondary English Studies”, 2000 Edition – with excerpts from Victor Villanueva, Joy Ritchie and Kathleen Boardman, Julie Lindquist, Jacqueline Jones Royster and Jean C Williams

“Schooling and the Silenced “others”: Race and Class in Schools…” Lois Weis, Michelle Fine and Annette Lareau

On Lu's "Professing Multiculturalism:The Politics of Style in the Contact Zone"

I wanted to make a few notes and general thoughts about Lu's essay before really coming to any conclusions on my thoughts. So in rough form, here they are ...

"Why is it that in spite of our developing ability to acknowledge the politicalneed and right of "real" writers to experiment with "style", we continue to cling to the belief that such a need and right does notbelong to "student writers"? (491) - very catching. I love this question because Lu seems to be questioning the purpose for teaching writing. Do we teach writing to engage students in wider society? or do we teach writing to engage students in a specified soceity? or do we teach writing as an avenue for which students can learn who they are and find their own voice? Or is do we teach writing as some strange combination of these? (For the record- I think the latter).

The basics - as we have talked about in class before and Lu points out as well, students get caught up on "the basics" or the grammar skills and then deem themselves as "not good" at writing. Students then get frustrated and may give-up. "And they feel muted and reduced by the curriculum because it does not seem to recognize that they arequite able to grasp subjectsother than "grammar" and demonstrate their understanding of such subjects satisfactorialy to themselves, if perhaps not in writing to others." (491-492) - Is it not one of the first thing we learn in education courses that students learn in different ways? Some are auditory, some visual etc.? Why do we focus on and not move past the basics, or find a new way of teaching the basics?

"Contact Zone" - Pratt describes as space where various cultures "clash,and grapple with eachother, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power" (cited on pg.492).

"I define the writer's attempt to "reproduce" the norms of academic discourses as necessarily involving the re-production - approximating, negotiating, and revising - of these norms. And I do so by asking students to explore the full range of choices and options, including those exculded by the conventions of academic discourses." (492)

Regarding multiculturalism, Lu raises some good points. Students from different cultures may in fact understand English just fine, but have different ways of presenting and writing than our culture. I don't think that makes their writing wrong or less good. I think what Lu implies in her writing is that we need to take the time to understand where student writers are coming from - what their culture is. We need to take time to study other cultures and how they write, what does academic discourse consist of in China, for example? She also questions the standards we hold student writers to - those who are "good" we hold to lesser standards of keeping "accurate" grammar etc. while those who are "not good" are held to higher standards and criticized for not accurately following "the basics".

Inquiry Project - Exploration

Part I: Exploration
1. Identify the issue or problem that you plan to focus on in your Inquiry Project.
Academic discourse and the ability of people from different cultures to engage in academic discourse.

2. What is your personal connection to and interest in this topic?
Academic discourse is something I struggle with. As explained in the next question, I find academic discourse alienating of various populations of people. The purpose of academic discourse and the implications of requiring or expecting that people whose writing fits the realm of academic discourse are intellegent and learned.

3. What opinions do you already hold about this topic?
I think academic discourse is alienating. Especially for people of lower class systems in our society, it is more difficult for them to learn how to engage in academic discourse because they do not have examples readily available to them to begin imitating at an early age etc. Class often is also connected to race and I think there is a connection here worth exploring the implications and effects of. I think there is value to writing that does not necessarily fit the realm of academic discourse, both informal and formal writing – there is a fine like I think I am looking at here.

4. What knowledge do you already have about this topic. What are your main questions about this topic? What are you most curious about?
My main questions are centered around what the fine line between academic disourse and non-academic discourse is. What constitutes academic discourse? How do people understand or learn from academic discourse? Is there a barrier to engaging in academic discourse for people of different social classes/races/cultures?

5. How might composition theorists and researchers approach or study this topic? Does this approach differ from those of other related disciplines (such as communication studies)?
I’m not sure. I think there will be some relationship to intercultural studies or some overlap between the two disciplines, but I’m not sure exactly how composition theorists specifically would approach this topic.

