Theory and Practice in the Teaching of Composition: Processing
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DOCUMENT RESUME ED 227 515 CS 207 425 AUTHOR Myers, Miles, Ed.; Gray, James,Ed. TITLE Theory and Practice in theTeaching of Composition: Processing, Distancing, and.Modeling. INSTITUTION National Council of Teachers ofEnglish, Urbana, REPORT NO ISBN-0-8141-5399-2 PUB DATE 83 NOTE 254p. AVAILABLE FROM Nationa,1 Council of Teachers ofEnglish, 1111 Kenyon Rd., Urbana, IL 61801 (Stock No.53992, $11.50 non-member, $10.00 member). PUB TYpE Guides - Classroom Use - Guides,(ForTeachers) (052) -- Books (010) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC11 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Cognitive Processes; Curriculum;Elementary Secondary Education; Higher Education;grewriting; Student Writing Models; *reaching Methods;*Theories; *Writing (Composition); *WritingInstruction; *Writing Processes; Writing Research;*Writing Skills IDENTIFIERS *Theory Practice Relationship;Writing Programs ABSTRACT Intended to show teachers howtheir approiches to the teaching of writing reflect aparticular area of research and toshow researchers how the intuitions ofteachers reflect researchfindings, the rticles in this book areclassified according to three approaches to writing: processing,distancing, and modeling. After an introductory essay that defines andexplains the three approaches, the second part of the bookcontains eight articles that stress processing. These articles cover thepsychology of thinking, mapping and composing, children's art,drawing as prewriting, prewriting as discovery, turning speech intowriting, and the process approachand dealing with the elementary schoolwriting curriculum. Part three, distancing, contains two articlesdefining "talk-write" as a behavioral pedagogy forcomposition and explaining itsapplication in ti-e classroom; and fivearticles on function catejories, the composition course as thepursuit of ideas, a new curriiculumin English, student writing response groupsin the classroom, and the All-City High Project of theOakland, California, schooldistrict. The articles on modeling in partfour explain a generativerhetoric writing, of the sentence, sentencemodeling, "voices" in reading and paraphrases of professionalsin writing classes, the importanceof reason in writing,and the superiority ofshowing over telling. The relationship between the teacher andthe researcher is examinedin the book's final essay. Abibliography is included. (JL) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS arethe best that can be made 'from the original document. ***********************************************************.:***t******* Theory and Practice in the Teaching of Composition Processing, Distancing, and Modeling U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION EDUCAT IONAL RESOURCESINFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) Lo,:tilrLnthasbe.ffireprbduced do tIttpnlIdt1011 re trod, the phrSt111 dfuginating if iruprove Mirlortr,rrure, II,P.rr bin made rtityrOdliiitinn POIntS td OWN, OtOtlitInS Stated In this (tdctl Edited by rh,nflt tdpn,nnt otliodl NIE poytion or Miles Myers University of California, Berkeley James Gray University of California, Berkeley "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY National Council of TeP.rhprcnf Fngl ish TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)." National Council of Teachers of English 1111 Kenyon Road, Urbana, Illinois 61801 Cti To Walter Loban, who for over thirty years has been crossing the boundary between research and practice, letting the other side know what was happening "over there" NCTE Editorial Board: Paul T. Bryant, Thomas L. Clark; C. Kermeen Fristrom, Jane Hornburger, Robert F. Hogan, ex officio, Paul O'Dea, ex officio Book Design: Torn Kovacs for TGK Design NCTE Stock Number 53992 © 1983 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. It is the policy of NCTE in itS journals and other publications to provide a forum for the open discussion k..1 ideas concerning the content and the teaching of English and the language-arts. Publicity accorded to any particular point of view does not imply endorsement by the Executive Committee, the Board of Directors, or the membership at large, except in announcements Of policy, where such endorsement is clearly specified. