Ede and Lunsford take a look into addressing the audience in writing. They look upon Mitchell and Taylor who emphasize the audience addressed model. The audience addressed "emphasize the concrete reality of the writer's audience; they also share the assumption that knowledge of this audience's attitudes, beliefs and expectations is not only possible...but essential" (78). I was confused when the article quotes Pfister and Petrik saying students should "construct in their imagination an audience that is as nearly a replica as is possible of those many readers who actually exist in the world of reality" (79). Are they saying you should fictionalize your audience to be everyone who exists, thus making your audience broad and general?
An invoked audience find the audience of a written discourse to be the contruction of the writer (a created fiction) to be important. Supporters of an invoked audience argue that writers can't know the reality the same way that speakers do. Therefore, the main task of the writer is to use the semantic/syntactic language resources of language to give the reader cues to help define the role the writer wants the reader to possess.
Ede and Lunsford then critique both ways to look at audience, and after doing so wonder if there is an alternative to these incomplete conceptions of the role of audience in writing. They then suggest that the writer must establish the range of potential roles their audience may play (89). Overall, the audience addressed focuses on the reader while the audience invoked focuses on the writer. To conclude, to write for an audience means to balance the creativity of the writer in conjunction with the creativity of the reader. You must keep in mind the wide range of potential reader roles of invoked and addressed audiences.
I'm not quite sure my opinion on this article because I feel like I don't fully understand it. I'm going to try to read it again more carefully to get a better grip on it, but for now I'm not too certain of how the article suggests to write for an audience in action.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Monday, September 24, 2007
Spoken vs. Script and their Audience
Walter Ong explains how writing is different than speaking in considering one's audience. In writing, there is no definite "audience" and therefore the writer's "audience" is in time or space, but for the speaker the audience is literally in front of him/her. Ong goes on to talk about successful writers, and if the writer is successful "it is generally because he can fictionalize in his imagination an audience he has learned to know not from daily life but from earlier writers" (59). What he means is, as a writer you cannot imagine your readers as individuals because each individual is so diverse. You may, however, call upon the audience of the text you are respondind to and use that author's audience.
A writer may fictionalize their readers in two ways, says Ong. First, the writer has to imagine an audience put into some sort of role and then the audience must "correspondingly fictionalize itself" (60). I am sort of unclear as to what Ong means when he says that the audience must "fictionalize itself." Ong kind of lost me in his extended examples of Hemingway's audience and using his audience, etc.
Ong concludes by reflecting on writing, speech and communication. Direct communication, as in talking, is impossible in writing. He thinks this makes writing actually more interesting, but less noble than speech. I would tend to disagree that writing is less noble and that "it is hard to bare your soul in any literary genre" (75). I find that many authors use writing as their best, most descriptive means of bearing one's soul. In speech, you don't have time to revise what you say. Personally, I think both speech and writing can be equally meaningful, and a lot of times I use letters or poems to attempt to articulate my thoughts and passions when I cannot find the exact spoken words-- or sometimes situations are better left unspoken and perhaps sung about. I think Ong's article was interesting and I look forward to class to better explain it for me. However, I still stand my ground the speech and script can be equally as "noble."
A writer may fictionalize their readers in two ways, says Ong. First, the writer has to imagine an audience put into some sort of role and then the audience must "correspondingly fictionalize itself" (60). I am sort of unclear as to what Ong means when he says that the audience must "fictionalize itself." Ong kind of lost me in his extended examples of Hemingway's audience and using his audience, etc.
Ong concludes by reflecting on writing, speech and communication. Direct communication, as in talking, is impossible in writing. He thinks this makes writing actually more interesting, but less noble than speech. I would tend to disagree that writing is less noble and that "it is hard to bare your soul in any literary genre" (75). I find that many authors use writing as their best, most descriptive means of bearing one's soul. In speech, you don't have time to revise what you say. Personally, I think both speech and writing can be equally meaningful, and a lot of times I use letters or poems to attempt to articulate my thoughts and passions when I cannot find the exact spoken words-- or sometimes situations are better left unspoken and perhaps sung about. I think Ong's article was interesting and I look forward to class to better explain it for me. However, I still stand my ground the speech and script can be equally as "noble."
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Post-process composition theories suggest that prewriting, writing and rewriting are no longer adequate in the teacthing and explanation of writing, says Breusch. She argues that post-process "scholarship is shortchanged by the continued emphasis on process in that the broader implications of post-process thoery have very little to do with pricess "(98). If we think about writing as an interpretative activity, we must also keep in mind that post-process perspective rejects process as an explanation of writing and as a method of teaching writing.
