Composition and Its Teaching, edited by Richard
Gebhardt, reprints twenty-one articles which first appeared in College
Composition and Communication between February 1974 and May 1979,
while E. P. J. Corbett was editor. The slender paperback is published
by the Ohio Council of Teachers of English Language Arts to honor Professor
Corbett, who was also a member of the OCTELA executive committee during
those years.
One can only applaud the appearance of such a volume, making as it
does twenty-one short, significant, and stimulating articles easily
and economically available. (The book can be bought from Professor Gehhardt
at Findlay College for $4.95--less than a quarter per article.) It will
be a valuable companion to Ohmann and Coley’s Ideas for English 101,
Graves’ Rhetoric and Composition: A Sourcebook for Teachers,
and Corbett’s own older collections, done with Gary Tate, Teaching
Freshman Composition and Teaching High School Composition.
The articles in the new collection tend to be moderately speculative,
in between the extremes of pure theory and what-do-I-do-Monday. Most
offer perspectives on identifiable segments of our discipline.
The articles in the collection are not formally divided into topical
groups, but Gebhardt points out that they have to an extent been perceived
as such. Five articles deal with the relationship between thought and
writing, including two views of the writing process. Four articles deal
with rhetoric, and three with the paragraph. Others discuss basic writing,
needed research, and the preparation of writing teachers. As measures
of the recognized quality of the inclusions, Gebhardt points out that
two of them won the Braddock Award for the best article in an NCTE publication
for the year, and that seventeen were included in Larson’s annual bibliography
of significant articles on composition. He might have added that the
list of authors constitutes nearly a Who’s Who of current composition
leaders: Corder, Shaughnessy, Graves, Hairston, Gorirell, D’Angelo,
Odell, and Emig—not to mention prefaces by William Irmscher and Richard
Larson, Corbett’s predecessor and successor as editor of CCC.
When I asked myself what the collection offers specifically for advanced
composition teachers, I was stymied by the problem addressed elsewhere
in this issue: just what is the nature of advanced composition and/or
advanced composition teachers? In one sense of those phrases the collection
has nothing relevant to offer since none of the articles directly addresses
composition courses taught on the advanced level—although several treat
basic composition. As I reviewed the 225 articles that had appeared
in CCC in the period, I realized that on this matter the collection
is an accurate reflection of the entire journal—and perhaps of the profession.
Between February 1974 and May 1979, few articles in CCC treated
advanced level writing courses of any kind. And the only discussions
of advanced courses other than technical writing in CCC for those
years were in the “Staff-room Interchange” section: Don Stewart’s, “An
Advanced Composition Course That Works,” May1974; and Michael P. Orth’s
“An Advanced Composition Course Aimed at Publication,” May 1976.
That approach, however, is trivial. Let me propose a distinction that
seems more useful even though very general. Perhaps freshman composition
may reasonably oversimplify the world of discourse in order to assist
students to gain a handhold. It may be reasonable, for example, to direct
freshmen to write each essay with an explicit thesis. It may be reasonable
to forbid certain developmental structures to be followed. Not on the
grounds that this is all there is to real writing, but that if students
master a limited number of workable techniques, they will have made
major strides toward communicating clearly and efficiently in the writing
situations they are most likely to encounter.
If that is a reasonable—though selective—theory of freshman composition,
then perhaps it is equally reasonable to regard advanced composition
as helping students already skilled in selected utilitarian techniques
to master the more varied and complex possibilities of real writing.
In this case a major function—perhaps even a definitive function—of
advanced composition would be to acquaint students with the extensive
store of admittedly more risky rhetorical options. Now that they have
control of the central paradigmatic techniques, they are to confront
the sometimes bizarre realities of the amazingly amorphous universe
of discourse.
The distinction I am suggesting is well illustrated in Gebhardt’s collection
by the two articles on the paragraph. The first, Carol Cohan’s “Writing
Effective Paragraphs,” is a clear but very simple analysis aimed at
teachers of “inexperienced writers.” Concentrating on a practical approach
to teaching paragraph unity, Cohan argues that, since the standard advice
in textbooks is too vague, we should teach students mentally to convert
topic sentences into questions, then to provide the answers. “In the
beginning the teacher should simply provide the topic sentence and concentrate
on helping the students develop supporting detail that is relevant in
the strictest sense.” That doesn’t seem to go very deeply into the matter;
it certainly doesn’t take into account the many sophisticated studies
of paragraphing (from Braddock to Christensen to Becker), but the approach
might provide “inexperienced” writers with one option that if used competently
would work much of the time.