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Main entry under title: Theory and practice in the teaching of composition. Bibliography: p. 1. English languageComposition and exercises. I. Myers, Miles. II. Gray, James, 1927- . LB1576.T485 1983 808'.042'07 83-2288 ISBN 0-8141-5399-2 Contents Preface VII Part One: Introduction 1 1. Approaches to the Teaching ofComposition 3 Miles Myers Part Two: Processing 45 2. The Psychology of Thinking 50 Harbert A. Simon 3. Mapping and Composing 59 Marilyn Hanf Buckley and Owen Boyle 4. Understanding Children's Art 67 Rhoda^ Kellogg 5. Drawing as Prewriting in Preschool 75 Celeste Myers 6. Pre-Writing: The Stage of Discovery in the Writing Process 86 b. Gordon Rohman 7. From Speech to Writing 96 Gail Siegel 8. Stimulating and Receiving Children'sWriting: Implications for an Elementary WritingCurriculum 103 Lester S. Gol ub Part Three: Distancing 117 9. Talk-Write: A Behavioral Pedagogyfor Composition 122 Robert Zoellner vi Contents 10. Using Talk-Write in the Classroom 129 Vincent Wixon and Patricia Wixon 11. An Approach to Function Categories 136 fames Britton, Tony Burgess, Nancy Martin, Alex McLeod, Harold Rosen 12. Composition \Course: Pursuit of Ideas 144 James Pierce. 13. Rationale for a New Cui ,iculum in English 150 James Moffett 14. Using Studeni Writing Response Groups in the Classroom 159 - Mary X. Healy 15. The All-City High Project 163 Miles Myers Part Four: Modeling 169 16. A Generative Rhetoric of the Sentence 175 Francis Christensen 17, Sentence Modeling 185 James Gray 18. Hearing Voices: Tough Talk, Sweet Talk, Stuffy Talk 203 Walker Gibson 19. Mimesis: Grammar and the Echoing Voice 212 Phyllis Brooks 20. Writing in Reason 222 Josephine Miles. 21. Showing, Not Telling 226 Rebekah Caplan Part Five: Afterword 239 22. The Relationship between the Teacher and the Researcher 241 Miles Myers Bibliography 247 7 Preface This book resulted from a need to show teachershow their approaches to the teaching of writing reflect aparticular area of research and to show researchers how the intuitionsof teachers reflect research find- ings. Since 1974 the Bay Area WritingProject has brought teachers and researchers together to discuss their commonunderstandnigs about how to teach Writing, from kindergartenthrough high school. Patterned after the Bay Area Writing Project is anetwork of similar writing institutes and workshops, theNational Writing Project. One of the main assumptions of theproject is that the best teacher of teachers is another teacher. Each summer,in hundreds of institutions throughout the country, teachers aredescribing an approach to writing that works for them. Their colleagues areexperiencing the approach by doing what the students do, areassessing the workability of the approach in various classroom settings,and are exploring the theoreti- cal basis for the approach. They arecombining research findings with successful classroom practices. Such a combination of researgh and practiceis the aim of this book. his not intended for researchers who want anIn-depth review of what is known about the teachingof writing. Neither is it intended fo? teachers who only want a good ideafor Monday. It is our belief that successful teachers know why they dowhat they do and that this book will contribute to an understandingof the relationship between the what of teaching ar d the why. Ourbiggest problem was deciding what to include and what toleave out, a perennial problem in theinstitutes and workshops of the National WritingProject. We hope we have included enough to suggestthe range of the field. The gaps we leave for later. Our thanksfor support go to the National Endolkment for the Humanities, theCarnegie Corporation of New York, the National Institute ofEducation, and the University of California, Berkeley. James Gray and Miles Myers University of California, Berkeley vii Part One: Introduction 1 Approaches to the Teaching of Composition Miles Myers The teaching of writing is often characterized these days as a hodge- podge of gimmicks without a toundation in theory and research and without systematic methods of evaluating student writing. A close examination of practice and theory suggests, however, that there are at least three approaches to teaching writing, each with a different set of researchable assumptions and each with useful suggestions for teach- ing writing to different types of students. Furthermore, each approach has a different way of diagnosing problems in student papers. Because good teachers usually use aspects. of each approach, no one approach can claim to be the only way to teach writingor theonly way to diagnose problems in students' writing. The ,three approaches to writing explored in this book are Process- ing, distancing, and modeling. In processing, attention focuses on the sequence of steps or stages in the writer's mind. Research has concen- trated on the speed, storage Limits, and organizing principles of the mind. In distancing, the focus is on the relationship-s between the speaker and t,he subjeci-and between the speaker and the audience. Research Kas looked at the social contefor WiTfing as a communica- tion act, giving some attention to the developmental stages in a learner's social awareness and identifying the social fules or partici- pant roles