Comp Exam

Gotta take her and pass it :)

Cognitivist Rhetoric

Focuses on the study of the brain within the composing process and at its heart is problem-solving. Believes the writer has conscious control over their composing process.

Flower and Hayes

Berlin mentions them regarding cognitivist rhetoric as they believe that ‘good’ writing is goal-directed where the goal is to have better understanding of their composing process as there is an emphasis on self-made. They believe that mind is made up a set of structures that perform in a rational manner adjusting and reordering functions in the service of the goals of the individual.

Rose - Cognitivist Approach to Writers Block

They interview 10 students to get a better idea of their composing process. Through the 10 interviews they break things down into two categories rules and plans. The rules include heuristic and algorithms. The heuristics act as a rule of thumb or educated guess that provides you with an answer that is good enough for the problem. The algorithms act as a set answer where it provides you the same answer given it happens in a similar situation. The plan is an internalized set of instructions that help the person reach their end goal. The theorist learned that students treat heuristic as algorithms when they are not the case and a solution proposed is for students to meet with the professor or tutor to figure out what their composing process and they can come up with a plan to fix it.

Expressivist Rhetoric

Focuses on the self journey of a writer with an emphasis on finding their voice within their writing. Focuses on writing as a personal creative process of discovering and expressing the self, prioritizing authentic “voice” over rigid formulaic structures.

Donald Murray

Believes that the writer should not concern themselves with finding their audience as they should first understand themselves as the audience can come later. While encouraging teachers to show students contradictory voices so they learn to ignore outside voices and listen to themselves.

Banks’ - Written on the Body

They call for the revamp of expessivist theory to include students experiences and values. Additionally, they claim that writing comes from personal experiences that shape how they write while exploring how personal experiences contribute to their writing style as parts of the writers show in their writing even unbeknownst the writer. They also mention their idea of embodiment rhetoric where the ‘body’ is involved within writing meaning the writer pulls from their experiences. Theorist also questions the distance between academic and personal writing as academic treat personal writing as an afterthought and non-rigorous activity.

Social-epistemic

Focuses on the interaction between society, individual, and material while understanding that knowledge is socially constructed meaning that we learn and create meaning from interacting with others. As writing is shaped by society because writing is a way to question and understand the world. Additionally, believes the classroom should open up for discussions and collaborations.

Ira Shor

Berlin uses them to argue for students to identify how control over their lives has been denied where they blame themselves for their powerlessness. The point is to address the self as a product of a dialectical relationship between the individual and the social each given significance by the other. Overall, is the liberated consciousness of students is the only educational objective worth it.

Berlin

Treats writing instructions as a political act that fosters students agency by challenging unequal power structures. While shifting away from the one-sided teacher authority to co-creating knowledge with students where they turn the classroom into a space for analyzing everyday life, including capitalistic economic narratives and social hierarchies. Focuses on the social, historical, and economic forces rather than influencing discourse.

Formalist

Focuses on the writers internal forms. There is an emphasis on the rigid five paragraph structure and correct grammar. There is an emphasis on structure over substance where they ignore the writers process, context, or authorial intent and instead focuses on final structural plot. They treat language as something that follows rules and patterns as they study how a text is constructed and how its formal features create meaning.

Fulkerson

Mentions the rigid five paragraph structure and the close reading with an emphasis on high value grammar, punctuation, spelling, and technical elements within a document. Talks about how ‘good’ writing is correct writing. The emphasis lies with the texts values in adherence to specific internal forms. Focus on the product (written paper) rather than the process (how it was written) or the purpose (what it achieves). Formalist go beyond correctness at the grammatical and sentence level but there is emphasis on the adherence to traditional organization structures like essay formats.

Process

Values understanding the writers journey categorized with the free writing, revision, drafting, and editing. Wants to explore how the writer came to creating their piece. Emphasis is placed on the steps needed to produce a text. Places the teacher as a guide or facilitator and the students learn about their writing skills, develop creativity, and build confidence. However, there are limitations with having a harder time grading to a standardized point and more time consuming. Emphasizes how the student got there and how they can improve.