6. How could you research this topic outside the library (for example, through interviews and/or observations)?
I could do interviews of people from various backgrounds and find out about the difficulty they faced in school/college – their grades on academic papers will be telling, were they able to figure out how the teachers expected they write? How long did it take? (Longer for some than others?)

Part II: FocusingWrite an initial claim, or an open-ended question, to guide your research on this topic. Make it specific but exploratory. Remember that a good claim opens up an area of inquiry about a topic; a claim should invite evidence, support, and debate.

Is academic discourse, as presented and required in academia, alienating of various populations of people within the greater society? And what are the implications or consequences of such alienation?

An Academic Proposal

I just finished reading a short article by Stella Humphries titled On Language as a Mirror (found in Reflections, volume 1 number 1 pgs. 87-90). In this article, Humphries, a former scientist, outlines what she believes is wrong with the language used in scientific discourse. Her insights I believe are applicable to academic discourse in general – and I commend her greatly for finally standing up and saying it.

In concluding her article, Humphries writes

…we falsely assume that research is objective. It has its internally consistent logic, but in the context of the choices scientists make to do their work, it is highly subjective. To support the maintenance of a language that deludes us into believing that only reason is at play, is to deceive ourselves. To allow incomprehensibility to masquerade as knowledge is to disempower ourselves. What is worth saying is worth saying clearly, with personal conviction and in a style accessible to all whose interests it is meant to serve and who directly or indirectly have supported the research that it describes. (emphasis added)

The basis of Humphries argument is in the field of science, what can be applied to every day life from the results scientists get is often incomprehensible. She argues this is because when writing for journals etc. scientists often strive for objectivity. This results in what Humphries calls “writing in a disembodied voice”. She goes on to explain, “This atmosphere, in turn, creates conditions for highly specific terminology within specialized subgroupings, and the language becomes deeply encoded – and incomprehensible to most of us.”

Humphries insights are, in my opinion, right on. What she has finally said in this essay is something I’ve been waiting for someone to say (or waiting to find that someone has said). I think her argument relates very well to Jacqueline Jones Royster in that both authors are arguing for voice. They are arguing that writing for a specific audience, for the “academic discourse” community is alienating. Humphries even goes further to say that even those within the “intellectual elite” (read “academic discourse communities”) often do not even understand what their colleagues have said/written. “I know from personal experience how often colleagues would rather not comment than admit they did not understand something,” Humphries writes. I think any of us could relate to that statement.

My question is this, why do “intellectuals” find it necessary to write in this “disembodied voice” as Humphries calls it. Some composition theorists have said that students have to essentially “fake it” in academic discourse communities until they have been convincing enough to prove that they are smart enough to actually be part of the community. I think what Humphries points out, is that even once we have been convincing to our peers, we still may not actually understand. Our peers may not actually understand. And if those within our own academic discourse communities don’t understand what we have to say, because of the language we use, because of the “disembodied voice” we force ourselves to write in, then how are our theories, analyses, information etc. supposed to get out to the rest of the world? How is what we do, study, write about supposed to make a difference for anyone else if they can’t understand it?

It’s time, in my opinion, that academia write to the world. It’s time academia open their doors and be held accountable to the research they do. As Humphries writes, “On what basis can accountability to a broader society be judged if outsiders are unable to understand the work to asses its quality and its relevance?”

For teachers, there is an implication that we let students use their voice. That we understand the world around us and pay attention to how people actually talk to one another. Think about writing in terms of a conversation (Bruffee anyone?). If we find something important enough to write about, we should also find it important enough to tell our friends or our mother about. How would we tell them the information? How would we explain it to them? That’s what “academic discourse” should be … writing as if we were writing or speaking to our friends or our mother.

Royster Reflectons - My Scene

I was at a conference this past weekend on leadership. Of the ten or so participants in the three day event, I knew one person before the conference started. We were all instructed for the first day of the conference to not reveal anything about who we were and what our jobs are. We were on first-name only basis with each other. This situation provided a setting for cross-boundary discourse. We all had to come out of our zones of comfortable discourse to explain our issues and talk about our jobs and the worlds we work in without revealing what exactly it is we do. This forced us all to speak in every-day discourse, to talk with one another as equals. Of the ten participants, there was a student, a teacher, an elementary school principal, a police detective and body guard, counselors for a women's crisis center, a pastor, a manager for a non-profit organization, and a college administrator.