On the other hand, the following article, Arthur A. Stern’s “When Is
a Paragraph,” uses Braddock’s famous study of professional writing to
argue that both Christensen and Becker made untenable claims about the
existence of topic sentences in real discourse in developing their analytical/pedagogical
approaches. Siding with Paul Rodgers, Stern concludes that “today’s
paragraph is not a logical unit and we should stop telling our students
it is.”
Certainly nothing worth having is gained by deceiving our students
and telling them that “real” paragraphs are much simpler than they in
fact are. But perhaps for the inexperienced writer, it is reasonable
to say, not that “this is the way most real paragraphs work,” but that
“if you do this consistently, you will produce competent, workable paragraphs.”
Once the inexperienced writer has mastered some kernel strategies that
work, it may be time to have him confront the reality that there are
a multitude of possible complex transformations.
The collection’s two discussions of the writing process are both relevant
to "advanced” composition viewed from this perspective. The writers
reach (I think) opposite conclusions, but more
complex (advanced?) opposites than what fresh- men are usually told.
The most common model of the writing process, at least to judge by textbooks,
seems still to be the triad suggested by McCrimmon, based apparently
on the classical divisions of invention, arrangement, and style. McCrimmon’s
terms for the process (prewriting, writing, rewriting) are now standard,
although some theorists prefer alternatives (prevision, drafting, revision;
or creating, shaping, completing, for example). On the other hand, some
courses use Ken Macrorie’s simple diadic model in which one free-writes
rapidly trying to tell a truth that matters, and later revises the promising
pieces.
The articles on the writing process in Gebhardt’s collection are, if
I read them correctly, more complex analogs of these two approaches.
Both emphasize the need to base pedagogy on direct examination of the
habits of real writers. In “Losing One’s Mind: Learning to Write and
Edit,” Barrett Mandel, using a diadic model, addresses “writing and
editing as they exist in experience, not as they ought to or could be
done according to theories of writing.” He criticizes, based
on his own experiences as a writer, the “misconception” that writing
follows thinking. He argues instead that “it is the act of writing
that produces the discoveries” (a view similar to Emig’s in “Writing
as a Way of Knowing,” also in the collection). Editing in Mandel’s view
is not primarily for clarity or substantive improvement in the discourse,
but to make it conform to whatever conventions the reader expects. Mandel’s
conclusion parallels Macrorie’s though they got there by very different
routes.
Don Murray, on the other hand, argues that student writers must learn
to “Write Before Writing,” again because that is the way real writers
proceed. His point is that before “writing” (i.e. drafting) can occur,
most writers need "rehearsal,” which itself involves writing: “lists,
outlines, titles, leads, ordered fragments.” He notes, however, that
some writers do their rehearsing in their heads, and calls these alternative
rehearsal practices the “reflective” and "reactive” prewriting
modes. He then notes that eight signals can tell writers they are ready
to proceed beyond mental or physical rehearsal into the drafting stage.
McCrimmon’s triad is still present but in more complex, less linear,
form.
Both Mandel and Murray assume that one real writing process exists—THE
WAY real writers do it—almost a Platonic ideal. In distinguishing “reactive”
from "reflective” rehearsal, Murray almost accepts the possible
existence of alternate writing processes: writers whose “rehearsal”
is primarily “reflective” may not "write before writing” at all.
Mandel makes the Platonic assumption explicit: “I assume that I am no
freak of nature and that what goes on for me goes on, mutatis mutandis,
for others. I assume that others who write go through the same emotional,
physical, and intellectual steps.” Making such an assumption at least
simplifies a writing teacher’s problems, and it may be that on the non-advanced
level we should teach such a kernel process to students who do not necessarily
follow it by nature, arguing that it is valuable because workable. But
we ought also to entertain the possibility that we are teaching a writing
process, not necessarily the writing process shared mutatis mutandis
by all writers. Then perhaps with advanced students we should emphasize
that there may be no such thing as the writing process with fundamental
similarities underlying surface idiosyncrasies. One function of the
advanced course would be to help students to discover the process (or
processes) that will work best in different contexts for them. That,
it seems to me, would be honest and realistic, and a very advanced view—if
not a pedagogically convenient one.
