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CASLL-L  July 1998

CASLL-L July 1998

Subject:

Re: Essays

From:

Russ Hunt <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

CASLL/Inkshed <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Fri, 17 Jul 1998 16:56:09 AST4ADT

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (65 lines)

Still trying to make myself clear . . . thanks, Philippa.  Let's
see.  First, writing _to_ me is different from writing _for_ me.
Students _do_ write to me (email asking for further explanations or
complaining about draconian demands, or asking to set up a meeting or
inviting me to sit in on a group meeting as a referee, or even
arguing with me about -- gasp! -- a poem).  But the rhetorical
structures they deploy there are very different from what they'd be
expected to use in "an essay."  And they use them in the knowledge
that any response they get will be a rejoinder, not an assessment or
advice about improvement.

> when a student writes to you or, at least, to me as a
> representative of a university institution whose job is to judge
> students' abilities to demonstrate knowledge, I think that they
> are writing to "me"--

Well, I don't quite think so, but I don't mean to question the
identities or personae involved; I mean to make a distinction
between "to" and "for."  Were she writing _to_ you she wouldn't
preface it with a contextualizing explanation of who the author is
and why she's important or interesting; she wouldn't offer summary;
she'd foreground and background information in a very different
pattern.  Everything about that essay -- if it's a good one -- will
be structured as though she were writing to _someone else_ (for
you).

> I'm all for questioning the rhetorical contexts/exigencies/
> motivations which our educational instutitions structure and
> perpetuate, but precisely for that reason I think we need to
> acknowledge them as very real--both for ourselves and for our
> students.

I don't for an instant deny their reality.  The point I want to make
is their peculiar relationship to the rhetorical structure of the
essay.  And to the difficulties they pose for students who haven't
already, somehow, internalized the markers of the academic register.

> We can't just decide to be outside them and, oopla, there we
> go--we're out of them.

It's not that easy, for sure, but I think it can be done.

> For students, as far as I know, the desire to secure good marks by
> successfully performing a classroom genre is a terribly real
> motivation, one that so many aspects of the worlds they live in
> validate above other motivations.

No question.  But "successfully performing a classroom genre" is a
very peculiar, artificial, and complicated thing to do, and one that
doesn't foster learning very well.  So most of them don't do very
well at it, and don't learn to do better in ways that stick.  I think
there are ways to unhook writing from the poisonous infection of
marks, and hook it to the need to be a valued member of a community
-- by persuading, informing, amusing, etc. -- and put students in a
position to learn language by using it in the service of that more
effective need.

                                        -- Russ
                                __|~_
Russell A. Hunt            __|~_)_ __)_|~_           Aquinas Chair
St. Thomas University      )_ __)_|_)__ __)  PHONE: (506) 452-0424
Fredericton, New Brunswick   |  )____) |       FAX: (506) 450-9615
E3B 5G3   CANADA          ___|____|____|____/    [log in to unmask]
                          \                /
      ~~~~~~~~~~~~ http://www.StThomasU.ca/hunt/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~

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