[Teaching_Composition] Academic Discourse

[Richard Haswell]

Amen, Linda. Rhetorical flexibility, in fact, is a capability of writers
on the job that has been documented.

Another way to formulate teaching strategies with undergraduates--who,
after all, are not yet on the job--is by the plus-one model. The idea is
that we teach students from the position they are not yet in but are
poised to assume. First-year students can be motivated by the thought
that we are teaching them rhetorical skills they will need as
upper-division students. Upper-division students can be motivated by the
thought that we are teaching them skills they will need out of college
on the job. In a sense, the plus-one model is one way of looking beyond
the undergraduate curriculum.

But, as with all dialectical models, it implies that we will have to
teach contradictions. We will have to convince students, for instance,
that we are maybe asking them to format their writing in a way that will
not be acceptable in their future job; or that our insistence that they
do heir own editing may be not fit the writing process they will have to
adapt to later, where others will perform the final copy-editing; or
that our requirement for multiple drafts and major revisions may not fit
workplace demands, which will be for once-through writing.

Rich

Linda Adler-Kassner wrote:

> Just to second or third or fourth Rich's and Russ's comments: I think
> we do students - and our profession -  a service when we help them
> realize (as we all do) that while we can't "prepare" them for a
> specific _kind_ (/genre) of writing, we can help them develop
> _flexibility as writers._ After all, we can't know every genre. But we
> can know how to help students develop the strategies they need to
> analyze audience expectations; develop a variety of writing strategies
> and think about when, where, and why to use them; know how to develop
> even more strategies; make conscious choices.... After all, that's
> what writers do.
> -Linda