11-30

Today's November 30th. AAAHHH! The goal obviously for Monday is to have at least 6 pages of the research paper done. As usual because it just doesn't work for me to try and work in a class where I can't spread out my notes everywhere and talk about my paper to myself I have to have smaller goals in class. I'd like to continue working on the body paragraphs that I began on Wednesday. If I can do 2/3 pages (AKA 1 topic- the social conventions, student process, and bringing together, each day I should be ready for the draft workshops next week). I also want to look at the sample papers posted.

11-28

In class today we did our free writing assignment and now we're writing again about our topic. I found that I was really more productive writing on paper than typing on the computer. For whatever reason it's easier for me to do my "pre writing" or rough drafts on note book paper as opposed to the computer. Unfortunately if I'm turning in any kind of documentation that would mean I'd have to transcribe the looseleaf to the computer. I had all kinds of issues sleeping and woke up early so during my sleep deprivation I went back and looked up different ways to approach my topic. In class today I went and made columns of all my articles that I will use in the body of my essay so that when I'm writing I'll have some sort of organization for my notes. After doing this I went back over my introduction to my paper.

explanation

If you're reading my blog you're probably confused why I have posted a possible conclusion to my paper today after posting a possible introduction Wednesday before Thanksgiving. I left my computer with my notes at home so I felt the best use of my time was to try and sum up what I had learned so far rather than to type a section and then try to fit in into the paper somewhere. Hopefully this is ok.

possible conclusion to paper

One of the topics that we discussed at the beginning of the course was collaborative learning, this requires a conversation, or sharing of knowledge between people. One of the benefits of a tutoring session in a writing center is that students are able to interact with a member of the academic discourse community in a one on one session. In classrooms students sometimes feel intimidated trying to adapt to the academic community. For students that take advantage of a writing center there is definitely potential for them to grow/develop. The focus of my paper however, has been on the strategies that writing center's staff members must use to create effective atmospheres for progress to take place. I've examined what might be called inner directed theory- the tutors focus on the process which takes place during the writing sessions. The positive aspects of this theory that I would like to incoporate into every writing center is the idea that a writer, as a person, has a unique style that they will carry with them. Focusing on the process in theory would also allow the tutor to discover a time during the process where the student was getting hung up, the tutor could devise strategies to help the student move past the sticking point in their process. If we acknowledge that students as individuals have qualities which make them unique we must also acknowledge that situations during writing. Different assignments have different requirements for students. The other school of thought believed it was better for writing centers to focus on the social construction around writing.

WHERE ARE YOU: This actually is a decent start to the conclusion. I'd like to finish moving through the positive feedback for social constructivism then just rehash my model quickly. In class next time it would probably make more sense to work on a few body paragraphs though.

possible introduction to paper

Typing in Microsoft Word just wasn't helping me to generate activities today. This is a possible introduction to my topic but by no means exactly what I will use.

For students who are struggling entering the academic discourse community writing centers are a place that students can go to work with tutors in a one on one situation. This type of interaction usually isn't available in the classroom. As in the classroom there are multiple perspectives on the best strategies to work with students. Some administrators believe that writing centers should focus on the process that students use while others believe that focusing on the social construction the writer is working with is most effective. Both of these approaches have aspects of them that seem worthy of exploring. I believe that a combination of both of these methods would be most helpful. My goal will be to highlight the benefits that each approach has. Ultimately I believe that writing centers should try to incoporate both of these approaches. Anne Mullin's article "Crossing Over Individuality and Social Constructivism" provided one model for this

Goals:

Get a few more paragraphs this weekend.

revision of annotated bibliography

three things I'd like to improve on for my final bibliography

1) I'd like to in the 1st paragraph of each entry to a better job focusing on the author's claim
2) two of my topics I wasn't sure how to cite papers presented at conferences- I will figure this out before the final copy is due.
3) I could come up with better headings for the different categories I've created.

a sample annotated bibliography

Law, Joe and Christina Murphy. “Formative Assessment and the Paradigms of Writing
Center Practice.” Clearing House 2 Dec. 1997. ERIC. Elmhurst College Library.,
Elmhurst. 05 Nov. 2007.

The authors of this article take a critical eye to the work that is taking place in writing centers today. In order to prove their point they examine the beliefs that writing centers seem to be founded on. A relatively brief history is given of how writing center process has shifted from post process theory to social constructionism. This seems to have taken place over a relatively short period of time, the article focuses on ideas which were expressed between 1967 and 1997.
Law and Murphy obviously had the goal that they wanted to see formative assessment and writing centers be evaluated together when they wrote this article, it's clear the history presented is arranged so that their goal will make sense. It's hard to believe that the background presented by these authors is all there is on the topic. They do cite names and present terms which are familiar to me from other research so I don't think they've simply made up a history about writing centers.
While this article has some flaws I think it fits the purpose I'm using for it. The article provides a background on the evolution of writing centers taking us reasonably close to present times. The article lays out which theorists fall into which side of the post process theory/social construction debate. The article provides a bibliography which will allow me to expand my source list.

