process writing 3

like an automobile without a steering wheel-it might take you almost any- where or just keep going around in circles;we have seen student writing that did both. I have taken a long time to belabora reallyvery obviouspoint-that purpose, meaning a purpose for the writer or speakerand a purposefor the readeror listener,is all-important in any com- munication.Yet this obviouspoint is fre- quently forgottenwhen we get down to the brass tacks of teachingwriting.The implications for actual classroom per- formance are perhaps equally obvious, but I shall close by summarizingthem. 1.We cannotteachpurposefulwriting without giving students plenty of prac- tice in purposefulwriting.Yet this is just what we seem often to be trying to do. No onecouldbe expectedto learnto play tennis,orfly an airplane,withouta lot of directedpractice,yet attempts are con- stantly being made to teach writing without the student's doingany of it.In many classrooms,workbooksand drill- books have replaced actual practice in writing.Yet all the evidence tends to show that there is little carry-overfrom drillbooksto writing situations;it is en- tirely possible that all the busyworkis sheerwaste of time so faras writingskills are concerned. 2.Even if directedpracticein writing is provided,the writingshouldhave some realisticpurposeforboththe studentand the reader.Otherwise the whole thing remains a purely artificial exercise,the studentstringswordstogetherin a pitiful attempt to make them add up to the re- quirednumber,and no senseof the writ- ing processis gained.Assigningsubjects is not enough unless the student has somenotion of purposeand hencean ap- propriatemannerof treatingthe subject. Insteadof assigningsubjects,it is usually

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better to suggestpromising(andso faras possible realistic)purposesto guide the studentin choosinghis subjectandmate- rial.Oneassignmentof this sortmightbe to write a letter to the editor of the col- lege paper suggestingone improvement in the school and arguing persuasively for its adoption. 3.If relatedto the conceptofpurpose, the selection and organizationof mate- rial can be mademuchmoremeaningful, as parts of the processof communication rather than as ends in themselves.The cumbersomebusinessofformaloutlining, especially,can largelybe dispensedwith by teachingselectionandarrangementof materialrealistically,the way it is done by most practicingwriters. The morerealisticapproachcanquick- ly be described.I ask my students to take a piece of scratchpaperor the back of an old envelope,write downa possible purposefor a piece of writingat the top, and thenspendfifteenminutes"thinking around"the subjectand jotting downin a word or a phraseevery possibleaspect of the subject-every fact or idea or ex- ampleor argument-that might be used. Theseroughnotesarejotted downin any order,just as they occur.Afterthe possi- bilities are temporarily exhausted,the student can go over the notes,crossing out points that appearweak on second thought,addingnew ones,andfinallyat- temptingto numberthemin somesort of purposeful order.When this has been done,the student has a workingoutline for his piece of writing,with complete freedomfor pruning or expansionas he goes along with the processof writingit out.Furthermore,it is a method of se- lecting and organizing material which can be used all the student's life when- ever he has to preparea written or oral communication. 4.Helping the student to find effec-

tive forms of expression for what he wants to say is more difficult,but it be- comessomewhatless difficultif my first, second,and third points have been ob- served.Much of the inarticulatenessof students comes from their having no realistic purpose for communicatingin writing,no real notion of what they can or will say about the subject,and no working outline of the material to be dealt with.The student,aftermuchpen- cil chewing,thinks of one good sentence which seems to say somethingand is,so far as he knows,more or less grammati- cally proper.He writes out his sentence, worryingabout commasand semicolons and spelling.Having got that far,he must begin all over again,chewing the pencil and waiting for an inspired sen- tence to bubble up from somewhere. After two or three sentences he begins countingthe wordsandlookingwistfully at the bottom of the page.Expressionas a meansto an enddoesnot enterinto this kind of composition,since there is noth- ing he wants to say and nowhere he wants to go. If the student can be taught first to decide what his purpose in writing is, what he wants to say,and the orderin whichhe wants to say it,the problemsof diction,idiom,and phrasingwill become more meaningful and less confusing. Sometimesthe studentwill be ableto see for himselfthat this wordor that phrase or sentencedoes not really communicate what he had in mind. Therewill still be the difficultyof lim- ited vocabulary,poor language back- ground,and the absence of any ear for idiomatic speech to handicapmost stu- dents.Thereis no easy way to overcome these handicaps,but one of the best,I shouldthink,and perhapsthe only way, is through developing in our English classesa genuineawarenessof and inter-

