Return of the son of boring schoolwork
Notes on:
“Contemporary Composition: The Major Pedagogical Theories” by James A. Berlin
From: Cross-Talk in Comp Theory: A Reader NCTE 1997
This thick overview of the philosophical underpinnings of composition theory is best expressed through tables and diagrams. It was a very useful article, but it left out the major classical opposition:
Philosophy [truth is absolute] vs. Rhetoric [truth is situational]
The assumptions of process theory are taken for granted: Writing is a recursive activity involving discrete stages. However, Berlin introduces a concept from Chomsky’s linguistics: There are deep structures that underlie pedagogy. I would argue that this notion of “deep structure” should also apply to the stages of writing; they don’t deserve to be taken for granted. But I digress; Berlin breaks down pedagogy into four groups, with differing attributes.
| Theory | Classicist | Positivist | Expressionist | New Rhetoric |
| Philosopher | Aristotle | Locke | Plato | Postmodern |
| Truth? | Outside, deductive | Outside, inductive | Inside, personal | Situational |
| dialogic | empirical | dialogic | ||
| Emphasis | Invention | Arrangement | analogy | Language creates the only truth |
The best part of the article is the conclusion: “Everyone teaches the process of writing, but not everyone teaches the same process” However, there is a big smell of social-determinism in the heralding of the New Rhetoric approach. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but the assumption that a person must be able to “recognize and justify” the version of the process being taught means that a teacher must be able to justify their view of reality, and thus sell it to their students complete with “all its significance.” I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that.
Asking a student to confront the problem of language is one thing, asking them to buy into the world shattering views of post-modernism is quite another. I’d rather present all the available philosophies and allow them to make up their own minds. Isn’t that what teaching is about?
