On Thu, 23 May 2002, Russ Hunt wrote: > > Someone writing an assignment doesn't have that rich context, and if she can't make it up her > writing will have that unmistakable, amateurish, clumsy feel that we all know so well. How can > one learn to make it up? > I feel a pull in what Russ writes to go full circle in what is a great discussion and note what everyone has already said about school-based assignments and work place writing. Strange though, that students can understand and interpret rich contexts in other semiotic areas -- dress, dialect, music, food (?) but many don't translate the daily strategic choices they make in those areas to their academic work. I hedged here with "many" because I'm not sure all of my students want to be good writers and fewer probably want to be good academic writers. For many, "passing" (to be perceived as a good writer) seems sufficient. More and more I'm being drawn to "strategy" as a metaphor rather than "writing" or "rhetoric" -- partly because it is a term my students understand and can relate to other areas of life. I tell them that in service learning contexts we are learning "strategies" for creating change. In some cases the strategy includes writing, in other cases it necessitates an understanding of the organizational context and politics of a situation. I'm learning too that even if all of my students are eloquent writers, there are times when the political/social/temporal context is simply inappropriate and there is no writing that can be persuasive. How do we make it up? Dare I propose that we stop teaching writing? Instead, as others have noted, we place students in difficult or dysfunctional communicative situations (team-based work, client-based work, community contexts, simulations) that require them to figure out what to do/write/read next. Such situations denaturalize communication as a strategic issue: "the client isn't listening to us," "Bob keeps missing meetings" and they seem to blend the purposeful with the technical. - brent --------------------------------------------------------------------- Brenton D. Faber WTSC 91.1 Clarkson Radio Clarkson University http://radio.clarkson.edu Potsdam, NY [log in to unmask] www.clarkson.edu/~faber 315.268.6466 "Innovation has too many syllables" -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- To leave the list, send a SIGNOFF CASLL command to [log in to unmask] or, if you experience difficulties, write to Russ Hunt at [log in to unmask] For the list archives and information about the organization, its newsletter, and the annual conference, go to http://www.stu.ca/inkshed/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-