The freshman course in "writing about literature" is a metaphor of the profession of English. Political disagreements with English departments, vocational pressures exerted from outside the English department, and philosophical differences among composition specialists intersect in the composition course based on literature as they do in no other course. A new paradigm for teaching writing and a revival of rhetorical studies have led many institutions to exclude the reading of imaginative literature from freshman composition courses.This dissertation argues, however, that to include literature in freshman composition is both desirable and possible. Through a history of composition teaching in America, Chapter One analyzes relationships among rhetoric; literature, and composition, demonstrating that writing and reading were effectively interrelated for almost 300 years. It attributes the ineffectivenessabout literature" courses in recent years to an unexamined rhetorical theory and an inappropriate method of objective literary criticism.To reintegrate literature with composition on more solid grounds, Chapters Two and Three explore the needs of freshman students as writers and readers. Chapter Two examines contemporary research in composition, proposing a substitute for current traditional rhetoric. Chapter Three examines literary theories and response to literature, proposing a substitute for objective criticism.Chapter Four reviews proposals to integrate reading and writing, revealing a widespread assumption that writing about literature--in freshman courses as in graduate seminars--means writing objective, analytical, critical prose. It cites significant evidence from many fields that developing writers need to express personal, affective, and poetic ideas as well as to develop critical understanding.Chapter Five proposes a rhetoric for freshman composition that includes the reading and writing of transactional, expressive, and poetic discourse. Organized by means of Janet Emig's "inquiry paradigm," it clarifies a view of reality, a set of assumptions, an intellectual heritage, and a theory for this rhetoric. Finally, it offers one example of an introductory freshman composition course consistent with the rhetorical framework. Using conventional readings in American literature, it suggests methods of teaching and evaluating designed to create an environment in which the activities of reading and writing can be expected to reinforce one another.

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The purpose of this study was to explore how Korean college students developed their English composition abilities based on their teacher's written comments on their class assignments. Drawing upon Vygotsky's (1978) socioconstructivist perspective on learning and Noddings' (1984) concept of care, I focused on the relationship between teacher and students and the effects of that relationship on the feedback and revision process. Participants included one non-native teacher of English and 14 students enrolled in a six-week summer English academic writing class in a Korean university in which the teacher employed the process writing approach to help students learn to write in English and the students were encouraged to revise their drafts from her written comments. Data were collected from formal, informal, and text-based interviews, class observations, and students' writing samples commented on by the teacher. In this study, the feedback and revision process was not portrayed as an intellectual activity involving only the teacher and each student, but as a social activity that involved a highly complex, dynamic, and interpersonal process. Despite various constraints and conditions, when the teacher committed herself to helping her students learn to write in English, the students generally responded to her with respect and appreciation. Particularly, her written comments allowed her and her students to meet as the one-caring and the cared-fors respectively. However, for caring to be developed and sustained, building trust in each other was a necessary condition, one that was problematic for some students. Three major contributions of the study include the following: (1) an expansion of Noddings' (1984) conception of caring to the English academic writing education in a foreign language context; (2) a re-envisionment of the cognitive process model of writing and revision in which the success of writing and revision was determined by students' knowledge and their intention in revision, now adding the role of the relationship between teacher and student; and (3) a new view of the feedback and revision process not as a product but as a frame within an EFL classroom. / text

published_or_final_version / Language Studies / Master / Master of Arts

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

Creative Imitation is an alternative strategy to help students improve their expository writing in college composition. It combines writing by imitation with process modeling to increase student fluency with both the products and processes of writing. For centuries, a technique of "imitatio" was used to teach oral and written language traditions. Isocrates, Quintilian, and Cicero shaped the tradition of imitating writing models. Their principles were revived in the 60s by two neo-classical educators, Corbett and D'Angelo. Objections to the principles of imitation to teach writing are analyzed: models intimidate students, imitation focuses on the products instead of the processes of writing, and imitation reduces individual creativity. Some teachers have reported success with student-centered writing-by-imitation exercises in college composition classrooms. They assert that imitation exercises increase student awareness of correct usage, grammar conventions, rhetorical strategies, and paradoxically enable students to develop an "authentic" voice in their own writing.

Written in the form of a narrative, this thesis explores the phenomenon of voice in writing, and what the development of an awareness of the multiplicity voices while writing and reading can mean for language learners. This thesis is also a personal reflection of depression, and a recollection of individual, family and life events. One chapter takes the form of a unified narrative, while another presents anecdotal recollections. It is, in this sense, an exploration of voices through an analysis of available academic and public writing, and a personal inquiry into how the concept of voices in writing has affected my development as an individual and as a writer. The first section reviews some of the academic and public literature on writing and voice, and reveals that early writing on the issue of voice reflected a monolistic theory of voice. That is, that there is one voice that as writers we must find within ourselves, or there is a voice of the author that we must seek out. However, views of the multiplicity of voices in writing are increasingly common. While philosophical tradition since Plato has mistrusted writing and viewed it as secondary to speech, philosophy has nevertheless employed writing to further its own inquiries. Re/viewing the issue of voice in writing may be one way to deal with this long-standing schism between speech and writing. There is a need to further problematize the field of writing, not searching for ways to simplify the process but seeking ways to celebrate the inherent complexity, ambiguity, and paradoxical nature of writing. The thesis concludes with a reflection on the need to seriously consider the significance of voices in writing in first and second language instruction.

This study investigates issues around the teaching of the literary essay in the high school. The purpose of the study is to explore the instructional approaches used by selected high school teachers in respect of the literary essay, and to gain an insight into teacher and student perceptions of the essay and its place in the English syllabus. This study also examines the effect of the genre-based process on student argumentative writing at the senior certificate level. A review and theoretical consideration of principles and approaches to teaching the essay is included. The sample comprised two groups. The first was made up of six teachers from schools in the Northdale/Raisethorpe area, Pietermaritzburg, and the second of a class of eighteen standard ten students at a high school in the same area. Data drawn from a survey of the teachers, a content analysis of the students' essays and a Pre-process questionnaire was synthesized with information from relevant literature to formulate the genre-based writing process to which the students were subsequently exposed. The fmdings revealed that current methodologies and perceptions of the essay are product centred with minimal focus on the writing process itself and on specific genre requirements. They indicate that there is a need for teachers and students to develop an awareness of writing as a process of refinement which involves their collaborative effort. It was concluded that the genre-based process is an appropriate methodology for instruction in literary essay writing. / Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1995.