"It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things superhuman, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law."
~Louis H. Sullivan (1896)
(http://academics.triton.edu/faculty/fheitzman/tallofficebuilding.html)
If this is true, and if "[i]n writing paragraphs, as in shaping larger units of discourse, we continually discover form" (Lindemann 150), then we discover form only after we've determined how each individual composition, each medium of discourse, is to function.
So what is the function of discourse? Perhaps, like "paragraphs, sentences, and essays" (Lindemann 151, see n2), the function of any and all discourse is to "express relationships" (ibid.).
And if this expression is limited, "as a rule," to two modes - coordination & subordination (Lindemann 151), how are we to determine which modal form to use?
Perhaps, then, function involves discovery as well. That is, just as form follows function, so does function follow form, and if discovery is involved in both, then the only thing we need to concern ourselves with as teachers (qua students) of composition is the discovery process: what it is and what it involves.
If this is true, and if "[i]n writing paragraphs, as in shaping larger units of discourse, we continually discover form" (Lindemann 150), then we discover form only after we've determined how each individual composition, each medium of discourse, is to function.
So what is the function of discourse? Perhaps, like "paragraphs, sentences, and essays" (Lindemann 151, see n2), the function of any and all discourse is to "express relationships" (ibid.).
And if this expression is limited, "as a rule," to two modes - coordination & subordination (Lindemann 151), how are we to determine which modal form to use?
Perhaps, then, function involves discovery as well. That is, just as form follows function, so does function follow form, and if discovery is involved in both, then the only thing we need to concern ourselves with as teachers (qua students) of composition is the discovery process: what it is and what it involves.
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ReplyDeleteThough this composition was written in response to a separate prompt from a different instructor's class, it is a related piece of discourse, so I thought I'd share it, but I'm having problems with the format, so it might be difficult to read. That said, thank you for reading...
ReplyDelete"Invoicing: Discovering the Voice Within"
It was May1969 when this picture was developed, and like this picture, I, too, would
develop, and this development, too, would be less an event and more a process, a process
beginning (with my conception) and ending (with my birth) – and then beginning again – in
discovery, discovery of my voice.
In the picture, my radiantly beautiful mom, like the primary star of a heavenly
constellation, unknowingly outshines my dad’s sisters who, in their own beauty, glow with the
promise of youth. My mother’s supernal beauty, however, is made even more manifest by the –
unnoticeable and unnoticed – bump in her belly which promises my birth (and how often do
genuine promises, like miracles, go unnoticed?).
And so it is, that, before I was born, I existed. Not only as an unrealized promise in my mother’s mind, but in the realized form and function of a tiny human being (“A person is a
person, no matter how small” Dr. Seuss) developing within her womb, Unborn though I was. And it is here where my life began. Not outside of the womb, but inside there, where my mind and body were formed, “knitted…together” (Psalm 139:13), to follow the function of my
existence.
So what is my function? Presumably my function is my purpose, and although my purpose may be unknown (at least to me), I do know this: I was created and I exist, not of my
own will but of Something or Someone else’s. Perhaps this is my purpose: to discover my
Creator, the eternal “Voice” that presumably resides within each and everyone of us, and perhaps with this discovery I’ll discover myself and mine own.
Perhaps.