_My_ daughter (he said modestly) will be getting her Ph.D. from UBC in
two weeks in physiological psych. A central reason for this, she says,
is that she figured out as an undergraduate how to write a solid,
authoritative (and authoritative-sounding) literature review. She
figured it out from reading them, because she read them as rhetorical
moves.
My fear about the 5pe business is just precisely this:
> one student said he knew it didn't really work even as he used it,
> but he said he was used to his writing not working in that way, and
> usually it was "fine".
Rob's student has learned that "fine" means "approved" -- even though
it "doesn't work." Don Murray used to call that "writing writing."
It's not _due to_ the 5pe; it's not even exactly _due to_ contextless
class production of textoids (after all people who do that _do_ learn
to write, some of them). But the more we focus on the production of
approvable textoids, the less we help the folks who really need our
help.
> I've also been watching my son in grade 8. He's learning the 5pe
> now. I only hope that the school system will move him beyond it to
> that more flexible "thesis-based argument"
I'm not optimistic. The folks who learn this, I think, tend to learn
it outside of school. Rick says,
> (I realize, of course, that if I were teaching the way Russ advocates,
> this problem probably wouldn't arise.)
Unfortunately it would, and does, because responding to a real
rhetorical exigency doesn't happen easily, if you're not used either
to reading or writing rhetorically. I advocate teaching the way I do
not because it works (cures rhetorical deafness) but because it just
makes more sense. It doesn't, though, to most students, who really
want me to set the assignment, correct their papers, and get on with
it.
-- Russ
Russell Hunt
Department of English
St. Thomas University
http://www.stu.ca/~hunt/
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