There were many articles discussing the writing process and how to teach writing in the reading for this week, but I think that Lester Faigley’s article “Competing Theories of Process: A Critique and a Proposal,” bridges some of the presentations that have been given throughout the semester. The two theories that Faigley focuses on that I noticed the strongest connection to the rhetoricians that have bee presented to the class were the expressive view, and the social view. In which he points out views of Coleridge in expressive theory and views of social theory that are similar to Burke.
While exploring exressivsm Faigley demonstrates its possible roots in Romantic expressivsm. “This definition of ‘good writing’ includes the essential qualities of Romantic espressivsm—integrity, spontaneity, and originality—the same language M. H. Abrams uses to define ‘expressive’ poetry in The Mirror and the Lamp,” (Faigly 654). As we learned for Emily’s presentation, Coleridge was a romantic poet and as such finds himself part of Faigley’s essay. “Elbow chose the metaphor of organic growth to describe the operations of composing, that same metaphor Edward Young used to describe the vegetable concept of genius in 1759 and Coleridge borrowed from German philosophers to describe the workings of the imagination,” (Faigley 655). I know I. A. Richards is not classified as romantic poet, but I think that the romantic notion of writing originating with the author relates in a small sense to new criticism. Both views share a slight isolation. Literature should be read by only looking at the written piece, and the generation of writing is solely from the author.
When describing social theory, Faigley points out that most of the studies of social theory are derived from Burke. “I will attempt to identify four lines of research that take a social view of writing, although I recognize these positions overlap and that each draws on earlier work (e.g., Kenneth Burke),” (Faigley, 659). The social view looks at how a writer or writing fits into a society. “The focus of a social view of writing, therefore, is not on how the social situation influences the individual, but on how the individual is a constituent of a culture,” (Faigley, 659). The social view seems to suggest that writing is generated through social situations rather than spontaneously bursting into the authors head. This idea reminded me of Berthoff’s article “Learning the use of Chaos” because we understand our society through language, and Berthoff argued that we form ideas by finding our way out of chaos with language.
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integrity, spontaneity, originality. Interesting concepts for good writing. Integrity reminds me of "the good man writing well." I disagree. Coming from the writing workshop, I instantly think of Boudreau Freret's career as an attorney and their need to fight for causes they don't believe in all the time. I'm going to bet that even if their writing goes against the person's integrity that it better be good. The spontaneity part reminds me of a point made at the workshop: vigorous writing is concise. Vigorous to me means off the top of your head, no stoping, no thinking, as fast as you can. Originality just means don't plagiarize.
ReplyDeleteThe chaos that Berthoff is describing is that chaos that creates language. In her essay, she says, "Our students, because they are language animals, because they have the power of naming, can generate chaos; they can find ways out of chaos because language creates them" (648). The argument there is that chaos is the created and destroyed by language. "How?" is the question that she seeks to answer.
ReplyDeleteThis differs from Faigley in that he argues that in the social view, only a society can understand language, not an individual (659).
Essentially its a numbers game between these two rhetors -- Faigley 1, Berthoff many.
A case could be made thatin the social view writing is generated by social situations and bursts spontaneously into a author's head. In "Collaborative Learning and the 'Conversation of Mankind,'" Kenneth Bruffee states that "our feelings and intuitions are as much the product of social relations as our knowledge" (550). In other words, everything that a writer feels or thinks is influenced by the social situation in which she lives. So, all writing is social, but that does not mean that it was not spontaneous or that is does not belong to the author. It is social because it belongs to the author and the author is social.
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