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last.updated 10.4.09

 

Process, Post-Process & Genre

Purpose

With this lesson we begin to make a shift from history and theory to course design. During the late sixties, scholars such as Donald Murray brought to the field's attention that a fixation on the written product was not a useful pedagogy; instead, writing instructors needed to help students work through the process of writing. Although the field's practical response to this theoretical approach has received criticism, teaching a writing process is still a central foundation of most composition classrooms.

Before Class

  • Read Flower and Hayes "The Cognition of Discovery" NBCS [467-478]
  • Read Atkinson "L2 Writing in the Post-Process Era" NBCS [1532-1543]
  • Read Delpit "The Silenced Dialogue" [BB]
  • Submit WikiComp Revision #1 on WetPaint

FreeWrite

Answer the following questions in "Week 6" (if Blackboard will let the instructor log on) thread of the Blackboard Discussion Board. You have the first ten minutes of class.

Would you teach the writing process to your students? Why or why not? If so, how would you teach it?

Discussion: Literacy & Academic Discourse

The discussion today will address the following questions:

  • What is the process approach? To answer this question we will study Flower & Hayes' process model.

  • What does post-process refer to?
  • What questions do you have about the readings?
  • What objections are being made to process writing pedagogy?

Activity: Praxis

You will be divided into the four groups. Each group will be responsible for describing a process of moving from the action of reading a piece of scholarship, such as a research study or a theoretical discussion, to the classroom practices it influences.

As your group works on this, choose a theoretical concept from the readings we have read for this week and either use it to 1) think about how you move from this theory to how you put it into practice in your classroom, or 2) to test the process that you have described.

When you are done, each group will have the opportunity to depict their process on the board and to explain what they did.