Only a graduate student can be excited about a week off from work (Spring Break), not for a vacation, but to get caught up with reading and homework. Instead of a beach, pina coladas, and wet t-shit contests, I am sitting at my local Starbucks surrounded by yuppies and their bratty, screaming children. However, the Starbucks has free Internet, its air conditioned, and I don't have the distraction of TiVo or the beach across the street. So get ready for the epic power-blogging of Ashley Tucker!
Beginning with the Rose article: I found his discourse to be enjoyably sarcastic when trying to prove researchers wrong. I agree with him when he argues there is no correlation between how someone perceives a frame and a rod and their ability to write. That is perception, not writing. The study led up to this assertion, which I both agree and disagree with: "If a student can't structure an essay or take a story apart in the way we've been trained to do, current trends in cognitive research would suggest that her difficulties have more to do with limited opportunity to build up a rich network of discourse knowledge and strategy than with some general difference or deficit in her ability to structure or analyze experience" (Rose 275).
The part I agree with: A student's problem with structuring and analyzing writing has a lot to do with the lack of 'discourse knowledge', i.e. Reading. Perhaps students at the college level are slightly more inclined to read, but my experience at the secondary level tells me that my students reading interests is limited to text messages riddled with slang and video game directions. It is tried, true, researched and proven that the more someone reads, the better they write. Read more, write better. Language and Linguistics 101: We internalize what we read, and when we write we draw upon that knowledge. If our students don't (or won't) read, we can not expect them to have the discourse experience to draw from when they write.
The part I disagree with: There is a LOT of opportunity to build of discourse knowledge, most students just don't take the time to read. As far as the ability to structure and analyze their experience, this can be taught. So if this is the reason they can't structure or analyze writing, have the student's read more, and then write about what they read. This can be formal writing (yuck) or the form of a dialectical journal. I like the latter of the two because the student can pick the quote and then show that he/she actually understands it.
Flower and Hayes: Ok, I hate articles that try to dissect the writing process and turn it into something that can be charted, studied, and used to tell people they suck at writing because this study says so. Writing is organic. I believe you are either a good writer or a bad writer. There are studies that want to pick apart at why, but some people just hate to write. Some people like to write. There are hope for people who like to write to improve. I don't have research or studies to back this up, but with my students, this theory seems true.
So Flower and Hayes have this multi-step process to writing they claim writers go through. I don't do half of those steps in my own writing, and I consider my writing to be above-average. Maybe not excellent, but readable and maybe even enjoyable. One thing I did find interesting, however, was the section on goal-setting. "Poor writers will frequently depend on very abstract, underdeveloped goals...basic writers search for ready made goals instead of making their own" (Hayes 379). I have two types of students: The poor writers who read the assignment one time and assume they "get it" and the basic writers who read it 20 times and then ask, "What do you want me to write?" I also agree with Flowers and Hayes when they assert a writer's plan and goals, knowledge of the topic, and current text "are all competing for the writer's attention". Solution? Learn how to focus on the goal that is important, and go back to the less important goals later. Don't juggle the goals, but address them individually, then as a whole. High-level goal first, then the other goals.
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