Issues of Invention

In an attempt to ferret out the final winner in my personal contest of research paper topics, the attempts at free writing and clustering were helpful - but not in the way I expected. What they managed to do most effectively was help me discern what it was that I actually wanted to write about. As I sat staring at a blank document, I experienced a fairly definitive feeling about what I did (and did not) want to write about. That was extremely helpful, because up until that point I was quite torn between them. So I started with clustering and basically ended up with two columns - one a pro and one a con about one of my topics. It wasn't particularly helpful in terms of delving deeper into the topic, but it cemented my choice. Then I tried free writing, and it was basically a reiteration of the brainstorming I had done earlier. So while the processes weren't all that effective, the thinking around them was. 

The Heuristics list of questions was quite tedious and seemed at the outset to be busy work at best. After a few minutes of ennui and distraction (more about that in a minute), it became very apparent to me that I would never get even close to completely answering the list in the time allotted. Therefore I jumped around in the questions until I found some that were relevant - under the subcategory "Testimony". At that point I felt the paradigm shift from Lindemann to Crowley, with my reasons for writing about my topic of choice shifting because "the notion of a subject makes no sense in ancient rhetorical terms unless we think of it as an inextricable part of a rhetorical situation (Crowley, Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students, 32)." Lindemann's first question in the subtopic, "What do people say about [grammar] (Lindemann, A Rhetoric for Writing Teachers, 119)?" shifted my thinking process to Crowley's Stasis Theory, "Determining the point of disagreement is an obvious starting place for rhetorical invention, which is always stimulated by some difference of opinion (33)." It was the first point in the exercise where I finally felt like I was thinking along appropriate lines, but sadly, it was also about the time the exercise ended.

In the final summation of the class exercises, my assessment of the value of it for future use in my own classroom is that it needs to be situational - cut and pasted to suit the students involved, the focus of the prompt, and the time allocated for it. They are useful techniques, but I would edit them to fit. I like the clustering exercise as a modified brainstorming activity, which would work for early writers. I think that free writing is very difficult for early writers - and would actually be most useful as a very first stage - what are some things I would like to write about? - rather than a secondary one. The Heuristic approach is a little more universally applicable, but I would probably narrow the questions to a few, meatier, ones - perhaps through combining them - unless I was working with VERY young writers with short attention spans. Then I would give them one group of them and let them go at it.

And now about distraction.....I am a notoriously holistic person, and in any situation I am a scanner of whatever is going on in a room. I have very limited filtering capacities, which can be a good thing in terms of awareness but is horrendous when faced with the need to narrowly focus attention. For example, on a test last semester I had the misfortune to sit next to a student who clicked her pen non-stop throughout the entire exam, while that excruciating ventilation noise in CRT 124 was roaring. Across the room someone was tossing her long hair back about every thirty seconds with a wild motion of her head. I was driven to near hysteria trying not to notice. So in a classroom situation where I need to focus on free writing and just keep going - well, I can't. I saw a figurative squirrel jumping out in every corner of the room tonight and my focus was shot. I will always be a dreadful classroom writer. I need solitude, and peace. Perhaps a cup of coffee.

Therefore finishing up this entry is delightful - because I now have all those things and my focus is Herculean. I will continue to give my best efforts to public writing exercises, but it will, I fear, be for naught. I also think any future student of mine who has any sensory or attention issues will struggle with classroom, public writing.

Invention: Two Approaches

        Approaches to the writing process are diverse, and that diversity is highly apparent in the presentations by Erika Lindemann in the “Prewriting Technique” chapter of A Rhetoric for Writing Teachers as it is compared to Sharon Crowley’s chapter “Invention: Getting Started in her book Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students. Lindemann uses a quote as she begins her chapter to illustrate what she considers an essential component in writing – a discernment of “some kind of truth (109)” gathered through a process of internal discovery by the author.  Crowley counters that with her assertion that writing begins at a point of stasis between two points of view; in other words, writing is essentially a persuasive process aimed at invoking consensus, with no interest in “establishing some sort of universal truth (31).” 

Lindemann introduces a wide variety of techniques for unlocking a writer’s potential, from artistic, wide-ranging brainstorming to specific, heuristic explorations. Her prewriting techniques offer concrete but diverse suggestions for implementation in a classroom, including specific techniques for getting student writers started. Crowley’s approach is more academic and theoretical, although she too offers lists of potential questions that students in the prewriting process could explore. Her approach is far more formal than Lindemann’s, and highly analytical. It provides specific structures and procedures within a time-honored frame of rhetoric, directing students through a logical, formulaic process as they begin to write. There are some correlations between authors; for example, Crowley’s list of “Hermagora’s Questions (37)” delineating the four staseis and Lindemann’s list of Burke’s “dramatistic pentad (120)”. Both of these lists of questions could be used to direct a student’s approach to a topic, and both sets provide comparable, effective tools for analysis.

Both authors provide direction for students as they begin to write. Lindemann’s process is highly interpersonal, engaging writers in large and small group discernments at the outset of the process, and continuing with interactive feedback between writers as they proceed through drafting stages to the final product. She finds value in a community of writers. Crowley’s approach is a more solitary one, with writers carefully fitting their process into appropriate categories.  

In terms of the process of invention, both approaches offer a narrowing procedure from the identification of the issue to the beginning of a written product. Both authors offer concrete steps in the process that would be very useful if implemented in a classroom situation. Crowley’s approach is highly directed toward a persuasive final product, which would be extremely applicable if that was the desired result. Lindemann’s processes offer formulas for other writing venues, including literary analysis, so they are perhaps more global in applicability. In both cases, the invention process would be well served, and perhaps the ideal approach for a writing teacher would be a hybrid of both.

Argumentative Research Paper: Potential Topics

1. Writing and Standardized Tests

There is an onslaught of standardized testing assaulting both time to teach and content taught in the modern classroom. Where does writing fit into the testing scenario? Should teachers focus primarily on the teaching of skills essential for writing tests, including college entrance subtests? Is there room for creative writing? Are the skills needed for test writing applicable to professional and academic writing as well? And given the context of endless testing, large class sizes, and accountability standards, how does a teacher teach lifelong writing skills?

2. Engaging the Reluctant Writer

Students enter high school with a wide range of abilities and interest (or lack thereof) in writing, and yet writing is an essential component of almost every course they take. How can a teacher empower reluctant writers to be engaged in the learning process rather than merely squeaking through with poorly written, poorly conceptualized papers? How can one make writing come alive for a student who struggles to write a simple sentence?

3. Grammar Skills – Integration or Isolation?

Should Grammar be taught as a stand-alone skill, or should it be taught informally through the writing process? Should it be a primarily emphasis of the teaching of English, or have current word processing programs and internet searches made it an increasingly archaic remnant of days gone by?