Process Theory

I will start with the two articles that I found most interesting and which had the most connections, though written decades apart. They are Lowe's "Moving to the Public: Weblogs in the Writing Classroom" and Elbow's "A Method for Teaching Writing." I found myself agreeing wholeheartedly with Elbow's article, though he seems to lose focus in the second half. As I read through the first half, Elbow echoed many ideas and concerns I've had about my own experiences in the classroom, but I became increasingly disheartened as the article's age weighed on me. It was written over 40 years ago, and little has changed since? It seems that the basic purpose of writing—to produce a desired effect on the reader—has been largely forgotten or ignored. Yet, we do not write for the sake of producing good grammar and expressing truth, but in the hopes that our truth and how we choose to express it may have some kind of positive change in our audience. It is this idea that Elbow cannot stress enough and reiterates dozens of times throughout the article that seems to remain unshared by contemporary teachers (or whoever is in charge of what is taught by teachers). Elbow makes it more obvious that style and truth must necessarily follow the reason for writing in the first place.

I've come to the conclusion that as long as the format for teaching remains unchanged, so will the method. This is where Lowe's article comes in. Weblogs, and the internet in general, may offer us the opportunity to reimagine the ways in which we teach writing, why we bother teaching it, and what writing is good for. He draws from two points made by Elbow: that student writing should be made available to other students for evaluation and feedback and that the student should have some specific intention/audience in my mind when he writes. I like Elbow's idea that students should "send off letters to the newspaper and see which ones get published." I've sometimes imagined a class where your grade was a reflection of how successful you were in submitting your paper to some place and getting it published. Anyway, with the internet, we now have infinite and easily accessible places to get published. With weblogs, we can publish ourselves. Lowe expands Elbow's idea of a communal classroom when he says that "by extending the discourse to a large community outside of the classroom, our student bloggers regularly confront 'real' rhetorical situations in a very social, supportive setting." Our success can now be determined by how, not just teachers or peers but, the entire world responds to us.

Even if the internet and it's various modes of production are just a fad, it is important for writers to write to what is relevant in that moment. Writers must be able to write for all occasions and to all readers, at least the ones they care to influence. Even if all this technology is just a passing phase and we will one day return to writing whatever it is we once wrote, it is still better than writing in a dead and irrelevant, yet "superior", community. It is time for writing that engages with the world since we are living in an increasingly connected world.

Lowe seems to agree with me, or I with him: "The scholarship often depicts the writer, working alone, drawing on deeply divined personal truths or engaging in inner dialogue as the means of creating knowledge. While composition theory and practice now recognizes the importance of collaboration and social interaction...we still that our field's expressivist heritage may lead many writing teachers to put the private unnecessarily in front of the public, partially because writing teachers are themselves more comfortable with the private."

I have nothing meaningful to say about the other readings. Murray's was too short. I remember thinking it seemed more like a good pep article better suited to the beginning of this course to sort of get us in the mood and spirit of composition theory. Perl's was too long with more information than I could ever find any use for, unless I someday find myself needing that exact information by which point I'll probably forget that it exists. If I had to choose something to take away from the article, I guess it would be the two conclusion's Perl comes up with about the writing process on page 34-5: "Composing does not occur in a straightforward, linear fashion" and "Composing always involves some measure of both construction and discovery." He goes on to explain what he means.