For the first day of this conference, we were able to understand each other not by the jargon we used or through specified discourse, but through common language - through cross-boundary discourse. As Royster comments, individual discourse communities can be disheartening and alienating for those not familiar with that discourse community. The importance of being able to come out of that community and work with/communicate with people of other discourse communities effectively is what (I think) academic discourse should really be about.

When the First Voice You hear is Not Your Own

For possibly the first time since reading Bruffee's essay on collaborative learning, I finally found an essay that got me excited about composition theory. In Jacqueline Jones Royster's When the First Voice You Hear Is Not Your Own, I found an argument addressing all of my questions and problems - especially those dealing with academic discourse. This was an article I finally was able to read all the way through, actually engaged in and excited about, instead of annoyed with.

Royster writes towards the end of her essay "Students may find what we do to be alienating and disheartening....Their experiences are not seen, and their voices are not heard." If she is talking about academic discourse - She's right on the money with my feelings. Royster argues that teachersneed to listen, pay attention to the voices and differing experiences and interpretations. She writes, "We need to get over our tendencies to be too possessive and to resist locking ourselves into the tunnels of our own visions and direct experience." I feel academic discourse does just that, academic discourse says (as Royster writes) "You people are intellectually inferior and have a limited capacity to achieve." What academic discourse should be, in my opinion, if it is to be the space for true learning and expansion of knowledge to take place, is to engage people in different experiences. There should not be a need for students to "fake-it" until they understand the moves of writing for academia. Academia, teachers, instead need to encourage voice, encourage experience; academic discourse should be the ultimate cross-boundary discourse.

Bizzell - "Cognition, Convention, and Certainty"

Patricia Bizzell introduces her essay with the question "what do we need to know about writing?" I find this to be a vaild question, and while she provides an attempt to answer this question, I am not confident that I understand what her answer is. There are a few aspects she notes in relation to thought and writing that resonate with me.

Bizzell writes that theorists "now see the 'writing problem' as a thinking problem primarily because we used to take our students' thinking for granted". While she seems to later acknowledge that it is now important to understanding students thinking process as much as their writing process, I am offended by her implication that students today don't know how to think. (I mean, seriously, isn't 13 the age to be a know-it-all?)

As Bizzell goes on to describe inner and outer directored theorists and their beliefs as related to writing, it was the argument of outer-directed theorists she summarized that caught my attention. "Outer directed theorists would argue that we have no reason to believe, and no convincing way to determine, that our students can't think ouruse language in complex ways. It's just that they can't think our use language in the ways we want them to."

My response to this theory is "YES"! I can see where people would disagree with this theory, however I would argue that they are simply resistant to change. I mean, of course people are not thinking/writing/processing in the same way today as we were thirty, twenty, ten or in some instances even five years ago. And I argue it's not our fault either. Times change. Each generation grows up with new technology and new philosophies with which they are raised. It should be clearly evident this fact would have a profound impact on thinking/writing/processing etc.

But back to Bizzell.

The grad student essay by Linda helped me to better understand how Bizzell was using innter and outer-directed theorists to answer her initial question. Linda writes, "Bizzell claims the answer to the question of what we most need to know about writing comes from both camps. She uses the example of Linda Flowers and John R. Hayes' inner-directed model of the composing process. Though Bizzell admits it works as an effective model of what to do (it is hierarchical and recursive), it falls short in that it doesn't tell us how to do it. Bizzell proposes that it needs the help of the outer-directed theorists to fill in those holes."

Collaboration is a value of mine, so if Linda is right and Bizzell truly is arguing for a collaboration of the theories as the answer to what we need to know about writing, I would ultimately agree. Flower and Hayes (and inner-directed theorists) focus on discourse and how to be involved and part of the discourse communities, while outer-directed theorists for me imply the need to adapt the discourse communities to changing times opposed to individuals adapting to old models of the discourse community.

Though I don't think I have exactly followed what Bizzell outlines, I do think there are some interesting things I have deciphered from her essay.