Writing center sources-inquiry proposal

This is not the annotated bibliography
One thing that I needed to do for my revised inquiry proposal was to develop a list of sources. In class we discussed something about putting our sources on our blog. I'd don't know if we were supposed to do that now or not but in case we were here are some of the sources I'm considering using.
1) The Postmodern Writing Center: Some Lessons from Lyotard
according to the abstract this article discuss the potential of the writing center to break way from the rigid restraints of traditional academic writing. also has some ideas what the staff of the writing center might do.
http://proxy.elmhurst.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=ED360630&site=ehost-live

2) Intersections: Theory-Practice in the Writing Center.
This is actually a collection of essays in a book. some seem like they might be more helpful than others. This book is available online through ERIC but the writing seems hard to read. I'd like to try and find this book in print.
http://proxy.elmhurst.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=ED374464&site=ehost-live

3) Migrant Rationalities: Graduate Students and the Idea of Authority in the Writing Center
This article may be personally interesting but I'm not 100% sure I can use it for the paper. It does discuss why some graduate students feel stiffled by the conventions of traditional discourse in their academic disciplines.
http://proxy.elmhurst.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ515911&site=ehost-live

4) Crossing Over: Individuality and Social Constructivism in the Writing Center
This article looks at writing in a writing center based on some of the ideas we discussed in class before- is writing an inner directed or outer directed activity.
http://proxy.elmhurst.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=ED402577&site=ehost-live

5) Walking the Tightrope: Negotiating between the Ideal and the Practical in the Writing Center, Part 2: The Real.
This article seems like it might be an offshoot of the Mike Rose article I read. While he seemed to be challenging English departments and the faculty, questions how they fit into the university, this article looks like it more explicitly explores the relationships between writing
centers and the university
http://proxy.elmhurst.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=ED399538&site=ehost-live

6) Networked Computers + Writing Centers = ? Thinking about Networked Computers in Writing Center Practice.
This article gets me thinking in a slightly different direction. After reading this article there are some new questions I could ask during interviews with staff at the writing center.
http://proxy.elmhurst.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ551935&site=ehost-live

maybe) Reforming College Composition: Writing the Wrongs. Contributions to the Study of Education.
I don't know if I will really be able to use this source. It is a book with a collection of articles. The abstract touches on some interesting issues- what students can and can't do in the class room is one topic which caught my attention- BUT I don't know if it will be practical for me to search through 19 articles to find the information I need. I'm keeping the citation in this list because if I find a topic that needs more information I can check the index of this book and see if any article is helpful.
http://proxy.elmhurst.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=ED459452&site=ehost-live

7) Writing Center Internships: The Case for Collaboration and Integration?
Seems to be a fairly concise summary of what can be done to prepare tutors in a writing center.
http://proxy.elmhurst.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=ED439428&site=ehost-live

8) My Place or Yours: Theorizing Eclectic Writing Centers.
Part of this abstract suggested that theories for writing centers don't work that practices only do. It suggested these were difficult to discuss. That made me a little nervous. This should provide a fairly modern but different way to look at my topic.
http://proxy.elmhurst.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=ED470708&site=ehost-live

9) Making Thinking Visible: Writing in the Center
Unfortunately this article focuses on a high school writing center. I might compare what is described here to what happens in a college writing center.
http://proxy.elmhurst.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ772109&site=ehost-live

10) Formative Assessment and the Paradigms of Writing Center Practice
This particular article seems like a good place to get some background on the evolution of writing centers. It's certainly a much better way to go about it than looking back at the early articles from the 1970s would be.
http://proxy.elmhurst.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ559333&site=ehost-live

10-31 in class

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

Staff members at the writing center are one group of people that would provide factness about the issue. They could explain why they use different strategies when working with students. Students who actually use the writing center are another group of people that I could interview to provide factness. Do they find the approach taken by the staff at the writing center different than the approach taken by professors in class? What strategies used at the writing center are helpful? What strategies aren't helpful? It might also be useful to interview English professors working with freshman or struggling writers at the college level. Do they see improvments in writing when students visit the writing center? Are there situations where they feel the writing center is more helpful than it is in other situations? (would there be a reason not to have a student seek help outside the classroom?)



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

Other than searching for interviews/testimonials from students, writing center employees, or professors that aren't available for me to interview directly I don't know if there is a lot of material which relates to "factness" that I could read. I have a feeling that more of the information that I will read will fall under the term fact as opposed to "factness". If I'm not quite understanding the definition or the question please let me know.




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

I'm not feeling particularly creative. I'm not sure how to answer this question. I talked to Maria and she mentioned she might do some type of survey of peers. I don't want to promise that I'll do a survey (I'm usually pretty unreliable about putting them together) but if I really found it necessary I suppose I could ask peers if they'd ever used writing centers and what their experience was? I could create some different type of survey for staff members at the writing center but I'm really not 100% sure what I'd ask.

WOW-Mike Rose-Reading for 10-31

Before reading our article assigned for Wednesday I went onto the website and looked at other people's responses. Lindsay (I think it was Lindsay) was the only person who had written about the article our syllabus had suggested for reading. Reading her response helped me understand what the article seemed to generally be about and it didn't seem to really relate to my topic. I looked through the cross talk book for articles that seemed to relate more to my topic. Mike Rose's article "The Language of Exclusion: Writing Instruction at the University" caught my eye and seemed to at least partially relate to my topic, writing centers and other outside sources college students might use when trying to learn to write for the academic discourse community.

Rose does talk about writing centers a little in his article. When he discusses writing as a skill he mentions that we have established writing skill centers. The inclusion of the word "skill" might be a keyword which I could use to get more useful returns on my online searches. To my knowledge when we talk about "The Writing Center" at Elmhurst College we're not dropping the word "skill" from the title. I'm just starting my research but I now question why that particular choice was made. I don't necessarily have the answer and I guess ultimately it may not prove to be that important but my gut tells me there's something worth following up on.

Rose really seems to attack fellow colleagues as well as university "higher ups" for their treatment of writers who struggle at their early attempts to master the conventions of academic discourse. He gives some suggestions for how to solve the issues at the end of his article but I was disappointed he didn't offer more solutions. It did make me feel confident that I wasn't misinterpreting a lot of the articles and assuming that the authors seemed to look down on students who struggled. Of all the articles we've read in this course I think it's possible that the lessons/theme of this article will most likely be carried with me for the longest period of time.

