The goal of composition, I believe, is to communicate your ideas, thoughts, and beliefs to the reader. In the end, audience determines all. If the reader is only the writer, then the writing helps him/her to determine what he/she thinks or believes. If the reader is an outside audience, then the composition is only successful if the reader understands what the author wants to communicate. To take the premise even farther, the composition is only successful if the reader understands the communication and responds to it. That response doesn't have to be agreement. Some of the best composition has provoked the most controversy.
As to the means of achieving this goal, "There's the rub, Horatio." There are basic skills that are necessary, grammatical, organizational, and conventional. However, there are unlimited ways to get there from here, so to speak. Most people choose the path that works for them a majority of the time. The trouble comes when that path merges on the superhighway of academia. Most of our students I think are just looking for a way to exit as fast as they can.
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4 comments:
Vicky, I really like your focus on audience. Along with all the skills and abilities you mentioned, the student-writer needs to learn to ascertain the nature of his/her audience and what procedures should be used to illicit the desired effect on an audience.
Practical applications to help them gain such skills? Maybe do more in-class presentations and/or role playing?
I agree that if students can grasp and respond to the concept of audience, they will be capable of a critical, transferable ability.
Do you think it would be helpful to teach the basics of grammar, organization, and conventions, by having students write and submit college writing assignments via email programs?
I envision having students build their understanding of audience by tapping the text messaging feature of their cell phones to write experimentally (but not casually) to address various audiences. Do you think this would contribute to their comprehension of the medium as irrelevant to the context of audience in their communications?
I would like to have students submit assignments in the form of email. If students were required to integrate the assignment into an email that contained a salutation, and perhaps a brief introduction to their writing assignment, do you think their assessment of their perception of the medium might change. More importantly, do you thinking it would help students to achieve an evolved appreciation of audience?
It is interesting to me that you have written that the end of composition is essentially communication. In my post I talked a lot about how students communicate, what they communicate...yada yada yada - but you do an excellent job in summing it up in one word: communication. I agree with you that it really is all about communicating ideas to an audience. I like that you said that even if the audience is just the writer himself/herself, that must be taken into consideration. I had never thought about that idea before, that when I write something just for me, I still have to think of my audience...
As per usual, very well said. Doesn't it seem that all of life's trivialities boil down to communication or lack thereof? I do agree with Nimi's comment regarding more in-class presentations. Are students in 1301 required to do any type of performative (i.e. in-class oration) activities?
The act of writing and the performance of writing both use the same elements, but it seems that in some cases the oral element does not follow the physical element of writing. How do we "train" students to transfer what they learn in forms of written discourse to other forms of communication, such as oral discourse? (I now remember some of our discussions about student e-mails...)
And, as you refer to the 'superhighway of academia', can you say that true academic discourse functions as a standardizing factor that (to continue your metaphor) ensures a fast track in the academy? (Sorry - what is left of my white and gray matter is still mired in marginalization issues...)
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