Let me add me 2 cents (USD) on points of agreement and disagreement:
Agreement
- Writing is important in most professions.
- The digital life demans "more" writing.
- Writing is teachable/learnable.
- Greater TA training and support are needed.
Disagreement
- Writing is not "one thing" as it is imagined in the article.
- Writing is not a decontextualized "skill" as it is conceptualized in the article.
- The following phrase from the article is problematic because it (incidentally)
alludes to two approaches to writing that are currently out of favor:
"explaining how language works as a system, how it works psychologically" This
phrase suggests 1) Structuralism/formalism and 2) Psychological models (e.g.
Flower & Hayes).
- I don't think the writer understands "writing across (throughout) the curriculum."
- The article misrepresents the history of the writing instruction. The
first-year composition was never successful when it was first established in 1872.
- The "empirical evidence" is unclear.
- Explicit knowledge of grammar does not (easily) translate into effective writing.
I'll add this on Roger's wiki as well.
_____________________________________
Tosh Tachino, M.A., B.A. Honors
Ph.D. Candidate, Iowa State University
Rhetoric and Professional Communication
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~tosh/
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