I can't help but relate a quote in this article to an idea that was presented in our discussion about the Lu article. On page 565 Rose talks about the work of Mina Shuaghnessy and says "she told us to interpret errors rather than circle them". I think that Lu was trying to interpret the errors of her students. I am 110% behind this idea and I think we as a class worked to interpret the errors or uniqueness of the 106 student's writing at the end of class and YEAH for us to do that and YEAH that Dr. O'Rourke was willing to do it.

revision/questions about inquiry project

Dr. O'Rourke at 9:45 I wasn't ready to post the questions. Once I've taken a little more time to think I'll post to the blog. Hopefully before Tuesday afternoon. Thanks for your patience.

multiculturalism/contact zones

This article by Min-Zhan Lu builds off Mary Louise Pratt's article "Arts of the Contact Zone". Both authors suggest that part of the problem with the idea of multiculturalism in writing and education is that it seems to require extra effort to incorportate it. Lu suggests that there may be ways to incorporate the ideas of multiculturalism into an English class which haven't been explored yet.
"Academic Discourse" has a set of conventions that most teachers work hard to adher to, students who struggle to follow these rules are sent to outside sources such as a writing center where instructers work with them on "mastering correct usage" of English grammar. Reading this particular passage should disturb most people in this class after we've discussed the drawbacks to teaching writing as if there was only one correct way for a person to express their ideas.
Lu discusses two examples of people who were intelligent who because of their backgrounds weren't prepared to adapt to the academic discourse in universities. Both of these cases are examples of the problems that occur when we assume that sticking to established conventions is the best way to write.
To combat this problem Lu provides students with papers where there are grammar errors which seem easy to fix. Rather than fixing them though the class is encouraged to discuss why the person might've expressed themselves in this particular manner.


Lu's students seemed to feel that traditional academic discourse was better than the less traditional writing but being exposed to both styles allowed students to have a better
understanding why they preferred one approach to the other.


I'm not sure I 100% understand the definition of contact zones. It seems that they are areas in writing where the way a person learned to use English grammar relates to how grammar is used in academic discourse. Does a contact zone have to include a difference in how grammar is interpreted?

inquiry project

Identify the issue or problem that you plan to focus on in your Inquiry Project.

This issue comes about from a few different articles. Reading Royster’s “when the first voice you hear is not your own”, as well as Bartholomae’s “inventing the university”.

I’m not 100% sure whether my paper will focus more on how students are taught to modify their natural dialect to fit into academic discourse or whether my paper will focus on how what happens to students who aren’t able to adapt to the style of academic discourse.

If I choose to pursue the natural dialect fitting into academic discourse I might also look at whether or not academic discourse stifles creativity of students.

2. What is your personal connection to and interest in this topic?

After we discussed Royster in class I was prompted to think more about her article. I carried the article around with me for a few days and sort of tried to think how it applied to experiences I had and other things that we read. Ultimately this connection to Bartholomae came to my mind.

3. What opinions do you already hold about this topic?

I guess with either approach to the topic I’m a little disappointed in the way that the academic community seems to interact with students. I’d work on the assumption that some creativity is lost when students are taught to modify their writing for an academic community. (although even as a I type this I’m starting to think how someone might argue that creativity isn’t lost).

Personal experiences in addition to the way the attitude the theorists seem to have about less experienced writers makes me pessimistic about the chances students have to succeed in academic writing if they struggle at first to adapt their writing to academic communities.

4. What knowledge do you already have about this topic. What are your main questions about this topic? What are you most curious about?

I think I’ve already at least partially answered this question in some of the above questions. I’d expand my thoughts by discussing a place I might conduct some research for either topic. Elmhurst College’s writing center would seem like a place that I might get some valuable information for this topic. What type of interaction takes place when students bring papers into the writing center? How does the aid that takes place here make the students conform to academic conventions? What other resources are available to students who are struggling?

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)?

Yikes. I’m really not sure how to answer this question.

6. How could you research this topic outside the library (for example, through interviews and/or observations)?

Please see number 4. Once I focus more on my topic I'll be able to answer this better.

class discussion

I didn't say anything in our class discussion on a "scene" where we related to Jacqueline Royster's article. I was able to talk about the discussion a little more after class with Dr. O'Rourke and I think I was able to clarify my thoughts. I can relate to what Brett said in class "I don't feel like I can contribute because I don't think I've had an experience like the one Royster describes". The thought that went through my head as I read the article by Royster and listened to the stories that people shared in class was "This makes me appreciate being a white male who lives with, goes to school with, and works with people that are pretty much like me". I could sit here and list theoretical situations where I might be in the minority and as a result feel that I had to alter my voice because of the environment/people around me but I find it hard to believe I'd ever regularly be in that type of situation.

One solution to the issue Royster raises would be to have white men only discuss white men, black women only discuss black women etc. etc. I can't help but think that if we did this it would take away the unique perspectives that we get when we try and put ourselves in the position of people who come from a background different than our own. A series of question is flowing through my head:
1) Who is allowed to talk about who? Should we only speak about our own race? our own sex? our own religion?
2) Hopefully we would recognize that we're allowed to talk about people from different situations than our own. What are some guidelines that could be established to work torwards not offending people?

I had finished this blog and was ready to leave this topic alone for a while. I had a few extra minutes so I read everyone else's blogs. Signing off the computer and walking back to the dorm I started to feel guilty. I thought to myself that's part of the problem with a discussion like this. I personally shouldn't feel guilt about the other situations because I'm a white male. SHOULD I? I can't believe that Royster was attempting to invoke this response. If she was I'll have to yell at her like she yelled at the panel.

if you read this please feel free to comment. I may update this before Friday/this weekend depending on what else we talk about or if I can find more ways to explain my thoughts. part of me fears that I'm complaining or sending out some type of elitest attitude in this post and neither of those are my goal.

