Generating New Theory for Online Writing Instruction (OWI)
Introduction
Writing programs and writing centers, OWLs included, tend to incorporate into their practices a variety of composition and rhetoric theories, or schools of thought. These theories can be extended in various ways to online writing instruction (OWI) practices. Among these theories are four commonly applied theoretical constructs: (1) Current-Traditional, (2) Expressivist, (3) Neo-classical, and (4) Social Constructivist.
Though somewhat reductive, a thumbnail sketch helps to understand how writing programs, writing centers, and OWI through computer-mediated classrooms and OWLs ground their practices fluidly and eclectically in more than one theory. Even practitioners and institutions whose stated guiding principles may point to a particular philosophical construct often develop an eclectic approach to meeting the writer at the point of his/her need by attending to audience and purpose, the social nature of the writing act, and correctness issues. In particular, understanding these theoretical approaches can help when, during OWI, one is faced with a student whose assignment or textbook has a philosophical grounding that may be somewhat different from an institution or instructor's typical approach to writing.
Four Common Theoretical Constructs
The Current-Traditional construct tends to reveal itself in an attention to product over process. It is highly correctness-focused and those who practice the Current-Traditional approach to writing instruction may give a lot of exercises or tests intended to improve sentence-level development. These exercises often are a-contextually developed apart from the writer’s own writing. Another characteristic of the Current-Traditional is a focus on teaching the “rhetorical modes” (e.g., description, narration, definition, comparison and/or contrast, cause and effect analysis) as singular ways to develop paragraphs and/or entire essays. Furthermore, the prototypical five-paragraph essay consisting of an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion is a common feature of the instruction.
Although the Current-Traditional approach has been out of favor with writing professionals for more than thirty years, one still sees it in developmental writing and test preparation courses, some first year English (FYE) courses, textbooks (particularly those for under-prepared students), and writing centers, including OWLs. In OWLs, for example, providing sentence-level instructional handouts can be understood as a Current-Traditional approach to tutorials because these handouts are developed outside the context of an individual’s writing. However, such exercises prove useful to some students and, given that value, they should not be eschewed as “bad”; many popular OWLs, such as Purdue University's OWL, provide such handouts as their primary function. The most technologically advanced of such handouts have interactive features that enable students to practice what they learn from reading the textual explanations. For example, SMARTHINKING, Inc,'s™ online Writer’s and ESL Manuals© have an interactive series of exercises for each of the writer’s modules.
Another way that the Current-Traditional approach plays out in writing instruction, including OWI through OWLs, is in a teacher or consultant’s personal decision to correct, proofread, or edit student writing. Despite the possibility that sometimes students simply need a bit of editorial guidance, this is an application that most writing program directors, OWI professionals, and their mission statements actively discourage. Beth Rapp Young (2000, see especially 112) expresses an opposing view about students’ needs for direct instruction in how to proofread, online or not. Outside of academe, professional writers may admit to the benefits of occasional editorial assistance. For example, popular author Stephen King (2000) had a pertinent epiphany when his newspaper editor's edited his writing for the first time: “When [Gould] finished marking my copy in the manner indicated above, he looked up and saw something on my face. I think he must have mistaken it for horror. It wasn’t; it was pure revelation. Why, I wondered, didn’t English teachers ever do this?” (56-8). It seems that although a proscription against correcting student writing is appropriate in most cases, there may be times and ways to make editing a valuable teaching tool in both f2f and online environments.
The Expressivist construct, popularized by such compositionists as Peter Elbow, finds its roots in Neo-Platonic theory. Expressivist writing focuses on the writer as one who has personal and sole access to his/her own “truth” and encourages writing that expresses the writer’s individuality and thinking. This composing theory does not ignore transactional writing (writing that attempts to do/achieve something), but does elevate personal narrative and observations as an initial “way in” to the writing process for novice writers. Such prewriting techniques as freewriting, mapping, clustering, and the use of journals are examples of Expressivist-centered practice. Expressivist theory is ubiquitous in composition classrooms and textbooks where personal idea discovery and individual style are premier. Peer response groups that privilege the writer’s voice over the group’s collective voice also are common and may take a stylized approach where peer response does not equal dialogue among participants (see, for example, Hewett 1998, 45-8). Some take the Expressivist position to an extreme, believing that writing cannot be taught, and merely is apprehended by the individual writer. For some practitioners, individual conferences are preferable to classroom instruction.
