Approaches to Teaching Writing
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The purpose of this research is to examine the tension attending organicist and mechanist approaches to the teaching of writing. Staunch organicists, such as Knoblauch and Brannon, assert that it is not possible to combine organic and mechanic theories in the writing classroom. As they put it, "the two traditions are essentially opposed, representing a disjunction in intellectual history because they derived from two different and incompatible epistemologies, two irreconcilable views of the nature of knowledge and the functions of discourse" (Knoblauch and Brannon 78). This research will assert that the two traditions, while materially distinct, are not so irredeemably opposed as Knoblauch and Brannon insist, and further, that combining the two ideologies is not only possible but desirable and necessary. Let us accept that, as Knoblauch and Brannon assert, ancient rhetorical principles "dramatically affect instruction" in a negative way and that such ideas "must be frontally assaulted" (Knoblauch and Brannon 79). This idea has obtained currency with other commentators as well. Warnock asserts that what is known as the "new" rhetoric "does not partake of the error that deceived the linguists who tried to use their subject to teach writing" (Warnock 1). In other words, the new rhetoric is decidedly and determinedly not prescriptive but inductive, a means whereby the learning writer can gradually discover intelligibility and make sense by virtue of his own good eff
. . .
get the writer started on the "continuum" of the composing process. Her HDWDWW [How Does Who Do What and Why] is a technique for imposing some order on the chaos of unorganized thoughts. It will help the writer "develop a context so you can substantiate, specify, and define" (Berthoff 70 71). Are these new terms that will be defined in the new apologia for rhetoric? Elsewhere, Berthoff lists sample sentences to be corrected or rewritten, as editing practice (Berthoff 202 3). Does this mean that formalism will not do in the teaching of composition but that it is fundamental in the teaching of editing, or does it mean that self editing, including the implementation of good grammar, is a fundamental aspect of learning to write? In either case, traditional rhetoric is staking a claim on cognitive composition. Meanwhile, Judy and Judy specifically embrace the notion of complementary use of teaching methods, some of which are presumably more purely process oriented than others:
At the same time, we fully recognize that a healthy
synthesis of ideas is possible, that, given a coherent
theory of teaching writing, an instructor might want to
choose from among a variety of consistent approaches (Judy
and
. . .
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 4514
Approximate Pages = 18 (250 words per page)
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