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.