The rhetorical inventions of Kenneth.Burke can help'. writers la ew perspettiVes on,their topics ... more The rhetorical inventions of Kenneth.Burke can help'. writers la ew perspettiVes on,their topics and can-put new '1life into the pro ss of leArninglto,write..The pentad, Burke's instrument for ihterpreting actual .and potential motives, can help develop lines of thought that might never'occur without some such model. Other inventional systems such as etploring the limitt of agreement with the finding the complex in the simplei expanding the circumference,. and translation' affOrd opportunities to make writing an adventure in words and'ideas. The importance.oi Burke has two bases; he is the major: spokesperson in the United Statet in our century for a rhetoric grounded in dialectidand be .offers a way of getting :beyond our narrOw Concern "with linguittic style so ..that writing becomes action and a matter of interpreting' motives rather than being a linguittit process fbr-processimg informatiOn.,(T.1)
When Edward P. J. Corbett was editor of College Composition and Communication, his fairly rigid s... more When Edward P. J. Corbett was editor of College Composition and Communication, his fairly rigid standards for article length undoubtedly had the effect of forcing some loose thinking to a fairly sharp point. It also had the effect of pushing some discussions into an awesome degree of compression that made them less "available" to casual readers than they might have been otherwise. On the other hand, they offer a rewarding read now, if one is willing to commit the mental energy to put them together with the world. To my mind, a classic illustration of this sort of essay is George Yoos' "An Identity of Roles in Writing and Reading" from the fall, 1979 issue. In that paper, Yoos provided a model for reading and writing processes that finds reciprocity between writing and reading strategies at four different levels-at the level of objective expression or of content, at the level of "face-adjustment" or ethical appeal, at the level of audience, and at the level of logic or truth. Under this system, both writer and reader perform in roles defined by these four topics, and if one "role" is generally accentuated in any specific situation, it is pretty clear that accommodation or sensitivity to all roles can provide a highly enriched perspective on writing. However, any conceptualizing like this, anchored in Collingwood, Croce, and George Herbert Meade (the names cited here) is probably going to seem rather alien and have some apparently rough points for present day readers. One of these is Yoos' flat assumption-deriving from Collingwood and Croce-that Kinneavy's effort to see expression as a mode of communication is wrong, and that the need to keep expression separate from communication is basic to an understanding of the writing process. Our present pedagogical tendency of using personal expression as a way to develop fluency and authenticity will tend to make readers unreceptive to the basic truth that writing will always be writing, that is, texts in which expression can be found, but which should never be confused with expression. To ignore this fact is to run a far graver risk of creating writing anxiety than would be possible by framing writing as an impersonal formalistic game. Another rough point would have to be Yoos' notion of the "faceadjustment" role, which he identifies with ethical appeal as a matter of "being clear about what one is doing." Yoos draws a clear distinction between this role and the "audience role" which involves a strategic awareness and management of how different audiences will react, and, from the reading point of view, a reader's awareness of how these audiences are being managed. These are very subtle distinctions that take us quite a way back to a "classical" view of rhetorical operations (pace Knoblauch and Brannon). More generally, Yoos makes it clear that the relation between writing and reading is much deeper than writing scholars tend to acknowledge, in spite of the years of research into reading and writing connections. Certainly the kind of mirror-imaging that his essay provides-in which, say, an objective-expressive role is one the writer plays by getting what he or she knows down into words, and that the reader reads for to see what the writer really knows, as a ground to be comprehended before processing rhetorical and logical acts-involves a complex conceptualizing of the communication process that promises a very rich critical
According to James Britton, too much emphasis is being placed currently on revision. In his essay... more According to James Britton, too much emphasis is being placed currently on revision. In his essay, "Shaping at the Point of Utterance," Britton notes that (1) concentrating on the reader in teaching writing can disturb the writer's ability to formulate what he or she wants to say; (2) the essence of the writing process is not writing something to be cleaned up later, but rather creating connections between ideas; (3) a precise and explicit mastery of the rules of writing can obstruct effective writing; and (4) writing develops in a c-mplex relationship to speech and not by a process of differentiating between spoken and written discourse. This information conflicts directly with some of the basic principles that underly many composition texts and teaching models. Britton also states that the basic force of writing comes less from the effort to persuade a reader and more from the effort to articulate the writer's experience. This suggests the mat value in writing instruction of using very frequent short writings, emphasizing validation through the writotes experiential knowledge, and staying aware of the close relationships between writing end speaking and between writing and learning. (HOD)