est in the way wordsworkin communica- tion.Oneof the best devicesI knowof for creating this interest and awareness is through the propaganda-analysis ap- proachto reading.Thereis no betterway of helping students to see how words function for specific,practical purposes than through an analysis of"slanting" in advertising,sales talks,political speeches,editorials,and even news stories.The dollars-and-centsvalue of purposeful communication,from both the writer's and the reader's point of view,is laid bare with a minimum of difficulty through an analysis of direct attacks on one's pocketbook or one's vote. With more advanced students a simi- lar awarenessof the potential effective- ness of wordscan be learnedfroma criti- cal analysis of literary works,particu- larly poems.In modern poetry,espe- cially,the heavy burdenof meaningput on individual words,the stress on con- notation and association of meanings, and the striving for eliminationof dead verbiage illustrate dramatically(if not alwayssimply)the conceptof purposeas controllingexpressionand even grammar andpunctuation.As WilliamCarlosWil- liamshas said:"Apoemis a...machine made of words.WhenI say there'snoth- ing sentimental about a poem I mean that there can be no part...that is re- dundant."Poetry is the supreme ex- ample of concentratedpower of expres- sion,and the nakedelementsof the proc- ess of communicationcan be seen there unobscuredby more conventional con- siderations. 5.There is no magic formula for teachingmechanics.But it is clear that to teach grammarand punctuation us- ages for their own sakes,independentof the writingprocessas a whole,is useless andinsufferablydull formost of ourstu-

dents.Studentsmust be madeto see that mechanics is theoreticallythe least im- portant aspect of the process of com- munication-that purpose and material and organizationand expressionare the really functionalelements in a piece of writing and that grammatical purity withouttheseotherelementscan achieve nothing.But they shouldbe made to see also how egregiousfailuresin grammati- cal appropriatenesscan undermineand destroy the effectiveness of all these other elements-how one misspelled wordcan destroythe goodimpressionof an otherwisesatisfactoryletter of appli- cation,howa confusionin sentencestruc- ture or agreementcan almost totally ob- scurethemeaningof a statement,howan amusinggrammaticalblundercan dissi- pate the moving effect of an otherwise persuasiveargument.As with the selec- tion and arrangementof material and with diction,the controllingpurpose is decisive,and the acid test is not some absolutestandardof goodnessorbadness but appropriatenessto purposeandprag- matic effect. Having put grammarand mechanics in theirproperplaces in the communica- tion process,we can perhaps deal with the very realproblemsof usagemorein- telligently.We should be able to avoid the pitfall of teachingthe completecor- pus of grammaticalrules and punctua- tion theory,since some students do not needany of this,havingbeenbroughtup to use the idiomwithoutdifficulty,while others are so helpless with idiom that throwing the rule book at them will merelyincreasetheir confusion. Putting mechanicsin its properplace in the writingprocessshouldenableus to avoid anotherpitfall-that of assuming that the student whosewriting is gram- maticallyacceptablehasnothingmoreto learn about writing.Unfortunately the

absurdityof this position is not obvious to everyone,and only a clearview of the communicationprocesswill enableus to show that these studentsmore than any others are ready to be taught how to communicate purposefully and effec- tively. 6.My final point,growingout of all these,is that learning to communicate effectivelyis very muchan individualaf- fair;massmethodssimplywill not work. The purpose of each communicationis different,at least slightly,from the pur- pose of every other.The materialavail- able for developingany writingpurpose varies with each individual'sexperience knowledge,and intellectual resources And style of expressionis a matter of in- dividual outlookand personality.More- over,different students have different needsforremedialhelp in mechanics.In- dividualized instruction insofar as pos- sible within our overcrowdedclassrooms is the only sane way to go about the teaching of writing,and some sort of laboratoryapproachseemsto be the best method. Laboratory methods also make pos- sible a more or less continuousco-opera- tion betweenstudent and teacherduring all steps in the writing process.The old method of making a theme assignment, lettingthestudentflounderalonethrough the process of writing it,and then tri- umphantlypointing out its many weak- nesses is far inferior to the practice of having students do the writingitself un- der close supervision,with help fromthe teacherin setting a suitablewritingpur- pose,finding a good subject,selecting and arrangingmaterial,andworkingout the most appropriateand effective ex- pression.Even problems of mechanics can best be solved in the midst of the process of actual writing;the student learns more about grammarand punctuation by solving particular usage problems as they arise, and with the teacher’s help, than from “correcting” usages in his paper long after the writing has grown cold.
This kind of teaching will require more knowledge and imagination and ingenuity on the part of English teachers than has been expected of them in the past—perhaps more than we have any right to expect of people who are already overworked and poorly paid—but it is the only way we can begin to make sense of our teaching of communication skills, create some basis for interest and motivation in our students, and begin to show results that will dispel the present widespread feeling that our efforts have miserable failed. We have nothing to feel complacent about as English teachers; our only hope is that we can completely throw off complacency, analyze our teaching purposes much more carefully, see the total communication process more intelligently and broadly, and devise techniques much more effective than the old ones. Perhaps then we can begin to feel, not complacent, but at least professionally competent instead of frustrated. If we can work this miracle, we shall also earn the undying gratitude of millions of young Americans who need desperately to learn the art of effective communication and will co-operate with us in really trying to learn, once they see that we can really teach.