Product

At its heart explores the final text as a whole where the analysis focuses on the grammar, correct structure, and proper format. Typically, associated with academic writing as they emphasize attention to detail without wanting to understand the authors intentions besides the written materials (text). Moves the teacher into the role of judge and does not allow much room for revision as there is not an emphasis placed on that information. It builds accuracy and discipline for the writer. For students they typically study model texts and are graded in grammar, organization, and vocabulary.

In-class activities: Formalist

1. Grammar Drills - edit various styles of writing styles

2. In-class writing activities - create a travel brochure

3. Creating cover letters or resumes

Theorist for in-class formalist: Williams

argues that writing errors are not just about breaking rules they are about how a reader experiences the writing. They believe an ”error” is not always wrong because a grammar books says so but rather because it distracts, confuses, or annoys the reader. The moment the reading is interrupted is phenomenology. Argues that errors are situational as what counts as an error depends not he context. Readers decide what feels like an error as if the reader notices the error than it becomes a problem. Not all errors are equal as there are classification of the rules: Noticed always, Noticed only when followed, Noticed when only violated, and Never noticed. Clarity matters more than strict rules as good writings easy to understand and read as that comes first. Overall, the error exists in the reader reaction as good writing is about guiding the reader smoothly, not just technically correct.

In-class activities: social-epistemic

1. Have students write a paper on homelessness

2. Have students research and write a mini-paper about a event that has challenged their point of view.

3. Stage a debate on climate change

Theorist for in-class social-epistemic: Wardle

Explores how students do not automatically transfer things they learned from their first year writing classes and instead treat each course as a new entity. Also argues that teaching writing skill is not enough because writing depends on the situation, audience, and purpose. The overarching ideas center around understanding how writes write in different contexts, practice adapting skills to new situations, and think critically about when and how to use what they’ve learned. Overall, writing skills do not travel well - need to learn how to carry them into new situations.

Theorist for in-class social-epistemic: Ede

Argues that audience works in different ways. There is audience addressed which deals with real life people who interact/receive and interpret with the text. The text is for existing people with needs and value, and expectations that the writer must understand to respond effectively (real-life people) On the other, we have audience invoked which deals with an imaginary or constructed audience from the writer and is part of them. The audience plays into the language and responsibilities because the writer projects and alter the audience and the complexity of the readers role (imaginary people). They argue that neither can stand on their own and proposes the an interaction between the two where you use the audience addressed (real people) while strategically using language to create the audience invoked (the role you want readers to adopt).

Theorist for in-class social-epistemic:

Multimodality

deals with the combination of multiple modes of communication into one medium. In other words, they deepen comprehension by combing multiple literacies into one medium. These modes include audio, text, images, and video.

Digital tools

Include technologies like computers, internet, mobile devices, and cognitive and technical skills to do safely, and effectively. Overall, they are platforms to help students create, revise, answers share knowledge rather than be passive consumers. Moreover they help shape how knowledge is formed and influences what counts as effective communication while valuing accessibility and collaboration.

Doering

Argues for the incorporation of digital tools within the classroom. Demonstrates that when students use digital tools they naturally combine modes of communication. Has students become creators and not just produce texts. Tries to expand what counts as “writing” in the classroom. Argues that multimodality helps students communicate ideas deeply even more than writing alone can express. Through combining efforts classrooms became more engaging and creative.

George

Argues about visual literacy and how teacher treat images as a second to text. The primary argument stems from the integration of visual literacy within the classroom as they call for the shift from passive visual analysis (students use images as a sight of analysis and nothing more or as visual prompts to critique) to active visual design and composition. Arguing to make visual composition as rigorous and necessary elements of modern literacies as they should be equal contributors with text.

Kumpf

Argues there are ten categories for meta discourse that surrounds creating a text that is reader friendly.

1 First Impression

2. Heft

3. Chunking

4. Convection

5. Adherence

6. Consistency

7. Expense

8. Style

9. Interpretation

10. External Skeleton