Fox places emphasis on the view of writing as intertwined in the social. That is, (via her citation of Mitchell and Taylor, “…the writing on the pages is not a concrete object but one portion of a relationship” (p. 116). Two pages later, Fox adds to this idea: “It’s what happens beyond publishing that’s important; it’s the response to my work that matters” (p. 118). Defining a piece of writing as simply a tangible object independent of any social, cultural, personal, etc aspects is as reductive as defining a student as independent of those aspects. I suppose Fox (and others) might argue that a piece of writing is an extension of the self: language voiced into the world via the medium of writing chosen by the writer. By viewing writing in this manner, we can better understand how to ‘teach’ writing: How do we get our students to see themselves as writers and to embrace their power over language? How can we prepare them for the various writing tasks they will need to perform and undertake throughout their lives? Or perhaps one of the more daunting questions: How can we get them excited over writing and learning? Fox explains, “clarity and voice and power and control are much more easily developed through letter writing because, perhaps, the audience is so clearly defined and will, if all goes well, respond” (p. 122). While I am not planning on only assigning letters to my students, I do think Fox’s emphasis on the letter can point to the importance of audience.
Even the most well planned writing topic is nothing without a consideration of the audience. Often, I think we write for a specific audience without even thinking (too in depth or continuously) about it: A research paper for the academic community, a note to our self, a blog post to a specific group, etc. Even the most banal dictionary definition was written with a certain audience in mind: the speaker of the language in question. Fox points to the letter, in part, because it allows the writer an audience to receive the text and thus helps him/her to better focus the clarity, voice, power, and control of the writing. It is almost as if having a specific audience in mind helps the writer see a bigger purpose in the text, rather than writing to simply finish to assignment.
To reference Perl, it is mentioned that students often complain that they have “‘no idea” what to write” (p. 430). Perhaps instead of beginning the topic-hunting process, students might try to discover a specific audience to which they would like to write. I would think this might help to narrow the topic selection down a bit. Rather than requesting that students simply write an argumentative essay on a topic of their choice, they should write an argumentative essay on a specified topic to an audience of their choice. I’m just brainstorming myself here, but maybe something like that would help.
On another note: I found Tobin’s piece really helpful in explaining process pedagogy. I’ve been introduced to these ideas previously, but never read about them in the detail that he goes into. Process pedagogy will help students “adopt more productive attitudes and practices…that may take time to integrate but will remain long after the course has ended” (p. 12). In addition, he also explains the importance of using other pedagogical approaches to create a more holistic learning environment: audience identification, establishing a “credible ethos,” source citation, the infamous five-paragraph essay (for our favorite standardized test, the GRE), and various postprocess concepts and methods (p. 16).
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