Response to 3/10 Readings

Mechanical Correctness as a Focus in Composition Instruction
By Robert J. Connors

In his essay, Robert J. Connors details the historical events and pressures that lead to the restructuring of “rhetoric” to “composition”. As all the papers we are reading this week deal with the popularity of relying on grammar in composition, I felt that a historical context was appropriate. Before the Civil War, written rhetoric classes hearkened back to an ancient tradition, from the 1860s on, written rhetoric dealt mainly with finding grammatical errors and correcting them.

Connors gives several reasons for this reliance on error hunting. The foremost of these reasons is that early professors had to grade an absurd amount of papers. It would be impossible to actually read and comment on this amount of papers, so teachers opted for the quicker route.

Another factor that contributed to this error correcting attitude was the current sociolinguistic climate of the United States. As Connors says, “the deterioration of English at the hands of uneducated frontiersmen was what these Easterners excoriated most violently, building a linguistic base for class distinctions.” (Connors 63-64) Thank you very much east coast (I’m looking at you Dr. J).

I thought that this essay gave pertinent information and context in regards to the development of the modern rhetoric and composition classroom. Recent trends have us moving away from this seemingly anal retentive method of teaching, but I believe we still have a long way to go.


Reflections on Academic Discourse: How It Relates to Freshmen and Colleagues
Peter Elbow
Elbow writes about the types of writing that college students are expected to produce. He argues that students should be taught how to write in more than just an academic style. One of the methods of writing Elbow argues for is that of relaying about their own experiences, according to Elbow this will in turn lead to improved academic writing.

One segment in particular stood out to me, "Thus, although we may be unsatisfied unless students can write about what they are learning in the professional discourse of the field-majors, anyway-we should be equally unsatisfied unless they can write about it not using the lingo of the discipline." (Elbow 137) Although I agree with this to a certain extent, there are some cases in which it is impossible to avoid using highly specialized language. For example, physicists can't be expected to write lab reports in a style that would be comprehensible to the average person. On the other hand, I believe that certain types of scientists (such as doctors) should be able to communicate to their audience (such as patients) details and risks, in a way that the reader understands. As always, a writer should be mindful of her audience.

Another part of Elbow's essay that I enjoyed was his list of discourses. His description of the "genial slightly talky British tradition" made me laugh, and although his list is far from complete, it still gives a good overview of discourse. Elbow also highlights specific techniques used in academic discourse, saying that "[d]ouble negatives and irony are both ways of saying something without saying it." (Elbow 145)


Responding to Student Writing
By Nancy Sommers
Nancy Sommers investigates both the methods teachers employ when writing responses to student’s papers and the effectiveness of these responses. Sommers gives an examples of a response a student may find confusing; she also looks at what comments students are most likely to response to.
The part of Sommers article that intrigued me the most dealt with the use of a “Writer’s Workbench” program. Having never used this program, I would be interested in how accurate it is. My personal experience with the grammar feature of Microsoft Word fills me with apprehension as to the effectiveness of “Writer’s Workbench”, but I would still like to see it in action. I thought Sommers’ jab at composition instructors was humorous, as she says, “the calm, reasonable language of the computer provided quite a contrast to the hostility and mean-spiritedness of most of the teachers' comments.” (Sommers 149) I would love for the “mean-spirited” (not my initial choice of words) teachers of the world to be replaced with artificial intelligences.

Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar
By Patrick Hartwell

Patrick Hartwell thoroughly catalogs almost everything relating to grammar and the teaching of it. Hartwell draws from numerous disciplines to explain the different meanings associated with grammar, and provides three definitions for grammar, taken from another essay, early in his essay. Grammar can be “the set of formal patterns in which the words of a language are arranged in order to convey larger meanings”, “the branch of linguistic science which is concerned with the description, analysis and formulization of formal language patterns”, and lastly, “linguistic etiquette” (Hartwell 206-207)

Hartwell observes differences in sentence construction among native and non-native speakers. Hartwell seems to adopt Seliger’s opinion that “[r]ules are of no use […] but some people think they are, and for these people, assuming that they have internalized the rules, even inadequate rules are of heuristic value, for they allow them to access the internal rules they actually use” (Hartwell 220). Hartwell links this to teacher’s overuse of grammatical rules, even though there is abundant evidence that this method of instruction doesn’t work.