Royster

"What is gained or lost when participating in an academic discourse community" was the question Dr. O'Rourke posed to us to think about when reading Royster. My own opinion was that, wth ideas such as templates being advocated for, and scholars looking down on writing which doesn't fit into certain established conventions the voice/style of individual authors might be taken away by participation in an academic community.

I think that the Jacqueline Jones Royster and I have a similar idea about losing one's voice in an academic setting but she attributes the loss to different reasons that I would.

In Scene 1 Royster discusses how she finds herself as an African American woman forced to listen while colleagues, most likely white colleagues, discuss things about the African American race. Royster seams to yearn to scold her colleagues for talking authortatively about something than they haven't truely experienced but being a member of the discourse community makes her hold back.
- I'm not 100% sure what point Royster is trying to make when she discusses home training. are there situations when she would feel comfortable speaking up about the discomfort she feels? Is home training in some way the training of how to reign one's self in when participating in academic discourse?
In an interesting way I think Scene 3 can be linked to Scene 1. Royster doesn't seem to want to specifically say it but she seems to be suggesting that there are times where she allows what people would consider more traditional African American dialect to work together with traditional academic discourse language. She's upset when a colleague suggests that when she does this she is sounding more "natural". Royster suggests that it is natural for her to be able to speak both as an academic and an African American. She seems to be pointing to an underlying racist attitude of her friend. Her main point in Scene 3 is that a person can have multiple "natural" or "authentic" voices.
Royster's idea of natural voice and mine are different. It seems to her that if you've been in a discourse community for a certain period of time that the conventions of that community are as natural to you as the conventions of the community you grew up in. I limited my thoughts on what is a natural voice to the conventions one grew up speaking. I suppose I can understand why if a person has for a long period of time been a participated in a community with different conventions they might eventually consider those natural too. I'd question Royster as to when she felt that academic discourse conventions became a natural way of speaking for her.

Scene 2 I'm not 100% sure how to fit scene two into my argument. Royster is saying that when she attempts to speak about her history as an African American, and as a result digs deeper than some of her colleagues might, she finds that people at first don't believe everything she presents to them. Royster says she is trying to straddle the line between participating in the African American discourse community where she her ideas will likely be accepted and the academic community where she must prove herself. It seems like she's possibly responding to scene 1 and trying to suggest if she speaks about the same topics she isn't granted the same authority as her white colleagues are. I have a hard time making sense of why this might happen. Is there some reason other than that she's African American that people are waiting for her to prove herself? She's either not telling us the entire story or she's accusing the entire academic community of being racist.

Bizzell

Early in her article Patricia Bizzell makes the comment that some teachers of English have begun to take the attitude that in addition to teaching writing they have to teach some of the student's to think as well. Judging by some of the terms for less experienced writers that other authors have used it wouldn't surprise me if that was exactly the attitude they had. On a brighter note the main focus of this article was to describe two different ways that theorists have tried to understand writing. Bizzell points out the strengths and flaws of each way of analysis and then lays out a way to combine the theories that might create a more productive method of inquiry into the writing process.

Bizzel suggests that one of the main groups of theorists is more interested in the structure of language learning and/or thinking processes. She calls this group inner-directed. Since this was written in 1982 it's not a surprise that she mentions Flower and Hayes as prominent members of this group. Understanding the writing process for each individual is of more importance to this group than understanding/acknowleding the society or writing situation that might also influence a writer. These theorists think that there are certain univeral fundamentals of thought and language which can be taught. The models in our They Say/I say book might be examples of universal fundamentals which can be taught. As Bizzell states the goal is to first learn a model then change/alter ones wording depending on the situation.

Bizzell defines their oppositon as outer directed theorists (surprise!). The social context is most important for these theorists and thinking and language are always connected to it. One claim these theorists make that seems like it might be interesting to think about more is that even an infant learning a language is in a discourse community because he/she will likely understand the language in a way that unique to her surroundings. Bizzell hammers home the point that outer-directed theorists want to study conventions of different discourse communities.

Once this basic setup is complete Bizzell critiques Flower and Hayes. Bizzell says that ultimately Flower and Hayes develop the assumption that the mental activities of an individual don't change no matter what problem they are trying to solve. When the theory is described that bluntly I find that I have a hard time agreeing with the theory of Flower and Hayes. In one of the blog's I read someone mentioned that it seemed like Flower and Hayes just renamed a lot of the same terms. We did discuss the term "The Montior" as if it were a new concept and I'm not sure we as a class reached a concensus on what exactly it was. Bizzell points out that their study is a mix of daunty complexity and disappointing familiarity but I think she feels it is mostly too familiar. Reading her explanations for terms such as translatting and goal-setting I agree that we've heard these terms maybe even before taking this course. Even the monitor, when Bizzell breaks down the theory, proves not to be some awe inspiring discovery of Flower and Hayes. The problem with Flower and Hayes' research and with most inner-directed theory is that it fails to explain where knowledge came from.

Bizzell says that while Flower and Hayes would like to place poor student performance on insufficient cognitive development perhaps we should also examine how familiar students are with the discourse community. A professor should take time to make student's familiar with conventions of writing expected in their school.

Flower and Hayes have provided the form of the composing process but left out the content. Conventions of the discourse community are the content with is missing.

One study we read compared student writers to professional writers. Of course the study suggested the revising process of the professional writers was superior. Bizzell suggests the composing process might also be superior because students don't feel their writing will have an impact on the real world. I agree with this argument made by Bizzell and would suggest in response to the revising study that perhaps the reaon student's simply revised grammar was because they believed that was the easiest way to earn a good grade.

Unfortunately we can't simply focus on outer-directed theories. The teaching of them seems unrefined, at least in the process which is described by Bizzell. (what exactly is happening with the computers?!?!)