A quick thought on academic discourse

... in order to not forget a thought ...

I think, at this moment, that academic discourse is a joke. All it really does is reinforce boundaries between "educated" and "uneducated", but only in terms of those who are educated or uneducated in certain ways - ie "book smart". I think having all of these audiences and means of discourse just complicate writing further and keep our society separated.

I could go on, and probably contradict my own view... but I'll wait.

Any thoughts?

Bartholomae - Inventing the University

I think we have all been here. Trying to figure out what the teacher wants us to write, trying to figure out the best way to write it. I have to give David Bartholomae kudos for acknowledging students actually fake it. Initially, my thoughts on this article were along the lines of "finally, someone realizes that I'm trying to do twenty things at once and please twenty different people who each want fifty different things from me". But then, I wasn't sure what his advice for me was. As a student, as a writer, should I really just go on faking it?

Bartholomae seems to assert several times through his article that student writers simply have no choice but to conform to what their teachers want. He argues exercises that ask students to write to someone who has no knowledge of the topic are near pointless. The clearest expectation Bartholomae presents, in my mind, is when he writes "One of the common assumptions of both composition research and composition teaching is that at some "stage" in the process of composing an essay a writer's ideas or his motives must be tailored to the needs and expecations of his audience." This idea, I think, says "yes, fake it, but be as real as possible while you're at it."

Since when did writing become so complicated? We have to address the audience, but not at the same time. Remember to follow a "Process", but don't follow the "process". And then we have to fake it and be real all while revising as we write but remembering to hold revision until we're done with the draft. If nothing else, this article has helped me to understand that like everything else in the world, there are several ways to think about writing - several ways to teach it, critique it, do it and move it.

A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing

In this piece by Linda Flower and John R Hayes, the section "goals, topic, and text" resonate best for me. Logically, it makes sense to me what they have to say about how writers plan and organize what they are going to write, but then change mid-writing because of extenuating circumstances such as their own knowledge of a topic. Flower and Hayes write that the writer's representation of their goals, their knowledge of the topic, and the current text "are all actively cometing for the writer's atention. Each wants to govern the choices and decisions made next."

When analyzing how writers write, this theory I believe is key to understand. Once this process is understood, teaching how to overcome these competing ideas will be more clear.

What is interesting about Flower and Hayes' discussion are the two types of wrtiers they talk about. Those who understand and are able to work through these ideas and "use writing for discovery" and those who "seem simply to free associate on paper or to be obsessed with perfecting the current text". Flower and Hayes assert that for this kind of writer the problem is not that knowledge or text have interfered, but that "the writer's own goals and/or images of the composing process put these strategies in control". Ultimately what all of this goes to explore is their "cognitive process theory" - one that I agree with. The process of writing is never-ending, Flower and Hayes assert. This process is also ever-changing and can not be nailed down to a specific a, b, c process. Goals change, knowledge interferes, and understanding of text formulates, reformulates and changes.

Audience Addressed/Audience Invoked

In their quest to prove the relationship between reading and writing and to emphasize the "creative, dynamic duality" of the two, Lisa Ede and Andrea Lunsford rely on the writings and theories of other scholars on the topic of audience. Specifically, their piece "Audience Addressed/Audience Invoked: The Role of Audience in Composition Theory and Pedagogy" questions those who favor emphasizing "the concrete reality of the writer's audience" and "share the assumption that knowledge of this audience's attitidues, beliefs, and expectations is not only possible but essential" (known as Audience Addressed) as well as those who favor Audience Invoked. This theory Ede and Lunsfort say refers those who "stress that the audience of a writen discourse is a construction of the writer, a "created fiction"(quoted from Long, p. 225)."

Mitchell and Taylor are two Audience Addressed theorists who Ede and Lunsford both agree and disagree with. They do not like Mitchell and Taylor's argument because they believe Mitchell and Taylor put too much emphasis on the role of the audience than on the writer. While acknowledging Mitchell and Taylor's emphasis on the creative role of readers, Ede and Lunsford say they still fail to recognize the "equally essential role writers play throughout the composing process."

