Murray Presentation

The notion that Murray focused mainly on influencing the curriculum and pedagogy of secondary education, must have been a result of the troubling experiences he, himself, had in high school. This is great because I know I see dozens of students on a daily basis whose needs aren’t met in secondary public schools.

Murray believed composition instruction should be both “product driven and process-oriented,” combining the ideas of Kinneavy(?) and Elbow. He further developed hese ideas in his pre-vision, vision, and revision strategies. I believe the most important thing a teacher can do for a student is to help him discover a vision. Teaching information or even skills is one thing, but if you can inspire and motivate a student by assisting them in realizing their vision, you have empowered them to continue learning and growing on their own.

The pre-vision signals were very interesting to me, and I’d like to learn more about some of them (news, line ?). Following surprise is also an interesting idea... I loved Tony’s approach to the presentation. He brought a lot of good energy and showed us this theorist’s ideas instead of just telling us.

Lunsford Presentation

It was refreshing to hear of another theorist (Elbow and Murray being others) who struggled to achieve her place in the field. Lunsford’s humility in addressing the challenges of “making it” in the world of academe is encouraging, because the pompousness of some of these other guys can be nauseating at times. Her ideas regarding collaboration are noteworthy. Her relationship with Lisa Ede and others shows that the result of consistently exposing yourself to differing view points (and even just different personalities) can be the impetus that inspires great work.

One of the interesting ideas associated with Lunsford is her focus on the absence of attention to memoria in rhetoric study since the introduction of print. I think Ong would be particularly interested in this too, seeing how this was the most essential aspect of the word in purely oral cultures. So, how does Memory factor into rhetoric when language is based mainly on the printed/electronic word? The only “memory” I can think of is on a USB drive, which simply gives the electronic word more agility and longevity.

Ong - Exploring Secondary Orality

The most interesting aspect of the Interface of the Word metaphor is the question mark at the end of the illustration. What is the future of the word? By labeling the advent of the “electronic word” secondary orality, Ong suggests that the visual will be dethroned by the oral. When we look at technology today the future is not completely clear; however, one thing is for certain: the word is expanding in new ways. Technology is transforming not only composition and education, but in a broader sense, it is changing the way society thinks.

Both visual and oral components are flourishing in the fields of composition, pedagogy, and communication. For example, the dominance of the visual word is still obvious in the record number of books that are published each year. Emails, blogging, text messaging, and web 2.0 have become dominant forms of communication. In addition, scholarly research may be done primarily through the computer today, but it still relies on text based information. The immense popularity of iTunes, the emergence of audiobooks, and the availability of lectures, speeches, and podcasts online has re-established the oral word as a major mode of cognition. While both oral and visual make strong independent claims for authority in language, the hybridization of the two may be the most interesting aspect yet. The use of webcams and video sharing (YouTube) cannot be overlooked. Combined oral and visual modes of communication are becoming some of the most commonly used forms of communication and are becoming much more important in tertiary education. (However, few secondary or primary schools actually fully utilize this technology.)

Regardless, Ong is right: this transformation of the word is changing the way that we think. Further evidence of the move from print to electronic culture can be seen in the radically changing newspaper industry. The demand for print editions of newspapers is quickly diminishing, so companies are turning to the web to deliver their information and opinions. We are now a society of excessive multitasking and rampant attention deficit disorder. We imbibe information in short bursts: we read a few lines here, watch a 50 second video clip there, and we’re set. I’m not criticizing this revolution in society, nor was Ong. It’s just fascinating to take a step back sometimes and look at how much the word (and world) is changing.

Ong on YouTube link

Thoughts on Elbow

Elbow’s idealism is attractive because he makes himself accessible and identifiable with the writing student. He uses his failures in writing to relate to the average, struggling composition student. The free writing ideas presented are helpful; it is encouraging to hear someone as influential as Elbow endorsing the idea of “mess-making.” The problem I see with my students though is that they often never bother cleaning up the mess. The question I had during Tim’s presentation concerned evaluation. Elbow claims to only give positive feedback, so my question is how do students improve their writing? The article provided some insight in this area: “I stress my own conviction that the goodness or badness in a piece of writing is an ‘unknown’ and that the only trustworthy measuring instrument we have is the reactions of as many real readers as possible” (594).

The importance of finding one’s voice and really coming into the ensuing “sincerity” in one’s writing was powerful for me. I now understand this to be the key to expressive writing. Expressivism has always been attractive for me, but understanding its potential contribution to all aspects of writing is immense.

Thoughts on Kinneavy

The religious influence on Kinneavy is of particular interest for me, for Catholicism also made a heavy impression on Walter Ong, the subject of my presentation. We see this with Elbow as well. In a way these authors seemed to look at composition as a spiritual act. Might the anxiety Kinneavy felt towards the transgressive aspects of literature be a result of his conservative social values?

It seems that Kinneavy, at least to some degree, deserves the acknowledgement he receives for his contributions to the field of composition and rhetoric. His ideas may be challenged, just as any other scholar, but the impact he made in helping to solidify a place for rhetoric in the college educational system is significant. I would like to read more of his work; the excerpts which Klayton provided for us were very intriguing. I’d like to find out more specifically about how his ideas in A Theory of Discourse have been used in composition instruction. Also, how and why did he have such a big impact on the standardized testing movement? To me this seems counteractive to the progress he was making in other areas of composition and rhetoric. His consideration of the implications of technology on composition is very important too. He was able to acknowledge the tremendous impact that technology has on language and communication.

Paul Kei Matsuda's "Process and Post-Process: A Discursive History"

Basically, this article looks at the name game of composition theory, especially regarding the process and post-process methods and how these terms, and the variety of ideas represented by them, apply to the field of L2 writing. Matsuda gives a solid review of the different approaches to grammar and composition theory in regard to L2 writing in the last 40 to 50 years. The current-traditional approach is well contrasted against the foundational ideas of the process movement. However, various scholars have challenged the labels given to certain ideas and have created new ones, attempting to redefine the boundaries of these approaches. For example, Faigley, Bizzell, and Berlin all, more or less, saw three philosophies represented in the process movement: expressive, cognitive, and social (72). The problem came when people like Trimbur decided that the social aspect should constitute its own movement, which he dubbed post-process (73). For me personally, I don’t see the big deal, and I feel Matsuda is leaning the same way. It doesn’t matter what you label it; the focus should be on the effectiveness of these practices and whether or not they are truly helping students become better writers. Matsuda’s ultimate purpose when discussing the post-process is “to show how such a term could mask the complexity of ideas to which it refers, and to caution against defining post-process as the complete rejection of all tenets of process pedagogy or theories” (78). Because Trimbur does not propose any new strategies, nor does he say anything really relevant, I see this as a moot point. Matsuda says “the post-process movement does not represent a unified theoretical front” (73). The main issue seems to be that different scholars rank the three process ideas in various degrees of importance, but these scholars are all still looking at the same ideas and simply putting brackets around the min different places.

There are critics like Kent who “construed ‘process’ as an attempt to develop ‘a generalized process or Big Theory’” (74). The author implies that Kent is misguided in this assertion, and rehashes the point that process writing is full of a “multiplicity of L2 writing theories and pedagogies” (65). I personally think the process approach has a great deal to offer in writing instruction. Acknowledging that students have something to say, helping them find their voice, encouraging creativity, reinforcing the revision process, and using student writing as a crucial text are all great ideas that can go a long way in improving students’ writing and potentially even their attitudes about writing.