Bizzell ends by arguing against seeking certainty or commonplace in the teaching of writing. It seemed to me that she was making an argument outer-directed theorists would make. My question to Bizzell would be- could a teacher presented a theory as common place and then have the students work to prove the theory wrong. It would be a powerful expereince for the student's if they could prove that a way something was previously judged should be reexamined or discarded altogether.

Bartholomae's response to Flower and Hayes

Bartholomae seems to disagree with Flower and Hayes on how the processes of discovery, creativity and invention take place in the writing process. For Flower and Hayes they seem to be internal tasks where energy is devoted to the subject itself. Bartholomae makes the point that the professor writing for Seventeen magazine must also consider the audience reading the magazine and the content of the magazine. He says the writer must know where his piece will fit in the history of what has been written. The professor will likely compose his article much differently for the magazine than he would for an academic journal. While Seventeen may not have elaborate or complicated conventions for it's writing style, articles in the magazine will still have a unique presentation. It is useful from Flower and Hayes's article to note that a break through came when the professor identified the type of people he was writing for, teenage girls. Unfortunately we see very little of the writing that comes after the author has developed his plan.
I agree with the criticism Bartholomae presented in his article. While it would be foolish to completely throw away the work the Flower and Hayes did in their study it seems like they failed to take the next step after learning what happened during the mental part of writing for their author. I think we've mentioned a few times that different situations where a person is writing will impact the way that a person presents their argument. Looking at how a writer crafts their argument based on addressed and invoked audiences might be another place that we find an author not simply planning based on ideas in his/her head but taking into account outside factors as well.

Flower and Hayes

Linda Flower and John R. Hayes explored the series of decisions and choices (the cognitive process) of a writer during the writing process.



The first major point of the article is the examination of stage models of writing. Ideas about pre-writing, writing and re-writing were explored. Flower and Hayes referred back to the article by Nancy Sommers and agreed that it appears that most students don't view these as separate tasks but instead they seem to flow together. Most theorists have been unable to answer the question how do good ideas relate to good prose.

Flower and Hayes' cognitive process model is one way that might help answer this. Understanding the "task environment", writing process specific to an individual and the "long term memory" of a writer are all parts of this process.



Task environment was a new term to me. It is defined as anything outside of the writer's skin such as the problem/assignment and the text itself (277). From observation the authors remark that things which seem less important, such as the title of the paper, can put invisible barries on how a student will write their paper.





Long term memory as it applies to this article is the knowledge a person has stored which might possibly be useful for the assignment they are completing. Outside resources such as books can contribute to long term memory. Knowledge about the audience is also categorized under long term memory, I thought this might fall under a task environment since the audience is usually outside of the writers skin (unless writing a personal, private diary). Is the audience referred to in this piece audience addressed or audience invoked? I'm not entirely sure how to answer that question but it is something I'd like to think about over time.



While not completely rejecting the notions of prewriting, writing and rewriting it seems that the writing process is examined in a slightly different way by Flower and Hayes. Concepts such as planning, translating, reviewing and "The Monitor" are taken into account here. Planning is an internal task where the writer might generate ideas and organize them before writing them down. Setting goals for a paper is part of the planning process which likely impacts the way an author would organize his or her paper. At this point the writer is working on the process only for himself. Translating is when the writer must also consider the conventions of the English language and the audience he/she is writing for. Reviewing has two subpoints, evaluating and revising. Further translation may occur during this stage but it isn't inherent to this step. Flower and Hayes say that what is unique to this step is that it might interrupt any other part of the writing process. Another new term introduced in this article was "The Monitor". It seems to be an internal quality that writers have. It filters ideas in and out but also makes sure that the process isn't simply bogged down in goal setting or translating or at any other point. A writer doesn't create "the monitor" it seems to be a part of being a writer but it can be fine tuned.

Understanding this process is a tool for researchers to pose more questions about the writing process. One might be: How do these different actions interact with each other, how are they organized? The authors suggest that there may be a hierarchy at work but that the hierarchy isn't fixed. While they had previously laid out a possible order for the process the fact that reviewing can take place at any time and that "The Monitor" is constantly present suggests that the hierarchy described isn't incredibly rigid. In fact the goals of the writing process may change the way the process takes place. Process goals and context goals are distinguished. Process goals relate to the way the writer plans to carry out the different tasks in writing while context goals are what the writer means for the finished product to do (convey?). Context goals are also flexible as a writer works.

Pages 291-296 elaborate on 3 different types of context goals 1) explore and consolidate, 2) state and develop and 3) write and regenerate. These goals are fairly straight forward and since it doesn't seem like part of the assignment to go into elaborate detail on them I'll hold off. If more questions/interest come out of further discussion of these distinctions I will look back at this section.

Inventing the University

Bartholomae takes an approach I wish Ede and Lunsford had in their article. He quickly lets the reader understand his argument. Alright I'm done blasting Ede and Lunsford.

Bartholomae states that each time a student sits down to write he has to invent the university for the occasion or at least a particular branch of it. Right away he points out that when writing a paper in an academic setting the student must learn to speak the language of the community he is writing for.

Bartholomae suggests that students can feel the pressure to write as a literary critic one day and experimental psychologist the next day. I haven't had many radically different fields to write in at Elmhurst but I do notice a difference in the way I write depending on what subject I am writing about. If the course/subject matter was unfamiliar to me I could understand the argument that trying to find patterns in the language a particular communities uses and doing my best to mimic that style.

It was pointed out that some student's have learned simply to memorize certain names and places or even canonical interpretations and will just repeat this. While this is a good starting point for academic discourse it should probably move beyond this as well.

The author obviously was looking at the finished products of the student's but it is important to understand that the process is still important. Bartholomae admitted a few times that he could only speculate about what might be happening during the process.