Ede and Lunsford address Ong's audience invoked approach as well. According to Ede and Lunsford, "teachers of writing may err if they uncritically accept Ong's statement that "waht has been said about fictional narrative applies ceteris paribus to all writing." (quoted from p. 17)." I agree with Ede and Lunsford in their argument that writers must invite their audience to be seen as the writer sees them. They write, "Writers who wish to be read must often adapt their discourse to meet the needs and expectations of an addressed audience." However, writers may also be required to respond to comments and suggestions from their audience, they say. Finding a balance between the invoked audience and the addressed audience is most important for Ede and Lunsford, and makes most sense to me as well.

Breuch and Post-Process Pedagogy - What does that mean?

In Lee-Ann M. Kastman Breuch’s article Post-Process “Pedagogy”: A Philosophical Exercise, the author presents several scholars’ disagreement with the process theory for teaching writing. These “post-process” scholars, “suggest that the process paradigm has reduced the writing act to a series of codified phases that can be taught” she writes. For Breuch, post-process theory has little, if anything, to do with process. From the other readings we have done, I believe process is effective for writing. The prewriting, writing and rewriting stages that make up the process give writers a guide and sense for how to write effectively. For teachers, it helps them to teach students how to write and focuses much of the composition instruction on what is being said instead of how it is being said.
Frankly, I think that if Breuch paid more attention to the writing process, I may have understood her argument better. I am at this point very unclear about what the post-process theory actually means or implies for writing and writing instruction. Based on the work of Kent, Breuch describes assumptions post-process theory brings about writing, that it is public, interpretive and situated. The idea that writing is public is one I agree with. “The assumption that writing is public grows out of the post-process perspective that meaning making is a product of our communicative interaction with others rather than a product of an individual,” she writes. I understand this to mean that writing comes from conversation with others, not just from oneself. The theory also suggests writing is interpretive, suggesting meaning is not stable, an idea I also agree with. The suggestion that writing is situated, is one I do not understand, so therefore do not disagree or agree with.
I feel Breuch is clearer in her essay at the conclusion when she describes “letting go”. She says in the case of post-process theory, “letting go” means becoming teachers who know what their students needs, are willing to discuss ideas, listen and practice mutual understanding with students. This idea, seems logical and agreeable to me.

Perl and Sommers - Cross Talk

Sondra Perl’s article The Composing Process of Unskilled College Writers outlines the study she did on unskilled college writers. Though I am not clear on her definition of “unskilled”, I understand the study to be of those students who have typically been classified into remedial-type classes. Perl outlined the three goals of this study were to answer how unskilled writers write, if their writing process can be analyzed in a systematic, replicable manner, and “what does an increased understanding of their processes suggest about the nature of composing in general and the manner in which writing is taught in schools?”
According to Perl, the study was designed with the teachers in mind as the audience for each writing exercise. This was interesting to me because in my experience teachers usually want students to write to peers or someone other than the teacher. In the results of the study, Perl said all of the students displayed a consistent composing process, which was interesting to the researchers because they assumed the process was arbitrary since the writing often seems arbitrary. Perl says for many students “writing led to planning which led to clarifying which led to more writing”. The process involved editing through out instead of writing and then editing.
This study implies that instead of teachers spending so much of their time going over rules for writing, “teachers may need to identify which characteristic components of each student’s process facilitate writing and which inhibit it before further teaching takes place.” Otherwise, teachers may be defeated. These implications make sense to me. I think teachers should spend more time listening and learning where students are getting caught-up in their writing process than focusing on the details of editing. While these are important details, if teachers focus on the prewriting aspects more and the writing aspects and then go over the editing once the students have had an opportunity to actually write, it would be much more effective.
Similarly to Perl, Nancy Sommers also studied the writing process of student (unskilled) writers. Sommers, however, focused on the revision process and compared the students to experienced writers in her article Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers. One notable difference she found was that students tend to hold a negative connotation when it comes to revision. They refer to revision and editing as “scratch out and do over again,” “reviewing,” “redoing,” “marking out,” and “slashing and throwing out”. According to Sommers, students usually understand the revision process as a “rewording activity.” For experienced writers, the process is more focused on “finding the form or shape of their argument.” These writers become more concerned with the development and structure of their writing in the revision process than vocabulary, which the students are more concerned with.
Through her study, Sommers comes to the conclusion “students need to seek the dissonance of discover, utilizing in their own writing, as the experienced writers do, the very difference between writing and speech – the possibility of revision.” In short, she believes students can become better writers when they begin to see their writing in a different way. That writing is a discovery process

