Ahh so many methods!

Looking back to grade school, I would say that most of the instruction I received in writing was based on current-traditional rhetoric. I remember writing a lot of book reports or something similar to them, and they would mostly be a summary of what I had read. I didn’t learn how to really delve into a text and look “outside of the box” until I got to college. That was like a whole new world to me when I actually had to synthesize and make interpretations about what I read. It makes one think if high school really prepares you for college after all. In general, it does, but I was introduced to a lot of new things when I got to college, especially in writing. In addition, I recall the use of the “bottom-up” method. We would have to write an essay just defining one word or write a compare/contrast essay on characters from a novel. I don’t know if it was really helpful to me because it did not connect with anything; it was too straight forward and there was no room for much critical thinking. I thought the part in the chapter about grading student papers was interesting. Red marks all over the paper, correcting grammar and spelling, and a comment at the end of the essay—so typical. Is that really going to teach the student anything? I admit, most of the time I would simply turn to the last page of the essay, see what my grade was, and read the comment left by the teacher. I don’t think I often went back and looked at the grammar mistakes I made because once the essay was finished and graded, it was over. This is probably what a lot of students do, though. With that in mind, in order to truly improve students’ writing, teachers need to apply the grammar lessons to the students’ own writings. Instead of saying, “Oh, a lot of my students are terrible at grammar, so I have to go over the rules with them,” (which is probably said after the essays are graded), the grammar lessons and rules should be taught before the essays are written. In fact, grammar should be taught during the writing process of an essay or other form of writing. If the lesson of the day is comma rules, the students can go back through their drafts and correct their comma errors. Each lesson would be applied to the students’ writings, and maybe just maybe, there would be an improvement in their writing. Students learn nothing from doing grammar exercises out of a workbook; it needs to be applied to their own writing. I kind of went off in a tangent on grammar, but I have a huge concern on the way grammar is taught in schools, and this idea of the current-traditional rhetoric struck a nerve. I think the process approach of new rhetoric is a bit more successful in improving students’ writing. I think everyone has gone through the prewrite, draft, revise, edit, publish process as mentioned on page 54. It is important to go through these stages because it allows you to really take a good look at your work and reexamine it. Revision is vital when writing, and it doesn’t seem like current-traditional rhetoric focuses on it like new rhetoric does. Now if teachers applied the grammar lessons and other such lessons that lead to successful writing while going through this process, I think there would be a visible improvement in student writing. Of course, I like the romantic rhetoric method the best, and I think it would be the most successful in a classroom. I agree with Lindemann that “Good writing is most effective when we tell the truth about who we are and what we think” (62). Students and anyone for that matter enjoy writing when they can express how they really feel and use emotion. Page 62 discusses how “good writing” is frequently in the form of autobiographies and personal narratives. This is because the writing connects with the writer’s life. When writing a research report, one must almost take on a different character because the topic is oftentimes unfamiliar to them, which means things like expressive language and emotion is lost. I do understand, however, how drawing on personal experiences could be embarrassing for students if this romantic rhetoric is practiced in the classroom. Moreover, it is true that high school students are sometimes too young to have experienced certain events, and it is true that some narratives are made up—I know this because I have done it in the past when I had nothing to write about. In conclusion, it makes sense to somehow combine all of these methods; it does not seem like one method can be done in isolation. Is that really what happens?
This assigned reading was so informative to me. I didn’t know there were so many methods and things to think about when dealing with writing in the classroom. I always wondered what “writing across the curriculum” really encompassed. The method that was very new to me was the “linked model” method. I never had a class where a composition or English educator worked with a content area educator (like Social Studies) worked together to evaluate student work. I think that would be very beneficial to the students, but I can see where it would be difficult as well. It would be interesting to see how it works. I think WAC in general is a good thing to implement in schools because of its main aspect that students are given a purpose for their writing. As far as postmodern rhetoric and post-postmodern rhetoric go, I’m rather confused, so I hope someone can clear those two terms up. I don’t understand how you could do away with rhetoric and composition as postmodernists (if I’m correct) support? Towards the end of the reading, I felt a bit bombarded with all of the different methods and such, so everything started to run together. I would like to say that I agree with Katelyn about the whole writing portfolio process. I asked myself the same question as to why only Secondary English Education majors have to complete a writing portfolio. It goes with the whole idea of WAC; other content area teachers should also be responsible for teaching writing, not just English teachers. Therefore, Social Studies education majors and even math education majors should be taught writing methods in college as well.