Both Erika Lindemann and Leonard Podis
stress, in their introductions to the arrangement of material in student
composition, that the structuring of written works should not be construed as a
rigid formula; but both also agree that some form of organization is essential to
effective text. The difference between
their approaches has a lot to do with the experience level of the writers that teachers are advising. Lindemann describes a fairly defined transition from
invention to arrangement, with a variety of pre-determined structures in which
to slot the next stage of the work. Podis, however, suggests that more
experienced writers should use the process of “letting the idea inspire an
arrangement, whereupon the process of arranging and rearranging itself inspires
a more complexly patterned thought (203).” Lindemann’s approach is a next step
in the prewriting process, pre-draft, where as Podis’s is a rearrangement of a
draft to make what is already written more effective.
In terms of effectiveness of the
two approaches in terms of my own writing, I found Podis’s suggestions far more
useful. I tend to instinctively format papers along the lines of Lindemann’s
Quintilian argument formula, and I liked the approach of Kenneth Burke’s Counter-Statement in terms of content
assessment. But in my own writing I thought the post-draft organizational
strategies that Podis suggested offered a far more useful means of revision,
and thus more-effective final product.
However, if I were teaching
inexperienced writers, who were trying desperately to move past the
five-paragraph, index-card, outline approach to drafting a paper, I would use
Lindemann’s more formal structures – either the five-step argument formula, the
Counter-Statement/Promise approach, or blocking (which is essentially just a
broader stroke to outlining). Those
approaches provide a means to move past random, disorganized thoughts into an
arranged product through plunking basic data into formulas. My own drafting
process is a form of blocking based on what I find in research, drafted into a
thesis, counter-thesis, proof, relevance, summation format. I think the
critical lenses Podis provides would be very useful in determining the
effectiveness of that approach.
You summarize the two readings smartly and crisply, Peg, and also describe well how the differing audiences for the readings shape what the two different writers present.
ReplyDeleteI do wonder how you would prepare students to make the transition from the Lindemann approaches to arrangement to the Podis, since it sounds as though you think that needs to happen. I am not suggesting that the transition would need to happen in your classes, but rather how you would help students understand that the arrangements you were helping them use were transitional. Or would you think that was even necessary, believing that students will learn the more complex arrangements later?