On the Need to Weave

I always found the separation of pedagogies into seemingly separate camps to be an interesting phenomenon; despite the clear boundaries drawn in textbooks between the current-traditionalists, expressivist, cognitivists, social constructionists (and the list goes on...), most of us educated within the last 50 years seem to find that our writing teachers often blended these different camps into their own personal pedagogy. Of course, I think we (as humans) better understand different concepts when they ideas are clearly delineated as different from other ideas; the perception of competing camps enables us to better understand the core of each camps' ideology. Nevertheless, as many of our classmates' blogs have shown, it seems each camp has often been interwoven with other camps when presented in the classroom. Indeed, I have found that these different approaches to teaching writing are more effective when used together. 

I, too, have experienced all 4 camps within my 18+ years of formal education. As I reflected on these different experiences, I was struck by a particular comparison between 2 classes in which I most strongly remember current-traditional pedagogy being used. Specifically, the comparison of these two experiences shows the importance of using multiple pedagogies in the context of each other, not just in conjunction with each other. 

Ms. Bishop taught 11th and 12th grade AP English. She famously required multiple drafts and used extensive peer review. She was also well-renowned for her loathing of "to-be" verbs. After her class until mid-college, I had the "to-be" verbs scared right out of me; I refused to use an "is" unless it was utterly necessary, and then still felt guilty for using it. She also introduced me to sentence diagramming. The funny thing is that, although Ms. Bishop used both cognitivism and current-traditionalism in the classroom, I did not leave her class believing that proper grammar, efficient sentence construction, and drafting were all necessary for successful writing. Rather, I forgot the drafting, wiped the memories of peer review, and only remembered the horror of misused passive verbs and poorly constructed sentence diagrams. 

In contrast, I had the pleasure of taking a writing pedagogy class from Chris LeCluyse during my undergraduate education here at Westminster as training to consult in the Writing Center. There was certainly an overwhelming adherence to writing as a "process;" in fact, we were instructed to refuse to serve any student who just wanted a finished product. "Editing" was not allowed. However, due to the demands of the consulting position, we were still expected to have command of grammar, sentence-structure, and all other writing rules. Using the famed Strunk and White, Chris helped us navigate through the basics of current-traditional pedagogy. Then, he took an important turn that differentiated this classroom from that of Ms. Bishop. Chris explained (in a somewhat Expressivist way) that mastery of these rules was necessary to enable a writer to best communicate her ideas. The rules helped a writer to better express herself. Learning the rules was not an end of itself; rather, learning the rules was the way a writer empowered herself to write more effectively. 

Current-traditionalism often gets a bad rap in today's world of individuality and diversity. However, as I often explained to frustrated college students seeking solace in the Writing Center, these rules also provide us with tools that enable us to communicate ideas more succinctly and with more sophistication. As a writer, my choices between a dash and a period or a compound sentence and a fragment enable me to better direct my audience. At the same time, a writer without these tools is just as crippled as a writer bound by these tools. Chris's class, and the subsequent experiences in the Writing Center, taught me the importance of current-traditionalism within the context of process and expressivism. 

Many of us have experienced multiple writing pedagogies throughout our educational careers. As I reflected upon my experiences of learning how to write, I realized the importance of interweaving these pedagogies, not just presenting them side-by-side. Truthfully, it seems each of the big 4 pedagogies becomes more potent when combined with each other.