Given this notion of what makes an article relevant to advanced composition,
several others in the collection deserve special notice. Richard Graves
defines with precision three “Levels of Skill in the Composing Process,”
primarily relating to the sentence. He argues that combining kernel
sentences is a valuable basic activity, but that “recasting flawed sentences”
and then “composing sentences based on rhetorical models” are more valuable
advanced techniques. His section on revising flawed sentences proposes
a six-step mental model that is both perceptive and practical. Also
treating primarily the sentence level, Robert Correll’s “Usage as Rhetoric”
is an elegant and eminently sound argument against several popular myths
about usage, suggesting instead that grammatical choice “like any other
rhetorical choice, depends on anticipating results.” We may not want
to push that too strongly onto beginning writers since it complicates
the writing process by forcing audience analysis and prediction onto
even relatively simple choices. But surely that is the realistic position
we should confront in advanced composition.
On the level of the whole discourse, Maxine Hairston offers an unusual
anvanced and approach to persuasion in “Carl Rogers’s Alternative to
Traditional Rhetoric.” Using Rogers’s view that the normal response
to a message is not to try to understand it but to offer a counter message,
Hairston proposes a rhetoric based first on a sincere attempt to understand
opposing positions and to seek common ground. It is a stimulating discussion
whether one agrees with it or not. Frank D’Angelo’s “A Generative Rhetoric
of the Essay” applies Christensen’s notion of levels of coordination
and subordination to complete texts, a process that D’Angelo elsewhere
calls syntagmatic analysis. It is a provocative and advanced article
for serious writing teachers. I have reservations about the pedagogical
value of D’Angelo’s complex analytical process; it seems more likely
to be a useful weapon in the arsenal of the rhetorical critic concerned
with an already existent text. I certainly would not teach it to freshmen
writers, but it might be of value in advanced or graduate composition
courses, especially those including a high proportion of prospective
teachers.
Finally, the two Braddock award winners. Jim Corder’s “What I Learned
at School,” the introductory essay of the volume, narrates a semester
in which Corder wrote each of the papers he assigned his freshmen. The
process forced him to face the complexity and variety hiding in freshman
assignments—even for a skilled writer. The essay (which defies summary)
raises a number of issues about writing and teaching, all of them relevant
to composition at any level. Gebbardt’s own award-winner, “Balancing
Theory with Practice in the Training of Writing Teachers,” outlines
“four kinds of knowledge for the writing teacher,” (structure and history
of the language, rhetoric, theoretical frameworks, productive classroom
methods), and these provide an excellent set of desiderata for the preparation
of advanced as well as freshman composition instructors.
It is easy to criticize omissions from such collections, but as I reviewed
the twenty-two issues of CCC covered, though I would personally
have made a few different choices, I generally found little to complain
about. I was, however, puzzled by the omission of three Braddock Award
winners. Mary Hiatt’s “The Feminine Style; Theory and Fact” (October
1978) probably was not included because it is more research on written
products than on the composition or pedagogical processes. It seemed
a rather unusual article for CCC in the first place. But I have
not reached any satisfactory explanation of why Frank D’Angelo’s “The
Search for Intelligible Structure in the Teaching of Composition” (May
1976) and Glenn Matott’s “In Search of a Philosophical Context for Teaching
Composition” (February 1976) were omitted. Possibly both were regarded
as too broad and theoretical for the collection.
In addition to its valuable insights, this volume offers a genuinely
pleasant reading experience, for the articles selected are superbly
clear, graceful, even elegant. These teachers write well, their own
writing frequently a beautiful illustration of the position being set
forth. The articles thus form a high-quality microcosm of that complex
and various world of real discourse.
E.P.J. Corbett’s editorial work was marked by great energy, a clear
sense of purpose, and high standards—both substantive and stylistic.
I have several manuscripts bearing his elaborate and helpful commentary
to attest to his scrupulous attention to both stylistic and logical
details. I even recall, with chagrin, once spending the better part
of three days revising a three sentence passage whose imprecision in
both argument and expression he had dissected with penetrating precision.
Composition and Its Teaching is a just reflection of Corbett’s
leadership, an elegant and deserved tribute to the skill with which
for six years he guided College Composition and Communication.