Murray and Emig

Teaching the process of writing is more important than the product, Donald Murray advocates in Teach Writing as a Process Not Product. By this, Murray means teachers should focus on teaching tools to help students explore language, “using language to learn about our world, to evaluate what we learn about out world, to communicate what we learn about our world.” To Murray, the process of writing involves subject development, understanding the audience and how the writer hopes to affect the audience.
I agree with Murray’s assertion. He supports his belief by stating the prewriting process usually takes about 85 percent of the writer’s time. With this statistic, it only seems logical that most of the teaching time should also be spent on prewriting or the process. Murray also goes on to describe ten implications of teaching the process of writing opposed to the writing product. While these implications clearly support Murray’s argument and further establish my agreement with his assertion that teachers should teach the writing process more directly than the product, Murray also fails to recognize the importance of the product. I think some teachers may argue that such a strong focus on the process of writing ignores the outcome and evaluating the product. Ultimately, it is the writing product that the audience reads and evaluates, not the process. I think some attention does need to be given to the product in order to maintain a connection with the readers.
For Janet Emig, writing is unique to the learning process. She asserts that as both a process and a product, writing possesses the powerful learning strategies. “Writing involves the fullest possible functioning of the brain,” she writes. She acknowledges while writing is most commonly presented as a mostly left-brain activity because of the linear process, it is also a right-brain activity due to the creative aspects of the process. Murray would probably agree that the process of writing does involve a lot of creative thought, research and non-linear functioning.
Emig also argues that writing provides “a unique form of feedback, as well as reinforcement”. The results of the process are immediately visible in the product, she writes. The various psychologists and studies Emig uses to support her argument believe results are key to understanding and evaluating the process. Emig’s argument therefore I think supports what I said in regards to Murray’s argument. Murray fails to recognize the importance of the product itself. While the process should possibly be given more attention than some teachers already do, the product is important and should not be overlooked.

On "A Short History of Writing Instruction" - 1975-1985

The political climate in the late seventies and early eighties is described as conservative. People were responding to the Nixon administration's downfalls by calling for more accountability. In the schools, this meant systems of measuring what students were learning had to be introduced and monitored. As Berlin writes, "Schools everywhere were charged with being 'accountable' for the 'products' they were producing. Students were now considered a commodity to be weighed and measured," (212). Teachers began to focus their curriculum around what students needed to know for the tests, known as "teaching to the test". For writing, however, there was no system in place for measuring it, so there was no reason for it to be taught.
In addition to this new testing phenomena that decreased the classroom time given to writing instruction, Berlin says those responsible for guiding the school curricula may have made matters worse. "Those who did not know how to teach writing were responsible for guiding those who did not know how to teach writing," (213) Berlin writes. College English teachers were charged with this duty, and their expertise was in literary text - not writing.
However, following national attention to the schools' downfalls in writing instruction, such as Arthur Applebee's Writing in the Schools in the Content Areas, published in 1981, changes began to occur. In particular, three national education efforts began, the National Writing Project (NWP), the teacher-as-researcher phenomenon, and the whole language movement.
According to Berlin, the NWP established teacher-training centers designed to improve how writing was taught in almost every state. In this program, teachers who have been successful at writing themselves design instructional materials and share them with other teachers through inservice workshops. The teacher-as-researcher phenomenon focused on returning classroom control to the teacher. "Partly an attempt to resist narrow state and district-mandated curricula, this approach to pedagogy encouranges teachers to study the unique features of their students in order to design the learning and teaching strategies best suited to their students' situations," (215) Berlin describes. Finally, the whole language approach, while closely related to the teacher-as-researcher phenomenon, teachers in this approach were characterized as more interested in the social nature of learning. "They also insist on the integrated nature of reading, writing, speaking ans listening in all experience and argue for the need to create learning activities that bring them together in social environment," (216). This method is one that took hold internationally, Berlin writes, and is more of a collaboration among the disciplines than narrowly focused.
In short, the political climate from 1975 to 1985 followed a call to make schools accountable, the coporate world wanted to be sure students with a degree had actually learned something in school. With a lack of testing methods for writing comprehension, however, instruction of writing saw a turn for the worst. However, three major groups of thought and instruction formed which gave teachers better tools for teaching writing.

