The parts and the whole

Hartwell and Shuy both point to the importance of viewing literacy/writing/learning practices holistically and contextually. Rather than tout the supremacy of the final artifact (a piece of “good” writing), both authors, again, argue the importance of (to borrow Shuy’s terminology) a holistic view of literacy (learning, writing, etc). In addition, they point out the importance of the integration of the underlying (a.k.a: beneath the iceberg) aspects of literacy and learning. Hartwell argues the “surface features of literacy are less important than their metalinguistic and metacognitive concomitants, and those concomitants are deeply embedded in a social world” (p. 9). Likewise, Shuy says, “by seeing the evidence analytically, part of a contextually relevant whole, rather than synthetically, a totally different interpretation [is] possible” (p. 102). This is an example of the difference between seeing a student text as five paragraphs of independent and awkward sentences, or understanding the text as a part of a larger context, that of the writing and learning process (and cultural, historical, social aspects) involved in producing such a work.

The need to translate these theoretical and pedagogical arguments into classroom practices is crucial to the teaching of writing (to an effective and equitable teaching of writing, anyway). Again, the notion of a holistic approach to teaching writing entails the writing process as a whole, rather than simply the means to a “good piece of writing.” I do not want my students to mimic the grammar, semantics, and form that Strunk and White deem to be good writing, but instead, I’d rather they be engaged in the creative process and learn the skills to be effective communicators through various modes of writing.

Hartwell makes a great argument that really gets at the core of the importance of the writing process as a complex set of practices: “the more we try to transmit isolate skills, the more we block students from mastering them – and from mastering the deeper knowledges that are much more important” (p. 9). Again, this points to Shuy’s argument about analytic vs. synthetic analysis in relation to evidence in context. If we go through our students’ papers with the ubiquitous red pen and mark each sentence, phrase, or word as “awk” independent of the context (the entire paper), then I know that learning will not happen. This type of analysis is “synthetic” and goes against understanding the writing process as a set of complex meaning-making practices.

I guess this answers my question during class concerning the appropriate time for making syntax and grammar corrections/suggestions: either not at all, or at the end of the writing process.