Breusch then touches on Kent who distinguishes actually writing from knowledge of grammar. Kent does not blow off grammar and think it is unimportant, but rather "he suggests that these skills do not in themselves comprise the writing act and that we cannot reduce te writing act to a system that can then be taught" (100). Teaching writing as a process as Murray stressed (prewriting, writing, revision), Kent argues reduces the act of writing which should be a discovery process. Murray and Kent obviously differ because Murray says you can teach writing as the process and Kent completely rejects that, because he says writing cannot be taught as a process.
Since I'm a communications major I found it interesting that Kent said we should "stop talking about writing and reading as processes and start talking about these activities as determinate social acts" (101). So pretty much communication is the product of internal thoughts . From this proposal, Kent discusses how this would actually work in a classroom. The writing process, he says, should involve the teacher working together with the student where there is the potential for them to learn from each other. Kent's model requires two-way communication that includes active participation from teacher and student. This applies to what we're doing in peer tutoring. We work together in conversation in attempts to form a reciprocal relationship that we both benefit from. We'll see if it works in the end!
Post-process theory looks as writing as an activity rather than a "thing." This shift, Kent describes, is explained by the following: "writing is public, writing is interpretive; and writing is situated (110). Writing in public means that we are writing to an audience and therefore you must consider your audience when writing. Next, what we know is shaped by interpretations so writing becomes an activity that requires an "understanding of context, interaction with others, and our attempts to communicate messages" (115). Finally, writing is led by the situation, not by the rules of process.
Finally the end of the essays suggests that teachers need to be more willing to discuss, listen and more conscientious to meet their students' educational needs. I think this is what we're trying to move towards in our peer tutoring, and in my upper-level English classes I notice this is how professors are attempting to teach. Other professors in writing papers in science, for example, focus more on structural/grammatical issues like the unskilled writers aim at.
Breusch then touches on Kent who distinguishes actually writing from knowledge of grammar. Kent does not blow off grammar and think it is unimportant, but rather "he suggests that these skills do not in themselves comprise the writing act and that we cannot reduce te writing act to a system that can then be taught" (100). Teaching writing as a process as Murray stressed (prewriting, writing, revision), Kent argues reduces the act of writing which should be a discovery process. Murray and Kent obviously differ because Murray says you can teach writing as the process and Kent completely rejects that, because he says writing cannot be taught as a process.
Since I'm a communications major I found it interesting that Kent said we should "stop talking about writing and reading as processes and start talking about these activities as determinate social acts" (101). So pretty much communication is the product of internal thoughts . From this proposal, Kent discusses how this would actually work in a classroom. The writing process, he says, should involve the teacher working together with the student where there is the potential for them to learn from each other. Kent's model requires two-way communication that includes active participation from teacher and student. This applies to what we're doing in peer tutoring. We work together in conversation in attempts to form a reciprocal relationship that we both benefit from. We'll see if it works in the end!
Post-process theory looks as writing as an activity rather than a "thing." This shift, Kent describes, is explained by the following: "writing is public, writing is interpretive; and writing is situated (110). Writing in public means that we are writing to an audience and therefore you must consider your audience when writing. Next, what we know is shaped by interpretations so writing becomes an activity that requires an "understanding of context, interaction with others, and our attempts to communicate messages" (115). Finally, writing is led by the situation, not by the rules of process.
Finally the end of the essays suggests that teachers need to be more willing to discuss, listen and more conscientious to meet their students' educational needs. I think this is what we're trying to move towards in our peer tutoring, and in my upper-level English classes I notice this is how professors are attempting to teach. Other professors in writing papers in science, for example, focus more on structural/grammatical issues like the unskilled writers aim at.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
The Possibility of Revision on all Levels
Perl's article is a summary of unskilled writers' case studies. The subjects were to compose outloud to externalize their thought process, and then go through open-ended interviews on their perception and memories of writing. A code was developed to copmpose different levels/variations of talking, writing, reading or a combination. These intricate, scary looking codes that look like nonsense actually record things such as the amount of time in prewriting, strategies, time spent per sentence, and time between sentences. This showed how students wrote, not why.
Miscue's writing process says that reading is psycholinguist. The behavior of oral reader as interaction between language and though was examined in the Tony case. Tony's data showed consistent trends in his writing including editing, pauses and repitition. I wondered if the author should have incorporated more than one test subject because the lone Tony case may be too small a sample for a convincing argument. I'm sure other subjects of unskilled writers would be similar though. Anyway, Tony would voice complete sentences when he only wrote partial sentences. He didn't see what was missing from the text.