TCDIDp a heuristic model for students to. use whe revising compositions. The model's acronym is d... more TCDIDp a heuristic model for students to. use whe revising compositions. The model's acronym is derived from the pain terms of the revising heuristic: time ,(the pattern of tenses and other time.markers),-commitiment (the' pattern of such predicate modes as.indicative, conditional, questioning, exhortative, emphatic), directness (the pattern of "active voice, patsive voice, and beipq-verbs) , identification (the pattern of noun types --concrete vs. abstract, ordinary vs. technical) , description (the pattern of adjective types--conCrete vs. abstract, objective vs. impressionist/t), and connection (the pattern of transitions and subordination). Two student writing samples demonstrate that systematic. analyses in the TCDIDC manner can make sentences, .paraqraiphs, and papers more effective, meaningfule.and enjoyable. (RL)
Noting the growing interest in how writing activities mi-'ht complement current teaching techniqu... more Noting the growing interest in how writing activities mi-'ht complement current teaching techniques and improve learning in mathematics, this paper presents a progress report on the use of writing assignments in freshman precalculus courses at a Minnesota university. The paper first presents a rationale for this teaching technique and the original goals of the project, and then provides examples of students' inability to write an effective definition of a reference angle (although they were able to compute correctly a reference angle problem), indicating a lack of verbal strategies. The paper points out that one of the most useful techniques in the process of working with the students was showing the class writing efforts on slides. It then provides another example of poor verbal strategies, noting how writing can improve requisite understanding of mathematical concepts. The paper concludes with some observations drawn from one year's efforts at using writing assignments in mathematics classes: the assignments (1) improve class participation, (2) broaden opportunities for conceptual growth even for better students in the course, (3) stimulate meaningful discussions of mathematics as a language and of strategies for learning it, (4) emphasize the kinds of writing given less attention in orthodox content area writing programs, and (5) force one to consider curriculum concerns. (HTH)
... 5. Translation. It is fairly common-place for the writing teacher to encour-age students to m... more ... 5. Translation. It is fairly common-place for the writing teacher to encour-age students to make their readers see general ideas in terms of specific exam-ples.Burke calls this "concretization," and it is one type of translation. ...
The rhetorical inventions of Kenneth.Burke can help'. writers la ew perspettiVes on,their topics ... more The rhetorical inventions of Kenneth.Burke can help'. writers la ew perspettiVes on,their topics and can-put new '1life into the pro ss of leArninglto,write..The pentad, Burke's instrument for ihterpreting actual .and potential motives, can help develop lines of thought that might never'occur without some such model. Other inventional systems such as etploring the limitt of agreement with the finding the complex in the simplei expanding the circumference,. and translation' affOrd opportunities to make writing an adventure in words and'ideas. The importance.oi Burke has two bases; he is the major: spokesperson in the United Statet in our century for a rhetoric grounded in dialectidand be .offers a way of getting :beyond our narrOw Concern "with linguittic style so ..that writing becomes action and a matter of interpreting' motives rather than being a linguittit process fbr-processimg informatiOn.,(T.1)
When Edward P. J. Corbett was editor of College Composition and Communication, his fairly rigid s... more When Edward P. J. Corbett was editor of College Composition and Communication, his fairly rigid standards for article length undoubtedly had the effect of forcing some loose thinking to a fairly sharp point. It also had the effect of pushing some discussions into an awesome degree of compression that made them less "available" to casual readers than they might have been otherwise. On the other hand, they offer a rewarding read now, if one is willing to commit the mental energy to put them together with the world. To my mind, a classic illustration of this sort of essay is George Yoos' "An Identity of Roles in Writing and Reading" from the fall, 1979 issue. In that paper, Yoos provided a model for reading and writing processes that finds reciprocity between writing and reading strategies at four different levels-at the level of objective expression or of content, at the level of "face-adjustment" or ethical appeal, at the level of audience, and at the level of logic or truth. Under this system, both writer and reader perform in roles defined by these four topics, and if one "role" is generally accentuated in any specific situation, it is pretty clear that accommodation or sensitivity to all roles can provide a highly enriched perspective on writing. However, any conceptualizing like this, anchored in Collingwood, Croce, and George Herbert Meade (the names cited here) is probably going to seem rather alien and have some apparently rough points for present day readers. One of these is Yoos' flat assumption-deriving from Collingwood and Croce-that Kinneavy's effort to see expression as a mode of communication is wrong, and that the need to keep expression separate from communication is basic to an understanding of the writing process. Our present pedagogical