Freshman students provided answers to the question "Describe a time when you did something you felt to be creative. Then, on the basis of the incident you described go on to draw some general conclusions about creativity" and Bartholomae used the responses as examples of many positive and negativies qualities of writing throughout the essay. Bartholomae came close to providing too many examples to make his article enjoyable/understandable but overall I think that his examples made his argument more clear.

questions on audience addressed/invoked

Trying to answer these questions I found it was hard not to include some type of context to explain what I mean. Since we were asked to step away from the "Bitch" magazine add (I'm looking over my shoulder as I type that word on the computer) I tried to develop another example.

· What different kinds of information emerge from the two types of analysis? What does each reveal or conceal?

audience addressed- here you are focusing on the real people reading your text. If you write a paper advocating gun control you will likely attract some politically active people with two very different opinions on the subject. a group supporting gun control won't have very many needs to be convinced that you are right. To win over members of the local hunting club, however, you'll need to present your case in a creative way. You might even need to learn more about those readers to try and shape your argument, you might seek a shared religious belief or high light a past experience in their life on to help you convince them you're right.

If you just study a text based on the audience addressed you'll learn most about the beliefs of the people reading the paper. The way the author relates to the audience will give you some insight on the writer. The way the topic is presented balanced against what you've learned about the audience and writer can teach you a little about the way the topic is perceived in a society.

audience invoked- in this model we can learn more about the topic and writer than about the audience. We can all list a lot of different key persuasive words a writer might use to get across the urgency of gun control. Writing strategies presented by the author can help us learn about the audience. When writing about a controversial issue the writer might use an "imagine if" scenario to both increase support of those already in his corner but more importantly invite opponents to play a believing game about his topic. Whether a reader was resistant to playing the game or willing to think outside the box would teach a us about the audience.

· When or why might one type of analysis be more useful than another?
I think it probably would be a good idea to consider who you are addressing when you begin to write a paper. As I mentioned in answering the previous question if you can develop a good understanding of the characteristics of people who will be reading your work you can adjust your writing as a result. This is where audience invoked will come into play. A skillful writer will invoke at least a portion of people who at first have a different opinion to look at the topic from a perspective more favorable to the author.
I suppose that if you were writing about a non-controversial subject and were just interested in selling books or magazines you might be able to simply focus on the audience you wished to address. Creativity might lead writers to consider invoking different roles for their readers in this situation as well though.

If you were criticizing literature, as Ong was, it is probably more fun/useful to study the audience invoked rather than the audience addressed. I don't want to say this statement applies 100% of the time but in my experience I think a majority of the time this is a fairly accurate statement.

· In what ways do these types of analysis inform each other or reveal weaknesses in each other?
I'm having a hard time finding a new way to answer this question. I've tried a few formats and feel like I'm just repeating myself. If you're bored with my brief explanation please feel free to stop reading if (for some ____ reason) I haven't been clear throughout this let me know and I'll try and explain more.

audience addressed informs audience invoked- who will really read this? what roles might you need to put them in? how likely are they to want to be put in those roles?

audience invoked informs audience addressed- what should you think as you read this? what ideas/opinions might you be overlooking?

weakness of audience invoked exposed- sometimes you can be as clever as you want, you can use the greatest writing tricks ever created and your audience just won't be receptive to it.

weakness of audience addressed- you might like/dislike this piece without really knowing why. If you enter willing to play the believing game a creative author can draw you into a role you never knew was possible and you might understand a topic in a whole new/unexpected way.

Ede/Lunsford

I have to start my summary by admitting that I just had a bad reaction to this article by Ede and Lunsford. Ede and Lunsford seem to play the doubting game about audience addressed and audience invoked. I seemed to find myself as a result being very critical of the arguments they suggested. It seemed like Ede and Lunsford picked relatively weak articles or theories to pick holes in. We really haven't read much about audience addressed so it is hard to tell if there would've been a better representation of the theory but our authors felt the need to explain (apologize?) for picking the work of Mitchell and Taylor. In regards to Ong's "audience invoked" I think even in the few days we had to think about the article we realized that there were weak and strong points to his proposal. Ede and Lunsford had lots of time to pick apart his theory. After reading Ede and Lunsford's criticism of the other two theories by default you had to agree with their theory. My thought was did these authors just prove why two things were wrong and then combine them and claim that this made their theory right? About 1/3 of this article focused on their theory and the strenghts of it. I don't necessarily think I have enough information from Ede and Lunsford to decide if their theory is valid or not.

To help explain my frustration I'll summarize in list form the what I saw presented by Ede and Lunsford.

1) Introduction to topic- there's a debate over how to conceptualize the audience in composition classes in colleges. Ede and Lunsford feel the debate is too narrow. they define what they believe have been the current parameters of the debate. One sentence at the end of the intro suggests that Ede and Lunsford have another alternative, it isn't defined.
2) audience addressed- briefly we learn about Fred Pfister and Joanne Petrik and their contributions to this understanding. Ede and Lunsford (maybe) explain Mitchell and Taylor's theory.
Basically this section went as follows: M and T say _____. This isn't correct because _____. M and T say ______. That's not right either.

It got REALLY frustrating to try and summarize this section point by point.

3) audience invoked- metion of Richard Long and a brief description of what Ede and Lunsford the way Ede and Lunsford understand this topic precedes a rip job on Ong. To me it seemed like Ede and Lunsford were a little more complimentary to Ong than M and T but it still wouldn't amount to glowing praise of his work.

4) rhetoric and its situations- AAAAHHHH- both theories are bad so what do we do? The authors argue that there really isn't much of a difference between these two theories? ok maybe I could understand that but I need examples of how this will happen since so many people before you haven't seen it this way. They explained that when writing their paper they considered both audiences they were addressing and invoking.

I don't know what to say about this article, hopefully discussion will make it more clear.