All of the students showed prewriting, writing and edition in sequential pattern that were recognizable. The end of the article gave advice for teachers.
The Sommers article looked at revising for skilled students and experienced writers. The current wrting models are moving away from revision and we see a linear trend with the students. The linear model is first inner speech, then meaning of words and finally put in words, leaving out revision. This differs from the Murray model of writing as a process: prewriting, writing, REVISION. The revision is a separate stage in the linear model. The case of 20 freshman showed revisions mainly in deletion, subtraction, addition and reordering. The freshman didn't use the word "revision" because that's what teachers said. They opted for "do over, reviewing, redoing, markkng out, slashing." A problem and limitation on these students was in writing the introduction and thesis first, it restricts development and possible change in the paper.
Experienced writers found form and shape of an argument in revising which is a constant process. Considering the potential reader also helps shape revision. Unlike the students whose revisions were mainly on sentence structure, the experienced writers made changes on all levels and is non-linear. The experienced writers is more of a seed than a line, first considering what to say, then structuring the argument beneath the surface.
The experienced writers way of revising is more mature because it takes more time. I think student writers focus on sentence structure rather than writing two drafts because new drafting and limitless revisions is time consuming and thought provoking. In the non-linear model you may start with one thesis and end up with a completely changed focus, and that's okay! It may be better, I think, because that means you have put real thought into a subject,enough to change your mind and therefore write a more convincing paper. I wonder if Murray's thoughts on revision would be mostly linear, like the students, or "seed-like"?
Miscue's writing process says that reading is psycholinguist. The behavior of oral reader as interaction between language and though was examined in the Tony case. Tony's data showed consistent trends in his writing including editing, pauses and repitition. I wondered if the author should have incorporated more than one test subject because the lone Tony case may be too small a sample for a convincing argument. I'm sure other subjects of unskilled writers would be similar though. Anyway, Tony would voice complete sentences when he only wrote partial sentences. He didn't see what was missing from the text.
All of the students showed prewriting, writing and edition in sequential pattern that were recognizable. The end of the article gave advice for teachers.
The Sommers article looked at revising for skilled students and experienced writers. The current wrting models are moving away from revision and we see a linear trend with the students. The linear model is first inner speech, then meaning of words and finally put in words, leaving out revision. This differs from the Murray model of writing as a process: prewriting, writing, REVISION. The revision is a separate stage in the linear model. The case of 20 freshman showed revisions mainly in deletion, subtraction, addition and reordering. The freshman didn't use the word "revision" because that's what teachers said. They opted for "do over, reviewing, redoing, markkng out, slashing." A problem and limitation on these students was in writing the introduction and thesis first, it restricts development and possible change in the paper.
Experienced writers found form and shape of an argument in revising which is a constant process. Considering the potential reader also helps shape revision. Unlike the students whose revisions were mainly on sentence structure, the experienced writers made changes on all levels and is non-linear. The experienced writers is more of a seed than a line, first considering what to say, then structuring the argument beneath the surface.
The experienced writers way of revising is more mature because it takes more time. I think student writers focus on sentence structure rather than writing two drafts because new drafting and limitless revisions is time consuming and thought provoking. In the non-linear model you may start with one thesis and end up with a completely changed focus, and that's okay! It may be better, I think, because that means you have put real thought into a subject,enough to change your mind and therefore write a more convincing paper. I wonder if Murray's thoughts on revision would be mostly linear, like the students, or "seed-like"?
Monday, September 17, 2007
Discovering Writing
Murray's article was focusing on teaching writing as a process, not a product. Learning composition skills will be more useful to the student rather than focusing on doing whatever it takes to get through the assigned paper. This process, Murray argues, is a "process of discovery through language...of exploration of what we know and what we feel about what we know through language..." (4). Murray goes on to explain the writing process has three stages: prewriting, writing, and rewriting. To teach this process is not by verbally explaining it, but rather by putting it in action. Teachers must be able to be quiet, listen and respond for this process to flourish. Teachers much also have respect for the student as a person, not only caring about his/her end product.
Emig talks about writing in the organic and functional sense because writing involves the "fullest possible functioning of the brain, which entails active participation in the process of both the left and the right hemispheres" (11). The right hemisphere contributes to writing with emotions and intuition. Emig's essay shows the connection between certain learning styles and attributes of writing.
