av4cs

on "synaesthesia"

"Write an essay on one of the following terms in which your purpose shall be to reach a satisfactory definition. On the way to the final definition record all your trail definitions, and include all of the illustrations, examples, distinctions, exceptions that have come to you. A good beginning is the criticism of the dictionary definition, or of what is generally understood by the term.”

--from Scott and Denney’s Paragraph-Writing (1909)

guess who

“Another class of exercises, well suited to develop invention, as well as to break up the stiff formality to which beginners are liable, is that of Personal Narratives. These narratives may either be real, giving an account of something the writing has experienced, such as an excursion, a trip into the country, and the like, or they may be fictitious, giving an account of some imaginary adventure. These narratives, whether real or fictitious, should be in the first person, and writers should be encouraged to give the narrative, when practicable, something of the dramatic form, introducing dialogue, telling what was said by the several parties introduced.”

--from J. Hart’s Manual of Composition and Rhetoric (1870)

the listening eye: reflections on the writing conference

" The writing teacher, because he is an English teacher, is usually considered to have a subject matter as do teachers of history and physics and mathematics and literature. He does not. He must learn from those who teach music and art and shop, for he does not have a vast amount of knowledge or information to communicate to the students. He does not have many concepts to develop. He has a few basic skills which he must communicate to the students repetitively, over and over and over and over again. . .The great danger is that the repetition of the same rule. . .may become boring both for the student and for the teacher. The writing teacher must develop many ways of saying the same thing."

--Donald Murray, A Writer Teaches Writing, 1968

the study (and use) of models

“A common assumption among teachers of writing is that a familiarity with good or great writing will enhance a writer’s own work. A more concrete pedagogical version of this assumption is that a developing writer learns from seeing what others have done and from imitating those forms and techniques. That is, in order to write an essay of a given type, the writer must first be familiar with examples of the type and know the parts of the type and their relationships. How could a writer produce a haiku or sonnet if the writer did not first know what a haiku or sonnet is? Although some studies have been conducted in the last twenty years have examined the effects of general exposure to ‘good’ writing, many more studies have concentrated on the analysis of models to identify specific qualities or features which students were expected to incorporate in their own writing. . .This narrative review can conclude only that the results for the use of models are mixed. . . available research does not permit fine discriminations among the effect of various types of models on students of various ages and levels of ability, or among the variety of ways in which they might be used.”

--text from Hillocks' Research on Written Composition (1986)