The Writer's Audience is Always fiction

Walter Ong's essay "The Writer's Audience is Always Fiction" made me think about the way that I both read and write in a different manner. Ong began his essay by pointing out the differences in the audience for a written document and a public speech. In a speech the speaker will know in advance who is writer might be and certainly can adapt his speech to meet the audience he is presented with when he actually delievers the speech. A writer can anticipate who might read their work but ultimately they can't change what they have written. Ong plans on taking these givens and exploring what challenges this presents for a writer.
Ong talks about a common assignment students receive from teachers when they return to school, "write about your summer vacation". For a student this is a difficult assignment because, Ong argues, there is no audience which the student can imagine sitting down and talking about his summer vacation with. The author suggests that to succesfully complete the assignment the student might create an audience he is more comfortable with or alter his writing style so the teacher can relate to his summer vacation.
An author doesn't know what time of mood his reader will be in, where his reader will try to read his work, and the author might not even be 100% sure who will read his work. One way an author can try to negate that disadvantage is to give readers general roles they have to fill. Ong explained how many popular authors created a variety of roles for their audiences. The audience might be on a pilgrammage, like in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, or they might be reading a series of letters passed between friends. An issue with placing demands on readers is that if the demands don't fit the time period or are just too difficult the readers will tune out any message the author is trying to send. Ong argues that this solution to give readers roles can be seen in sports or war corespondence of modern newspapers.
Most of this essay seemed to deal with classical literature authors but in the final section it was argued that the audience was fiction in all genres of writing. In history the interpretation of the"facts" by the historian and the method he goes about delivering those facts is partly due to an audience whose demands must be catered to. Ong suggests that this is why it is rare that historians will explain the same event in the exact same way. Even personal correspondence is fictionalized. It is pointed out in the article that it would be silly if one person greeted another by saying "Dear John" on the street. Similarly writings such as "hi" or "greetings" come off as insincere when written.

post-process theory

Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch's article on "post process pedagogy" took the reader on a long complex journey with, as the author herself admited, a rather unusual payoff. To understand what the article is about one must first understand what process is. The author explains that process is the theory that writing is a process with three stages (prewriting, writing, and rewriting). Breuch and other scholars have started to distance themselves from this definition of writing however and at the present time it is easiest to call the belief system they hold "post process theory". One of the major struggles for scholars studying post process theory is that applying their beliefs to teaching writing (forming a pedagogy) has proved unusually difficult. It was surprising for me to read that some people who had done work in the field had already determined that, while the theory might be sound, it was impossible to translate the theory to teaching writing. After all the explanation of what the theory was an arguments attempting to convince the reader that post process theory was a relevant idea I was happy that Breuch at least made an effort to suggest a method that the theory might be applied.
Dates weren't really given for when this theory began to emerge but because the author spends a good deal of time at the beginning of her paper slapping down critics to the theory I assume that these ideas must be relatively new developments.
Three important ideas about post process theory according to Breuch are that: writing is public, writing is interpretive, and writing is situated. When considering that writing is public the author believes it is essential to remember that writing is for an audience. The goal shouldn't simply be to make the paper look correct the paper must also communicate ideas to the audience. Applying some pedagogies that have been traditionally defined as dialectic can help develop a pedagogy for post process theory under this assumption. Writing is interpretative suggests that the writing both for the writer and audience is open to interpretation. Questions can be raised regarding this idea such as, are there any ideas which are not open to interpretation? The author cites a few philosophers who believe that interpretation never stops. Since writing is situated some people have argued that classrooms shouldn't have a single blueprint and should be constantly changing and adapting. There is an antifoundational undercurrent to this particular part of the post process theory. This part of post process demans that the writer is always aware of the public and professional communities which will review their work.
In a twist that I didn't see coming the author suggested that perhaps the best way to teach post process theory writing is in a one on one basis through tutoring or a writing center. Students play a much more active role in their education in both of these situations which would help satisfy the three major ideas about writing I listed in the previous paragraph. Breuch admits that even this solution isn't the perfect pedagogy but believes the benefits and drawbacks that the theory contains as well as the challenges and rewards of the individualistic writing center and tutoring methods offer might become an ideal match. Breuch urges teachers to let go of more the ideas of pedagogy they were brought up with and embrace the needs of the students which she believes post process theory address.

response to Perl and Sommers

The first thing that jumped out about Sondra Perl's article was actually her title specficially categorizing a group of people as "unskilled". Perl made some distinctions at the end of her study when talking about the implications for teaching where she tried to distinguish unskilled writers from remedial or beginner writers. I suppose I can understand some of the reasons that Perl dislikes the implications of both of those titles, the student's writing shouldn't necessarily be viewed as wrong or something to fix and hopefully the student's don't enter a college classroom with a blank slate of writing knowledge for teachers to work with. I preferred Sommers term, "student writers" or to be more specific a variant of her other group might be appropriate. Something along the lines of "less experienced student writers" might describe the student's studied in a more respectful manner.
The goals and questions presented by Perl were actually quite interesting and I'm curious to know if the conclusions Perl drew were followed up on in the 30 years since her study was conducted. Answering question 3 might be the most measureable and most important goal. Question three asks- What does an increased understanding of their (the "unskilled students") processes (of writing) suggest about the nature of composing in general and the manner in which writing is taught in school?
For someone interested in following up on Perl's research the author does a nice job laying out her terms, methods and the conclusion she drew for her case study. Someone not interested in this line of research might get tied up in trying to understand every detail.
Nancy Sommers compared the writing and revising styles of student writers and experienced adult writers. She spent a lot of time describing her experiment but the most critical part seemed to be when she reported back the responses students and expericed writers had given her regarding revision. Sommers pointed out the distinct difference between the student's revision practices which included redoing, marking out, and reviewing grammar and the experienced writers who were more concerned with theme, form or shape of their article. Sommers suggested that students become to focused on the narrow picture when they are asked to revise their papers and this explained the differences between the two groups interpretation of the term. Sommers article could be used both by teachers in a classroom or for follow up research. While she doesn't lay out exactly what she did in the way that Perl did it is clear that an academic audience would understand how she drew the conclusions that she did.