tendency of using personal expression as a way to develop fluency and authenticity will tend to make readers unreceptive to the basic truth that writing will always be writing, that is, texts in which expression can be found, but which should never be confused with expression. To ignore this fact is to run a far graver risk of creating writing anxiety than would be possible by framing writing as an impersonal formalistic game. Another rough point would have to be Yoos' notion of the "faceadjustment" role, which he identifies with ethical appeal as a matter of "being clear about what one is doing." Yoos draws a clear distinction between this role and the "audience role" which involves a strategic awareness and management of how different audiences will react, and, from the reading point of view, a reader's awareness of how these audiences are being managed. These are very subtle distinctions that take us quite a way back to a "classical" view of rhetorical operations (pace Knoblauch and Brannon). More generally, Yoos makes it clear that the relation between writing and reading is much deeper than writing scholars tend to acknowledge, in spite of the years of research into reading and writing connections. Certainly the kind of mirror-imaging that his essay provides-in which, say, an objective-expressive role is one the writer plays by getting what he or she knows down into words, and that the reader reads for to see what the writer really knows, as a ground to be comprehended before processing rhetorical and logical acts-involves a complex conceptualizing of the communication process that promises a very rich critical
According to James Britton, too much emphasis is being placed currently on revision. In his essay... more According to James Britton, too much emphasis is being placed currently on revision. In his essay, "Shaping at the Point of Utterance," Britton notes that (1) concentrating on the reader in teaching writing can disturb the writer's ability to formulate what he or she wants to say; (2) the essence of the writing process is not writing something to be cleaned up later, but rather creating connections between ideas; (3) a precise and explicit mastery of the rules of writing can obstruct effective writing; and (4) writing develops in a c-mplex relationship to speech and not by a process of differentiating between spoken and written discourse. This information conflicts directly with some of the basic principles that underly many composition texts and teaching models. Britton also states that the basic force of writing comes less from the effort to persuade a reader and more from the effort to articulate the writer's experience. This suggests the mat value in writing instruction of using very frequent short writings, emphasizing validation through the writotes experiential knowledge, and staying aware of the close relationships between writing end speaking and between writing and learning. (HOD)
TCDIDp a heuristic model for students to. use whe revising compositions. The model's acronym is d... more TCDIDp a heuristic model for students to. use whe revising compositions. The model's acronym is derived from the pain terms of the revising heuristic: time ,(the pattern of tenses and other time.markers),-commitiment (the' pattern of such predicate modes as.indicative, conditional, questioning, exhortative, emphatic), directness (the pattern of "active voice, patsive voice, and beipq-verbs) , identification (the pattern of noun types --concrete vs. abstract, ordinary vs. technical) , description (the pattern of adjective types--conCrete vs. abstract, objective vs. impressionist/t), and connection (the pattern of transitions and subordination). Two student writing samples demonstrate that systematic. analyses in the TCDIDC manner can make sentences, .paraqraiphs, and papers more effective, meaningfule.and enjoyable. (RL)
Noting the growing interest in how writing activities mi-'ht complement current teaching techniqu... more Noting the growing interest in how writing activities mi-'ht complement current teaching techniques and improve learning in mathematics, this paper presents a progress report on the use of writing assignments in freshman precalculus courses at a Minnesota university. The paper first presents a rationale for this teaching technique and the original goals of the project, and then provides examples of students' inability to write an effective definition of a reference angle (although they were able to compute correctly a reference angle problem), indicating a lack of verbal strategies. The paper points out that one of the most useful techniques in the process of working with the students was showing the class writing efforts on slides. It then provides another example of poor verbal strategies, noting how writing can improve requisite understanding of mathematical concepts. The paper concludes with some observations drawn from one year's efforts at using writing assignments in mathematics classes: the assignments (1) improve class participation, (2) broaden opportunities for conceptual growth even for better students in the course, (3) stimulate meaningful discussions of mathematics as a language and of strategies for learning it, (4) emphasize the kinds of writing given less attention in orthodox content area writing programs, and (5) force one to consider curriculum concerns. (HTH)
... 5. Translation. It is fairly common-place for the writing teacher to encour-age students to m... more ... 5. Translation. It is fairly common-place for the writing teacher to encour-age students to make their readers see general ideas in terms of specific exam-ples.Burke calls this "concretization," and it is one type of translation. ...
Uploads
Papers by Philip Keith