Current Writing Pedagogy

The student who is preparing for preservice or inservice teaching in any field must answer two crucial questions: “What is learning?” and “What is teaching?” The student preparing to teach writing must also answer the question, “What is the purpose and the value of writing?” Writing is a subject area in which the teacher cannot easily state why writing itself is valuable or what purposes are served by learning the “art and craft” of writing, except as a tool for communication in other subject areas. In his article “Who’s Afraid of Subjectivity,” Robert P. Yagelski (1994), offers some answers to these questions about knowledge, education, and writing, as well as addressing related questions concerning individuality.

Current writing pedagogies value writing and writers in different ways. Yagelski compares the underlying epistemology of expressivist approaches with postmodern epistemological theory. Expressivist theories claim that knowledge is found within the individual, and writing is a form of self-discovery. “Process-oriented” writing instruction is connected with this pedagogical approach. Postmodern theorists define knowledge as the fluid, shifting, and selective perceptions of reality that are tied to particular times, places, and cultures. Proponents of postmodern theories claim that expressivist practices reproduce ideologies that conceal both power structures and the position of students within these structures. Such practices are also thought to reduce awareness of social differences related to gender, class, and race between individuals in the classroom. By encouraging only constructive criticism and harmonious group work, expressivist teachers avoid confrontation over real-world issues. For postmodernists, writing is...

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... rather than, in Keats’ words, “remaining content with half-knowledge,” and I think that an epistemology and a pedagogy that embraces paradox is rather well suited to the postmodern world.

References

Keats, John. Letter dated Dec.21st, 1817. Cited in The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory (1991) by J.A. Cuddon. New York: Penguin.

Kluth, Paula. 2000. “Community-Referenced Learning and the Inclusive Classroom” Remedial & Special Education 21.1 (Jan/Feb): 19-26.

Macrorie, Ken. 1988. The I-Search Paper. Portsmouth,NH: Boynton-Cook

Phelps, T.O. 1992. “Research or Three-Search?” English Journal 89.1: 76-78.

Yagelski, Robert P. 1994. “Who’s Afraid of Subjectivity: Postmodernism and the Composing Process.” Taking Stock: The Writing Process Movement in the 90’s, edited by Lad Tobin and Thomas Newkirk. 203-217. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.