I was drawn to the excerpts from Bain and Hill early in the semester as I am interested in the transition from oral to written composition. Since I did not end up presenting on the matter, I'll take this opportunity to explore a couple of the areas I intended to discuss. Bizzell and Herzberg mention that the shift to writing "tended to be a shift from public to private discourse" (1142). This view of writing as a generally private experience is one that persists to this day and can pose a problem in the classroom as it goes against the goal of making communication more public (which seems to be a common theme in teaching). For example, in my Creative Writing classes I want the students to become more comfortable with the idea of people (real people, not just me) reading their work. This is an ongoing battle. Apparently most, if not all, of their past writing experiences have been addressed to themselves or only one other person. Their hesitance is noticeable in a variety of ways - "forgetting" drafts on peer review days, refusing to read work aloud or allowing me to do so, not participating in the class book project, etc. I'm not sure it would help if our academic world were still more saturated in orality, but certainly the problem of private vs. public composition is something worth contemplating.
The work of Hill points to a problem that is seemingly without solution. This is "the conflict between descriptive linguistics and the need to teach usage" (1143). In high school Language Arts classes I remember the prescriptivist drills and was relieved when the concept of descriptive grammar was revealed to me in college. But the fact remains that popular usage isn't always the best language for writing. Or at least formal writing. Or really any writing that has a broader audience in mind than the group of people who understand and use language the same as the writer. I suppose this is somewhat related to the public/private thing. If one is writing for a public audience (whether it's actual publication or just something out of the range of peers), the composition has to be seen by the audience as acceptable. I am certainly not a die-hard supporter of prescriptive grammar only, but do see that there needs to be a line drawn somewhere. I mean, no matter what some things just can't change with common usage. I'm sorry, but I don't think that all of my students who think they are going to "collage" after high school are going to make it. There's just not enough demand for that kind of art. The implications for teaching language, however, I'm still not sure about.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I'm not sure there's anything about language that's completely untouchable--not even college/collage. That said, some mistakes are more confusing or associated with ignorance than others. Those changes had better be pretty well grounded in professional usage before high schoolers start putting them in their college applications.
In Dr. Weaver's 520 class last semester, we talked about Linda Flower's idea of writer-based prose vs. reader-based prose. I see students writing as though they were having a conversation with a friend, and I realize that's a good starting place (at least they're generating some text!), but the next step is convincing them that they have a reason to move to reader-based writing--a reason to consider audience. Journaling is a wonderful outlet for writer-based; the writer knows what's meant and that's all that matters.
My main purpose as a writing tutor is serving as a reader for any writer. Most students never even consider asking anyone else for feedback, it seems. Anyway, most people they'd ask have no idea how to offer constructive feedback-- input the writer can actually use.
And yes, they have to learn to deliver what people in "collage" and the professional world ask of them. I worked with a student recently who's an artist in the local hip hop scene. We do have one, apparently. He told me, I can talk to my audience; that's my natural way of communicating. But I need to learn to function in the greater world, too. I don't want some guy in the music business to disrespect me because he thinks I can't speak his language.
That guy is a step ahead of most.
Post a Comment