Teaching Writing Process

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Collaborators JoeMoxley, TaylorJoyMitchell, SusanLee, DarcyWebber, SuzanneDesmond, VivianTaylor, SzewczykHome, QuentinVieregge, SarahWray, MarieHendry, NancyFletcher, BrianMcallister, MelissaTully, TiffanyLowden, MoodyComp1, MarisaIglesias

Pedagogies of Writing

The spring of 1949 might have brought about the dawning of a new day in terms of College Composition and Communication but hiding in the shadows of the new century is a different teacher. Bartholomae in 1989, exspoused on the past 39 years of composition. He claimed those in CCCC have passed into a "respectable middle age" (48). Almost twenty years later, CCCC should then be old, grey and on the verge of retiring into semi-quiet circles. Yet, the reality stands that there are young members sitting around tables in hybrid classrooms discussing what will come next and these are the people who will slide into the offices of those retiring. To be sure there is still a "strength and pleasure from the act of meeting and talking" (48); the problem is what are the new CCCC people discussing? What part of the process are they focusing on? More importantly though, what are they teaching?

There are a variety of strategies that come to mind when speaking about the state of teaching composition today, but first it seems necessary to examine predominant pedagogies of the past in order to see exactly where contemporary teachers stand in relation to them. One of these methods is expressivism. Expressivist theory, initiated in the 1960's, is a reaction to traditional methodologies. This method focuses on the individual voice and experience of the student. Christopher Burnham in A Guide to Composition Pedagogies says that, "Expressivism's strength is its insistence that all concerns, whether individual, social, or political, must originate in personal experience and be documented in the student's own language" (Burnham 31). Although expressivism has fallen under great scrutiny by traditionalists, at the same time, there are a variety of activities that may be employed in classrooms today to help facilitate the composition learning process. Some of these activities include the memoir or autobiographical sketch, blogs on topics that relate to the individual as well as the community and daily journal writings that emphasize the importance and the power of the student's experience. All of these activities encourage the development of the student's voice as well as a method for contemporary teachers.

Lad Tobin outlines several aspects of process pedagogy in his aptly named article “Process Pedagogy.” According to Tobin, process pedagogy arose in the 1970’s, when authors such as Donald Murray and Peter Elbow began sharing their ideas with the public (2). Murray for example, pushed teachers to view writing as “the process of discovery through language” (qtd. by Tobin 2) while Elbow suggested that instructors teach students how to “generate words better” and “improve {their} ability to make {their} own judgment[s]” on which parts of their writing were strong, and which parts needed revision (qtd. by Tobin 2). In order to help writers generate words and edit their own work, Elbow advises writers to ‘freewrite’ and “play with words and ideas; form writing groups; and rely less at first on doubting and more on believing, less on criticism, more on imagination” (Tobin 3).

Although Murray and Elbow have similar outlooks on what process pedagogy is and how instructors should teach it, critics such as Lester Faigley argue that there are actually four different process theories : expressive, cognitive, social, and Marxist (Tobin 10). Expressivism, as noted before, began in the '60's and focuses primarily upon the student.

Andrea Lunsford’s “What We Know - and Don’t Know - About Remedial Writing” was one of the most influential cognitive works on how to teach remedial writers (Mutnick 188). Lunsford studied several students who had scored poorly on the English portion of the ACT (188). After working with the students, Lunsford pushed for educators to treat basic writers as if they were capable of completing complex assignments while at the same time focusing upon the students’ needs for “language skills” (189) and “sentence-combining exercises” (Mutnick 189).

Ironically, Lunsford’s original belief that basic writers should not be given easier readings was later overturned by her book “Cognitive” (Mutnick 189). In “Cognitive,” Lunsford argues that basic writing students are unable to “‘analyze and synthesize’” (Mutnick 189). Her new stance on basic writers as somehow “cognitively deficient” (Mutnick 189) was later rejected in the mid 80’s after the works of James Berlin, Patricia Bizzell, and Mike Rose became popular (Mutnick 189).

In the end, cognitivists have come to the conclusion that basic writers are not deficient in their mental abilities. Instead, most followers of the cognitive theory agree that basic writers can understand problems with voice, audience, coherence and so on, yet often struggle with organization and structure (Mutnick 189).

Followers of the social pedagogy, on the other hand, believe that writing should be considered a social behavior. Susan McLeod quotes Elaine Maimon’s argument that all teachers in every discipline should view writing as “a form of social behavior in that discipline” (154). Deborah Mutnick also provides a wonderful section on the ‘Social Turn’ in her article “On the Academic Margins: Basic Writing Pedagogy.”

