Time-Web: Getting lost in a Process to Post-Process timeline

            The readings for this week complicated my view of composition by introducing process and post-process theories. Attending school in the United States, stage composition (i.e. Pre-writing, Drafting, Post-Writing) was most commonly taught throughout my formative years in school. Even now, it is particularly emphasized in the textbooks for developmental English classrooms. I believe that this process method is used to create a sense of structure for students who do not have a strong foundation in writing or the composition of texts. However, as the readings have explained, it is important to realize that students have their own agency, as the post-process method becomes a vital part of this conversation about composition.

            In his article, “Finding your own Voice: Teaching Composition in an Age of Dissent” Donald Murray argues for an age of dissent within the composition field. Murray emphasizes the process of invention in which by giving his students freedom in the process of composition, they will be able to discover their own voices as writers. Murray advocates for content over form stating, “Content always comes before form, and the student should begin to discover that the vigor of writing doesn’t come so much from the graceful stroke of his pen as from the incisive bite of his intellect” (Murray, 119). In this sense, he is stating that students should be able to discover their own subject, evidence, audience, and form through a cycle of feedback and rhetoric. Murray then aligns himself with Gage who views rhetoric as  “a means of discovering and validating knowledge” (153). This places Murray in contention with authors Quigley and Hairston who argue for the teaching of form to evaluate how knowledge is constructed. For Murray, this responsibility of content discovery is placed not nly on the student but on the teacher. In this case, the teacher has the responsibility of creating an environment in which the student can fail. Because writing is a complex and  cyclical process, a student needs to understand that the first thing they write won’t always be the best. In this case, teaching a student to fail, and having them be comfortable with this fact, allows them to continue to revise and grow as a writer. Personally, this process of writing speaks to me as an instructor as I prefer a feedback centric classroom.  

Drawing off of Kenneth Burkes scholarship, in his article ““Writing as a Way of Learning and Developing” Irmscher argues that writing is a generative process in which the student constructs knowledge and learns through action (Irmscher, 241). Irmscher stresses that writing and composition should be a multidisciplinary process and viewed as basic to all disciplines. To illustrate this Irmscher defines writing as “a way of fashioning a network of associations and increasing our potential for learning” (Irmscher, 244). Additionally, he wishes to advance the common idea of writing to be seen as “a way of learning about anything and everything” (Irmscher, 241). He utilizes the work of Janet Emig to explain how "writing is a way of learning, and also, of developing" (Irmscher, 242).

To do this, Irmscher draws from Lev Vygotsky to formulate the way he wants students to think about writing: awareness, abstraction, and control. These three basic functions help a student to develop and learn about relationships through writing. Abstraction in particular is a complicated process in which we try to find meaning, connections, and relationships through our writing. Irmscher draws from Kenneth Pike and James Moffett as sources for this arguement stating, "if teachers do not let students abstract from the ground up, students will never learn" (243). However, I would have liked Irmscher to be clearer in what he means by abstraction. Is it allowing students to create their own meaning? In class, we discussed Abstraction as teaching students to question their own process and ask the question why. This really struck a chord with me as I strive to teach my students this theory of abstraction. It is a difficult process to teach as an instructor because you are asking your students to ask their own questions while also responding to yours. Ultimately we are then asking our students to engage in the cognitive process (i.e. Flowers and Hayes) through which ““composing is a goal-directed thinking process” (Flower and Hayes, 366). This process that values the writers goals and sub-goals allows the student to think and question their own rhetorical situation.

Olson echoes these claims in “Toward a Post Process Composition: Abandoning the Rhetoric of Assertion”. In this article, Olson argues that we should do away with the generalizable process of writing and begin to “theorize” in order to be productive composers of text. Olson defines theorizing as “a way to explore, challenge, question, reassess, and speculate” (Olson, 8).Drawing off of Sandra Harding and Standpoint theory, Olson is advocating for a more dialogic, feminine way of writing which subverts the rhetoric of assertion (which is seen as more definitive and demanding). From this post-process stance, I wish that Olson had been more explicit as to how this could be applied to a classroom setting. I can’t imagine asking some of my students to write in a more feminine way without taking away their own personal narrative or voice. I would have liked to be able to investigate the post-process theory further into how instructors have made this applicable and productive in the classroom.
Our schema can be viewed here.

Works Cited:

Flower, Linda, and Hayes, John R. “A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 32, no. 4, 1981, 365-387.

Gage, John. “An Adequate Epistemology for Composition: Classical and Modern Perspectives.” Essays on Classical Rhetoric and Modern Discourse. Ed. Robert Conners, Lisa Ede, and Andrea Lunsford. Carbondale: Souther Illinois UP, 1984. 152-73. Print. (PN175 .E84 1984)

Irmscher, William F. “Writing as a Way of Learning and Developing.” CCC30.3 (Oct. 1979): 240-44.

Murray, Donald M. “Finding Your Own Voice: Teaching Composition in an Age of Dissent.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 20, no. 2, 1969, 118-123.

Olson, Gary A. “Toward a Post-Process Composition: Abandoning the Rhetoric of Assertion.” Post-Process Theory: New Directions for Composition Research. Ed. Thomas Kent. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1999. 7-15

           

        

--Angela Minucci