Close Encounters

I am lucky enough to have closely encountered three of the compositional camps that we discussed. I know, I know, my cup runneth over. Or perhaps I just had a strange mix of teachers. It seems to me that anyone swimming through the educational system from the kinder years to the college ones must have come across at least two or more. Let's see if I can give you the gist of these particular run-ins.

The younger years: expressivists. Wow. Every time I turned around it was, "free write this" and "free write that". Always expressing the self and coming up with vitally new and fresh ideas. Journal entries, reading journals, story-telling stuff. The irony is, I don't think any of us youngsters really had anything to express...

The high school years: current traditionalists. My battle ax of a 10th grade english teacher drilled the basics into us: metaphor, alliteration, similes, feet of all kinds, poems, prose. I know it seems a step back on the composition camp time line, but by the time we finished that year in english life was all about the current traditionalist methods. Nothing else existed.

Undergrad: social constructivists. Yeah, I also tested out of basic college english/composition, and yeah, I really didn't know what I was doing. It was a miracle I passed the AP english test. The higher level english course I was required to take was most influenced by the social constructivist agenda. We wrote on topics applicable to our majors. It was really not too painful and didn't last very long.

So, after this trip down memory lane I have an interesting thought. I want to belong to the cognitivists. That whole get inside-the-head thing sounds trippy. Not to mention the applicability to humanism. Perhaps we should form our own camp? The Ex-Cog-Constructionists? That however could maybe be just too much of an overwhelming encounter.