Like Faigley, William Covino asserts that classicists and cognitivists often "label expressivism's sense of the self and its importance irrational" (Burnham 28). Yet Burnham goes on to explain that cognitivists have more recently begun to reaffirm the "important but problematic role of the self" (28). Tobin also refutes Faigley's stance by pointing to "the areas of agreement and overlap" (10) in these theories. For example, Tobin believes that there are "cognitive aspects of expressivism" as well as "social aspects of cognitivism" (10).

On the Process of Writing

“Writing is a process, not a product” seems to be as cliché as “Show me, don’t tell me.” Both statements, however, are simple, effective ways of explaining writing. As instructors of composition, it is our job to impart to our students the "process of writing," quite possibly one of the most ambiguous terms of our field, but also possibly the most studied. There are many differing opinions on where a writer starts and stops, how many times they go through the steps, does the writer repeat them again, and when in the process is a writer truly ready to publish. Or is the writer's intention to be published at all? This brings us to a whole new set of opinions and questions on the reasons behind writing. To get our students to even ask these questions is, I think, the true goal of composition; not that they can cross the "t"s and dot the "i"s, but that as writers they have indiviualized steps of a "process" of writing, that they examine and question where they are and where they want to go with a piece of writing, and why are they writing in the first place? If our students think like writers, then they are writers, and we've done our jobs as instructors.

How do we teach this? What is the process of writing? And if we know the process, how do we communicate it to the students? Although the phrase "writing process" is ambiguous, we are sure that it has to do with the communication of thoughts and ideas to an audience; in the case of writing, this audience is a readership. Scientists teach the scientific process and perhaps we should approach writing in a similar way. Writers begin with ideas, perhaps vague inclinations of an intended message, perhaps specific, concrete points we wish to convey to a target audience. Like a hypothesis that must be proven through experiments, ideas must be shaped and molded into words conveying our intended meaning. After some failed experiments, or prewriting, the hypothesis, or ideas, are eventually proven, or written. Ridding ourselves of the scientific metaphor, we are left with a successful prewriting session. Breaking writing down into several steps, for example, brainstorming, free writing, researching, creating abstracts with thesis statements, rough drafts, peer reviews, and finally a finished product, allows students to find a comfortable niche in which they can refine their writing style and technique.

Blogs are another medium in which students can practice their writing techniques and gain confidence. Blogging also creates a discussion board of ideas and collaboration, which if nothing else, excites students. With blog collaboration comes mutual teaching and a consciousness of others. The writing process evolves as a writer’s ability evolves. Revision techniques become the most crucial part of writing.

Peer review also helps students to refine their writing skills. Evaluating each other's work empowers them and they rise to the opportunity and take it quite seriously. When they see the mistakes their classmates make, students begin to look for the same mistakes in their own papers. Peer review also provides them with the opportunity to make contributions to their classmates' work, which greatly improves their papers. Students also learn to write for an appropriate audience and they learn to develop their writing partly through peer review, which is an important part of the writing process.

However, many students refuse (or fail) to see the value of employing the writing process. Either they believe it is too technical (which is boring), or they prefer their own ways, which have earned them As in the past. Not bold enough (although some may be) to tell their instructor point blank they feel as though they are being coerced into using this process, they go along with what we teach, never really capitalizing on what it offers in terms of organizing their thoughts. So while it is important to teach what will best organize their communication for other readers, it is important that we respect the student's methods. When we stress that academic writing demands clear and effective communication, our efforts will bear the most fruit. And when we teach students that the writing process is a framework capable of respecting their own methods, we will be teaching to the crux of their aversion to the writing process: getting them to care about and individualize that process.