In writing centers and OWLs, the Expressivist theory is characterized by the consultant who encourages the student’s ownership of the writing. For example, the consultant may be passionate about not writing on, or embedding comments in, the writer’s essays, preferring instead to ask probing questions. The questioning method may be more directive and goal-focused, as in a “Socratic” dialogue, or more open-ended, so as to enable the writer to “find” his or her own ideas. Who “holds the pen” or types on the keyboard, and therefore has "ownership" of the text, is a primary issue. Both traditional and OWI engage the Expressivist approach through a focus on higher order concerns (HOC) over lower order concerns (LOC). Using both asynchronous (non-real time) and synchronous (real-time) media, OWI instruction and tutorials encourage questions that prod writers to dig deeper into an idea and to consider the implications of what they think. Both asynchronous and synchronous teaching interactions in the forms of MOOs, instant chat, text exchange, and whiteboard media enable such questioning to occur.
The Neo-Classical approach to composing theory reveals itself in an attention to classical writing instruction as found in the Aristotelian and Ciceronian traditions. There is a privileging of transactional writing over the expressive, with instruction leading to the development of exposition and argument, both intellectual (arguing a position) and rhetorical (arguing a proposal). This tradition focuses strongly on audience and purpose to develop the writing in ways that attend to real readers and problems. The classical “canon” of invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery are addressed with particular focus on the development of logical and supportable claims and reasons for these claims. The Neo-Classical construct can be found in certain composition classrooms and textbooks where forming a logical and/or persuasive argument are paramount. Style often is addressed in terms of levels of formality conforming to the audience and intended purpose, as opposed to individual expressive preference.
Both traditional and OWI may engage Neo-Classical theory in such ways as providing formulary heuristics (e.g., Aristotle’s Topoi, Burke’s Pentad) and in argument development and analysis (e.g., Toulminian analysis). Online handouts and materials may approach argumentation in a classical manner and provide some of these heuristics. In OWI, teachers and OWL consultants may be encouraged to supplement more contemporary methods for teaching writing by drawing from these ancient ones using visual aids like charts and tables for formulary idea development.
The Social Constructivist construct, popularized by Kenneth Bruffee in the 1980’s, reveals itself in an intense focus on collaboration among writers (or among writer and reader/s) to discover and develop ideas. Suggesting that knowledge is constructed among social groups and that students need to be acculturated into the academic community, Social Constructivist practice privileges dialogue among student writers (and, by extension, among writers and readers) as a means of discovering ideas and developing thinking. As with Expressivist theory, teachers who subscribe to the Social Constructivist theory tend to use peer response groups in their practice. However, the dialogue among the novice writers in these groups, as opposed to the potentially more stylized Expressivist approach, encourages collaborative thinking that is intended to develop new ideas and to construct “new” knowledge among the group. Textbooks demonstrate a Social Constructivist approach when they suggest that knowledge is not certain and that the group or social voice is privileged over the individual’s voice.
In traditional and OWI that ascribe to Social Constructivist theory, teachers and consultants may share their own ideas in collaboration with writers and often pick up the pen and write with their students. Classroom teachers (and some students) may misinterpret such close collaboration as writing for students or correcting their work. Indeed, some fail to see the textual evidence of presupposition and iterability in student writing from tutorials as a natural and desirable consequence of collaboration. Furthermore, often the terms collaboration and social constructivism are interchanged (as I have done here)—there does not seem to be a consensus on the exact relationship between these terms. Moreover, there is a lack of clarity about what collaboration in its truest form means for student writers and those writing professionals who teach or tutor them. Exciting new synchronous tools, like Microsoft's NetMeeting (see Enders, 2000 and 2001) and SMARTHINKING, Inc.'s whiteboard environment, engage Social Constructivist theory as tutors coach students and can write with them in the idea development stage, saving the tutorial to an archives for future reference.