It was interesting to read these essays because it puts more depth to something we already know: writing is important. These essays showed me how writing is uniquely valuable for learning. To me it seems strange all the topics that people study and write essays on in order to be able to put their ideas to use and teach them-- I wonder what would happen if nobody studied composition and students just wrote-- would the product be less meaningful and dull?
Emig talks about writing in the organic and functional sense because writing involves the "fullest possible functioning of the brain, which entails active participation in the process of both the left and the right hemispheres" (11). The right hemisphere contributes to writing with emotions and intuition. Emig's essay shows the connection between certain learning styles and attributes of writing.
It was interesting to read these essays because it puts more depth to something we already know: writing is important. These essays showed me how writing is uniquely valuable for learning. To me it seems strange all the topics that people study and write essays on in order to be able to put their ideas to use and teach them-- I wonder what would happen if nobody studied composition and students just wrote-- would the product be less meaningful and dull?
Monday, September 10, 2007
" A Short History of Writing Instruction" was actually pretty long...
World War II had an effect on all areas of the United States, including education. A "life adjustment" stance became regularly known in schools from the "Education for All American Youth" report (1944). Life adjustment sounds pretty intense, so what does that even mean? As Kantor puts it, "Personal and social adjustment became the great concern of post war education," providing " a new secuirty for those whose lives had been disrupted" (201). This idea was designed to assist students in their outside of school encounters. The report "unfortunately" emphasized "functional experiences in the areas of practical arts, home and family, health and physical fitness" (201-202). So like many grammer through college students may inquire and whine about having a physical fitness requirement, especially for no grade, we have the Education for All American Youth report to blame...kind of! I wonder what "practical arts" entails and wished they would have elaborated on it because the author says "unfortunately," so I would like to understand why that was a bad thing to focus on.
Life adjustment was more focused on secondary schooling, while communications courses became more influential and popular in late high school and college. What were communication courses like, I wondered, because I major in it: "the communication course was a combination of writing, reading, speaking, and listening activities" (202). To me, this is a basic understanding of the communication field today, but I also have business classes and art classes, to name a few. The war had an effect of the popularity of these courses because only after the army adopted it in its officer training programs during the war did it become an influential component of education. Communication courses changed during this time since the forties and fifties that were mostly conservative, "offering a current-traditional approach that presented communications in the service of the democratic ideals...challenged from abroad" (202).
Changes in writing in secondary schools include leads to the use of expressive and creative writing, with a renewed composition peaking its interest. The composition portion was motivated largely by the high numbers of veterans attending college.
An important feature about the 50's was that college professors insisted "that the best way to teach composition is though reading literature and writing about it"(203). What I found interesting was asking "why?" to the previous quotation, only to find out that "this was in large part a result of a sense of professional identity...following the war"(203). So did teaching literature make teachers feel confident? Why was this there main focus on the path to personal identity and how much did the war really take a teacher's identity away? Can't a teacher always learn, teach and study for themselves no matter where they are?
Anyway lit was the focus of writing classes even, because if you could read the texts it would stimulate you to write. A social issue brought up is that because of this, the teachers were possibly more served professionally over the students and their educational needs. I didn't understand why, and how students wouldn't also be helped by learning lit and turning that into writing...?
Life adjustment was more focused on secondary schooling, while communications courses became more influential and popular in late high school and college. What were communication courses like, I wondered, because I major in it: "the communication course was a combination of writing, reading, speaking, and listening activities" (202). To me, this is a basic understanding of the communication field today, but I also have business classes and art classes, to name a few. The war had an effect of the popularity of these courses because only after the army adopted it in its officer training programs during the war did it become an influential component of education. Communication courses changed during this time since the forties and fifties that were mostly conservative, "offering a current-traditional approach that presented communications in the service of the democratic ideals...challenged from abroad" (202).
Changes in writing in secondary schools include leads to the use of expressive and creative writing, with a renewed composition peaking its interest. The composition portion was motivated largely by the high numbers of veterans attending college.
An important feature about the 50's was that college professors insisted "that the best way to teach composition is though reading literature and writing about it"(203). What I found interesting was asking "why?" to the previous quotation, only to find out that "this was in large part a result of a sense of professional identity...following the war"(203). So did teaching literature make teachers feel confident? Why was this there main focus on the path to personal identity and how much did the war really take a teacher's identity away? Can't a teacher always learn, teach and study for themselves no matter where they are?