Using They Say, I Say in peer tutoring

Graff and Birkenstein's text provides several helpful "moves" for academic writing and in the context of peer tutoring, I think these moves can be beneficial both to conversation as well as in writing. Graff and Birkenstein begin by suggesting that writers start their arguments with what "they say". In this way they suggest writers summarize what is being responded to. I believe that a peer tutoring conference can should start in much the same way. Tutors can begin the conversation by explaining to the tutee what their understanding is of what the tutee has written. This can present the tutee with the opportunity to clarify what they mean and will point out areas of improvement in the writing from the very start. Graff and Birkenstein go on to say that writers should present their view only after recognizing what they are responding to. In the peer tutoring conference, this step can be demonstrated by the tutor presenting their views of the tutee's work and or topic. I think, however that this step is less important than the first, providing the tutee a summary of their work and the opportunity to discuss how to clarify it. If the conversation is ready to introduce more depth, I think this step can prove helpful. Especially if the tutor disagrees with the tutee this can provide a unique opportunity for the tutee to try out how to respond to that disagreement before recognizing it and responding to it in their writing. The final step Graff and Birkenstein discuss, tying it all together, is one I think is more difficult to consciously work into conversation. However, it is an important step to discuss in the peer tutoring conference. Pointing out Graff and Birkenstein's outline of transition phrases on page 105, and discussing the use of meta commentary to better clarify points the tutee is wanting to make in their writing are excellent tools for the peer tutoring conference. Ultimately, I do not think the methods presented "They Say, I say" is purely formal and only meant for use in templates or writing. I think the methods are good to remember in any discussion or conversation (written or verbal).

"They Say/I Say" Page 14 Exercise 2

In the introduction to “They say/I say”: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing, authors Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein provide their rationale for the text and their inclusion of writing templates. According to the authors, these templates are designed to help people new to academic writing establish a set of “moves” to convey their ideas. They contend that while many people, including Graff and Birkenstein’s own students, believe the use of templates takes away originality and creativity from the writing process, the use of templates will often help writing become more original and creative. According to the authors, “even the most creative forms of expression depend on established patters and structures.” (10) They the examples that Shakespeare didn’t invent the sonnet and most song writers still use the verse-chorus-verse pattern for writing songs. “Creativity and originality lie not in the avoidance of established forms, but in the imaginative use of them,” (11) the authors reply. Graff and Birkenstein insist writing is a way of responding and sharing one’s own ideas as part of a larger conversation, and templates offer people the means and “moves” to enter that conversation.

I agree with Graff and Birkenstein only in the broadest use of their template system. I recognize that their system indeed accomplishes the authors goal, to give people the moves to enter the larger conversation (what ever that conversation may be about). Additionally, their point about the most creative forms of expression being based on patterns and templates is valid, however I question whether the templates the authors provide emphasize enough that writers can and should expand the templates. I believe there are better tools the authors could use to provide students of writing a basis on which to build their writing skills.

The authors explain that their templates “provide concrete prompts that can stimulate and shape such thought” (XV). These prompts include, What do “they say” about my topic? What would a naysayer say about my argument? What is my evidence? Do I need to qualify my point? and Who cares? (XV). I believe these are great prompts for any student to ask them selves when starting to write. I would argue that offering students a sequence of prompts like these for making specific types of arguments would be more effective in encouraging creativity and originality in the conversation. For this exercise, I did not use the template provided, however I created and used prompts and answered those prompts. As such, the format of my essay is similar to the template provided, but using prompts forced me to create my own style for answering those prompts. All in all, I think Graff and Birkenstein’s templates can provide a starting point especially for many new writers, but more emphasis should be given to creating an effective style of ones own.