Cross talk in Comp

This weekend we read a few different selections from the Cross-Talk in Composition book. In the prefaces to the book explain how writing has evolved. The preface to book II explains the changes that have happened in the field in the short time between editions. We have heard from many theorists that writing is a process and this shows how quickly writing has evolved.
It was interesting to read the introduction section 1 about writing being a process. In class we discussed the conference where teachers from England and from the United States discussed the different approaches to teaching writing. This section gave a more concise explanation of what exactly happened at the Dartmouth conference.
Donald Murray's article described a fresh approach to evaluating writing. Murray criticized the way that he believes teachers evaluate writing today. One thought I particularly liked from Murray's article was when he described writing as "the process of discovery through language". Looking at the title of the next section I assumed that this would be a theme that would take hold throughout the assigned readings. The claim that Murray made that I was most uncomfortable with was when he assigned percentages of time to the various stages of writing. As a student I now feel a little uncomfortable if I take more than 1% of my time to publish a first draft of a paper. Maybe Mr. Murray's idea of prewriting/writing and my idea of prewriting/writing are a little different. Murray concludes his article by listing ten implications of how writing will be conducted in a class room if a person follows his rules. Reading the list I found that I liked the way many of his implications sounded but I wondered how pracitcal they really were.
Janet Emig's essay on writing as a mode of learning had a slightly different topic than what I expected. Emig began her article by arguing that writing was a unique mode of communication and learning. She really worked hard to convince her reader that writing was different than talking and I found myself wondering why she was trying so hard to establish something that seemed so simple. When the article finally focused on what writing contributed to the learning process I learned some new things. The author drew on several historical theorists to give support to her argument but also brought science in when pointing out that the right side of the brain contributed three or four times to the writing process. One argument I really agreed with was the idea that successful learning was engaged, committed, personal learning. Emig and Murray both seemed to agree that it is important to let a writer produce work at their own pace.

writing instruction 1900-1917

Economic/Social/Political Debates Involving Writing Instruction 1900-1917

Glenn E. Palmer wrote in essay in 1912 summarizing the debate between Harvard and Yale. Yale wanted to teach the few who were gifted writing and others about the inspiration of literature. The author critiques this as searching for a few geniuses. Harvard was interested in teaching all students “good language habits” (page 190).

Goal for schools was to provide social efficiency. How does this shape writing instruction? Individual instruction, specialized study even early in schooling. How does this decision impact uniformity in schools? Some say it led to social fragmentation. (192-193).

Fred Newton Scott (and others) argue writing courses shouldn’t provide students just with scientific truths, private visions, or persuasive appeals. It must teach all these and more. Any important discourse must be measured by how it helps the community (194).

National Council of Teachers protests Uniform Reading Lists designed to prepare students for college (193).


Changes in Methods/Curriculum/Students in Writing Instruction 1900-1917

In several places the article mentions that in general schools had to adapt to a new wave of immigrant students. There was an attempt to Americanize education. Educators were seeking social cohesion (page 193).

Men are still the students that the teaching is primarily focused on (page 190).

Emphasis on vocational training led some English courses to ignore traditional literature and focus on rhetoric instead. (salesmanship, advertising etc instead of Brit Lit??? (193). See point 2 of E/S/P

1917 Office of Education presents “Reorganization of English in Secondary Schools”. Mostly a conservative document. Recommended emphasizing personal and social needs of students over college requirements. Progression from creative/individual activities at a young age to practical activities.
“writing should have a purpose”
Essay should be formed with “purpose in view and audience for whom the
Composition is prepared considered”. (pages 195-196).

Oral expression taught as well as written word (195).

using they say/ I say in conferences

I believe that it would be possible for a tutor to use the moves described by Graff and Birkenstein in a conference. A belief I held before our practice tutoring session on Wednesday which was reinforced during the tutoring session and in the notes provided afterwards is that for the tutoring session to be effective it can’t focus strictly on correcting the grammar of the paper. I think it would be a mistake for a tutor to read the student’s paper and select certain areas to use a template from the book. As a tutor I hope that during the conversation with the student we can look back on some of the templates suggested by the authors to help steer our discussion.
The author’s noted that summarizing other people’s work can be a difficult task for inexperienced writers. I think that if a tutee was having problems with this talking about what they had read with their tutor might make the topic more clear to them. Discussion with the tutor should also help the tutor better express their own opinions about what they read.
Graff and Birksenstein constantly ask the question “Why _____ “. If tutors have questions about their tutees choice of topics, use/meaning of quotes, or stance on a topic they shouldn’t be afraid to ask the question “why”.

reponse to pt 2 on page 14

The templates provided by Graff and Birkenstein are designed to help young writers format their writing in an academic setting. They help students be aware of both the argument they are trying to make and other arguments that have already been stated. One of the benefits of the templates offered by the authors is that they will help students question and explain their own beliefs.
The reason some people, including me, are hesitant to use templates is the fear that they might stifle creativity. The authors claim that their templates aren't meant to be rigged structures and that people can use the basic outline and still have the ability to be creative.
As the authors stated the "They say, I say" template is a good model because it helps beginning writers understand how they can include both their own argument and evidence while taking into account other opinions. I haven't strictly followed the outline in question 2 but I have tried to address the various parts of the question in a way that I am most comfortable. If the authors truly allow creativity like this then I believe the templates they described might be a valuable building block for developing writers.

Luke Stefan