Perhaps the best place to start with any writing endeavor is the purpose: what do we want to say, to whom, and why? Many freshman forced into first-year composition classes see writing as a chore, that it is something that must be done and the purpose is to improve their editing skills, perhaps. As instructors it is important to widen the scope of purpose for composition classes, for the students to see in a wider view of writing: not just personal purpose of improving but a communal purpose of improving eachother and the community. Set up a hierarchy that the students can move through during the writing process. The first level is, of course, personal gain: the student is in the classroom to learn, or relearn, how to put ideas on paper in the proper form and language. The reward for this is the grade they get on that "final draft". Above this level we have communal gain on the classroom level: through activities like peer review and class discussion students become aware of others as writers, and not only improve themselves through feedback but help to improve others through their own feedback. Again, the reward can be a grade, but above that satisfaction that personal writing has now become collaborative in the way that one person cannot be successful with the others. Lastly, a student can be taken to the ultimate level of the community outside the classroom, from the college to the surrounding city to even the world. Writing can become public in such a way that it can benefit or detriment humanity as a whole. As instructors we can give our students access to media outside the classroom, and the fastest, easiest, free form is the web: wikis and blogs can be the first step of publication for students that may not have ever thought they would publish. Students can create online portfolios of their work, and projects can be created that allow for research and analysis of any topic be published on a class page that the students themselves created. There is no end to what can be done on this level of writing, and the rewards are far greater than an immediate grade because the student can see at any time and place their own work, and be aware that their ideas are now floating in a place where anyone can grab them. Purpose is important at all levels of writing, and students should be introduced to the personal and communal gains as they work through the writing process.

While this chart is a helpful tool to visualize the writing process, many students still see this process as a single trip around the circle. One goes through each step and then submits the paper for teacher evaluation. In some ways, these students have devalued their own writing to such an extent that it is something that is to be completed: a credit-earning task and nothing more. Their ideas are less valuable than the ink that occupies the appropriate amount of space on the page.

How do we, as teachers, reorder these students’ priorities? It seems that we must find ways for students to be accountable for their ideas. Students must be made to realize that ideas, no matter how vacuous or poorly written, are evaluated in all discourse, beyond the teacher’s desk and red pen. So, teachers must find a way so that our evaluation, the mark of approval/disapproval that we place upon the paper, becomes, in some ways, almost secondary to the process of the writing. Does this require a shift in grading emphasis? Perhaps there is a need to move our focus away from the final draft. If a final draft is the thing graded most heavily, then the student’s emphasis will be on that product, not the process that leads to it. This is especially true for students trained by years of school in which product (i.e., standardized test essays, AP tests, SAT essays, etc.) has been prioritized over process in such an extreme manner that the writing process has been, in a sense, beaten from them.

On the other end are the students trapped within the cycle. They write, revise, rewrite, revise on and on, unable to escape to the final submission. They do exist, and their problems are often just as severe as those unaware of the writing process at all. If a composition class emphasizes that a final draft is not really final, perhaps these students will escape from their writing neuroses. If a composition class allows students to see that a final draft is actually just the final draft that their schedules and time limits allow, these overachieving students might learn to prioritize their writing and revision and fit the writing process healthily into their scholarly lives.

A sometimes vast hurdle in the preliminary part of the writing process is invention. While many thoughts may be floating about in the head of the writer, getting that one specific idea herded into a hypothesis upon the paper often takes more effort and frustration than any of the other writing process components. Many tactics exist for writers to employ in order to organize their thoughts into a coherent and valid paper. Free-writing helps students to write with abandon in the hopes that their thoughts will eventually formulate into sentences with which they many begin forming an outline of sorts. Free-writing also aides the student in inventing a plethora of material from which they can draw while actually writing their paper. Occasionally, students become so uptight with the invention part of the writing process that they feel hopeless, or distraught. On these occasions it may be helpful for the student to stop everything and take a walk, or simply lie down and empty their minds. Other tactics that students may wish to try in order to empty their minds include yoga, meditation, or physical exercise. By emptying their minds, students often find they invent an idea for their paper without even realizing it.

The Writing Process Contains Multitudes

Some writing is made public, but all writing originates in an act of intimacy. If the concept of a writing process is indeed ambiguous, then its emphasis deserves to focus on possibilities and what it can be rather than what it is not. In “Song of Myself”, Walt Whitman declares, “Do I contradict myself? /Very well then I contradict myself, / (I am large, I contain multitudes.)” And so, too, does the writing process contain multitudes. Its essence symbolizes a democratic practice capable of reflecting the potential power of every single conscious individual. This idea is reinforced by the theorist of expressive pedagogy, Donald Murray who concludes that all writing is autobiographical including what exists now in print before the reader’s eyes. Therefore, writing is inherently a subjective activity and despite how hard the author works at maintaining objectivity, his or her stylistic signature can and will be betrayed and detected. Murray realizes characteristics such as “thinking style” and “voice” allow for writing that is as distinct and individualistic as a thumbprint or a snowflake. The most important painter of the twentieth century world, Pablo Picasso, believed that every painting an artist completes actually represents a self-portrait. Murray echoes the artist’s sentiments in his statement, “I have my own peculiar way of looking at the world and my own way of using language to communicate what I see” (Perl 208). The theorist and writer even proceeds to conclude that the very process of reading itself is an autobiographical act. Perception and how it is described or illustrated through words or pictures are unique processes, as unique as a college composition student’s penmanship and writing process. If such pedagogical thought and interpretation makes the writing process all the more ambiguous, so be it. It is large. It contains multitudes. It can be.

