Chose your words...

Thomas E. Recchio juxtaposes  Robert Scholes saying, "Different, even conflicting assumptions may preside over any reading of a single text by a single person..." and M.M. Bakhtin saying "the arena of almost any utterance an intense interaction and struggle between ones' own and another's word is being waged..."  As his essay continues, he uses a Bakhtin view to analyze the competing views that are found in the students essay.   In doing so, he identifies four competing discourse express the writer's knowledge and their perspective on the issue while at the same time challenging the cohesiveness of the writing.  At this point Toby Fulwiler's essay The Role of Audiences comes to mind as he suggests, "when we write about anything we learn it better."  The students "draft" is a good example of that very point.  I think Recchio's reading and analysis of the draft would be very helpful for Graduate level or maybe Undergraduate students.  However, I think it would need to be greatly simplified for High School level students.  At that level, it would be very help for the student to have a reading of their draft that highlighted the existence of the different discourse found in their draft. Moreover, to avoid the tendency of teacher centered in judgment, I would suggest that the writer choices the discourse that they feel most passionate about and expound upon it. Also, it would be helpful here to suggest how the other discourses might be more effective for other audiences.  In the end, This type of reading and revision requires the time and patience of both the writer and the teacher/audience with a common goal of refining writing and learning at its highest level.