Russ, I'd say you're getting close . . . in this paragraph you're defining the kinds of response you want the writing to create in terms of effects that seem to me to be observable, and not particularly value-laden. You can tell that a piece of writing is part of a dialogue, for instance, by all the same mechanisms you use to tell whether any utterance is part of a dialogue (chiefly, its relevance to the utterances which preceded it . . . now what is Polanyi's term for that?? It escapes me at the moment . . . ) > There are a whole bunch of other issues in this discussion I want to come > back to, but let me start by posing that as a question: does it make > sense to say, as I think I'd like to, that people learning to use written > language need (and rarely get) occasions in which their language is > uttered in that sort of context -- where it's part of a dialogue, where > substantive, dialogic responses are the mechanism by which it links to > the world? One caveat: I don't like the word "substantive," either, and I'd suggest maybe "content-oriented" in its place. (As an aside: I'm a bit ambivalent about saying that the statement, "Russ, you're obsessing about ideas that really aren't very important," isn't substantive because it may possibly be that that statement is an *opening* for a content-oriented comment. That is to say, it could mean, for example, that I'm trying to tell you that I'm not persuaded. I'm not sure why this is important, but I think it is, somehow . . . maybe it has to do with how people who are unskilled at responding to content initially frame their responses.) But I have to say that I think you lose it here: Where there is an expectation that an actual reader > interested in what's being said will be actually persuaded, informed, > amused, touched, etc. . . . because teachers who give very traditional assignments and who grade very traditionally can also be "actual readers" who are interested, and who will possibly actually be persuaded, etc. Well, maybe not persuaded, but certainly informed, amused, or touched . . . I think if writing teachers were NOT informed, amused or touched from time to time, they'd quit in droves . . . I think maybe all you need is to say that the response will be another link in the dialogic chain: that is to say, it, too, will be relevent and content-oriented . . . Marcy =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Marcy Bauman Media Consultant College of Pharmacy University of Michigan 734-647-2227 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 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/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-