Anyway lit was the focus of writing classes even, because if you could read the texts it would stimulate you to write. A social issue brought up is that because of this, the teachers were possibly more served professionally over the students and their educational needs. I didn't understand why, and how students wouldn't also be helped by learning lit and turning that into writing...?
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Can Tutors Use these Moves in Conversation...WHO CARES?!
At first I had a difficult time figuring out how these templates could be used in our tutoring. I could have just skimmed the book, summarized it, and spit something not useful to me out. However, I want to avoid any awkwardness that may arise between me being a first time tutor and my freshman tutee. So in order for me to engage in meaningful conversation to make the rookie not dread seeing me for an hour each week, I decided I could use certain templates and turn them into questions.
From the section on They Say templates (21), I decided I could first prompt the tutee by asking what they say in the paper. Easy enough , right? Well some students may get caught up in sounding smart that they actually lose sight of what they're actually writing about. I know I was guilty of this my freshman year. I can use the standard views templates in question form by saying "people assume that....", do you agree or disagree? Why? Or "my whole life I heard it said...", so why do you say differently? (21). Going beyond this I would like my tutee to critically think, so I would use a something implied template by possibly saying "although it's not said directly, what do you think the author assumes?" This way maybe they can come up with a new idea that was waiting to come out of their brain and into their brilliant papers. If a debate is encountered, a tutor may ask what the controversial issue is and one point of view from each side, then your view.
Anytime a quotation is found in a paper the tutor should see a big red flag! Each quotation should be sandwiched (43) and EXPLAINED!! So if you see a quote chilling by itself prompt the tutee to tell you some more information to go before and after it.
If your tutee is disagreeing with an author make sure to talk about why she thinks X is mistaken and what X overlooks (55). Consequently if your tutee blindly agrees talk about what she agrees with, why, and what experiences has she had that possibly connects to this?
I think a very important "move" in the tutoring conversation will be for the tutor to be the naysayer, or to challenge the author to be the naysayer against their argument. This definetly promotes critical thinking, and while you're doing this ask who cares and so what?? Talk about why X matters so much or why ultimately ______ is at stake. These are all important templates that may be used in conversation if you change the template around into a question.
If your tutee is too academic and you don't understand it, talk to them about it. Make them make you understand it and let them know that mixing academic writing with colloquial talk aint always so bad.
Finally you can ask them, "in other words, what's your point?" Make them explain their intention for writing and possibly put it in another way (129).
So what, you're thinking as you're bored out of your mind, those of you who actually took the time to read this?? Hopefully you will care and these suggestions helped you in some way to avoid an awkward encounter and dull moments with you and your tutee.
From the section on They Say templates (21), I decided I could first prompt the tutee by asking what they say in the paper. Easy enough , right? Well some students may get caught up in sounding smart that they actually lose sight of what they're actually writing about. I know I was guilty of this my freshman year. I can use the standard views templates in question form by saying "people assume that....", do you agree or disagree? Why? Or "my whole life I heard it said...", so why do you say differently? (21). Going beyond this I would like my tutee to critically think, so I would use a something implied template by possibly saying "although it's not said directly, what do you think the author assumes?" This way maybe they can come up with a new idea that was waiting to come out of their brain and into their brilliant papers. If a debate is encountered, a tutor may ask what the controversial issue is and one point of view from each side, then your view.
Anytime a quotation is found in a paper the tutor should see a big red flag! Each quotation should be sandwiched (43) and EXPLAINED!! So if you see a quote chilling by itself prompt the tutee to tell you some more information to go before and after it.
If your tutee is disagreeing with an author make sure to talk about why she thinks X is mistaken and what X overlooks (55). Consequently if your tutee blindly agrees talk about what she agrees with, why, and what experiences has she had that possibly connects to this?
I think a very important "move" in the tutoring conversation will be for the tutor to be the naysayer, or to challenge the author to be the naysayer against their argument. This definetly promotes critical thinking, and while you're doing this ask who cares and so what?? Talk about why X matters so much or why ultimately ______ is at stake. These are all important templates that may be used in conversation if you change the template around into a question.
If your tutee is too academic and you don't understand it, talk to them about it. Make them make you understand it and let them know that mixing academic writing with colloquial talk aint always so bad.
Finally you can ask them, "in other words, what's your point?" Make them explain their intention for writing and possibly put it in another way (129).
So what, you're thinking as you're bored out of your mind, those of you who actually took the time to read this?? Hopefully you will care and these suggestions helped you in some way to avoid an awkward encounter and dull moments with you and your tutee.
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