Not only does writing reflect the writer's persona, it affects the reader. This influence might be intended to persuade, to provoke, or to induce reflection upon the reader, but whatever it's intended function, the text written should be fundamentally persuasive, in one form or another. This characteristic of writing demonstrates that it reaches out as well as in. In other words, an author's words not only paint a self portrait as mentioned above, but they weave a thread in a large tapestry that includes an entire community of readers. Writing unites the individual to a larger community, hopefully transforming both, and because of this unity, the writing process must make allowances for the public nature of writing. If writing is a social act, one that is both socially constructed and constructs society, then it is not merely the writer but the audience that is central to the text. Who is the intended audience? Are their multiple audiences? To what degree may the audience play an interactive role with the writer? In many cases, such as in a classroom environment, the boundry between audience and speaker becomes blurred, as does the boundry between teacher (speaker) and students (audience). The ability to think critically about these topics enables a writer to affect his reader, his society, with greater ease.

The writer does not need to abandon private writing, however. Singular interaction with the self is often pursued in thought, speech, and writing. This self-referencing interaction provides much of the same function as revision in that thoughts are modified in reference to the social audience. Such personal writing, when guided, allows for the author/reader to create distinctly separate personas, an excellent tool for any student to have, regardless of field. To say that writing not only reflects the writer's persona but the readers as well only supports the idea that maintaining a dual roleplay can cause a cyclical self-guidance. Through the creation of both a reader and a writer persona, the author can create autonomously. In effect, this gives the author a choice: public or private. Both have their benefits and restrictions, but neither can exist without the balance of the other. The same could be said for the writer. An entirely public writer is not extant. While entirely private writers can be argued for, the point is that such writing influences thoughts, which come into play in social interaction. The privacy of thought is only the privacy of a writer without pencil or keyboard. The multitudes, then, can be made up of the masses of society or the community of the singular mind.

Research

The function of research is pinnacle to a successful argument in a paper that is devoted to an idea that can be effectively proved, through data or statistical information. A paper on tuition increases to the national deficit need to have some research to validate the author and the argument. But how does the student respond to research? The student normally feels apprehension toward research as an idea, and when they finally do log onto the internet the results they produce are vague, too simple or regurgitation from wikipedia.

The student/research relationship is very strained and in some cases irreparable damage has been done by a multitude of sources.

As a teacher there seems no room to break away from tired lessons in the classroom about sources, the internet and the library. Some library classes can be helpful, but in the end, few students realize that the class has been moved or they just do not participate. There seems little to do, but to remain vigilant about sources and remind the students that the foundation of a good paper is research (of course one way to remind them is to lower their paper grades).

One useful technique is to stress the importance of context when deciding which sources to use in a given paper or speech. For instance, Wikipedia might be enitrely appropriate for general curiousity or a discussion among friends, but might be less appropriate for academic research. Of course, if the academic paper is over Wikipedia then it would be appropriate there as well. Everything is contextual, and this approach might reach students where a dry lesson over good source material won't. They need to know that they've been using rhetorical strategies all their lives and this college experience is just a variation of that.

Another use for Wikipedia is simple background for your project. Even though the sources in Wikipedia must be considered unreliable from a scholarly point of view, exploring the site is valuable for the information that it will give you on how the contemporary public views the topic. Also, there are often references at the bottom of the page to sources that do contain useful scholarly information, or links to sites that contain pertinent information. When researching a topic, there is no such thing as too much information, as long as vigilant records of the source and the quality of the information are maintained.

Organization

Organization provides the structure necessary to develop a clear, well-developed paper. Before you begin to write, you must consider how the ideas will be presented. Often, the thesis statement will guide the selection of the proper structure for an essay. For example, if you were writing to persuade a university president to create a better parking situation on campus, then your thesis statement would be followed by details which supported the argument. Yet, a memoir would need a different type of organization method. Developing a narrative in chronological order would be the logical choice.

One useful method of organization is an outline. An outline is a visual map which assists writers to creating a logical structure in which to present his/her thoughts. Although formal outlines can be helpful in the organization of dense material, some writers find informal outlines to be more helpful. Other writers feel restricted by the outlines and prefer to use other methods in which to organize their ideas.