The Facilitating Process of Composition

In Harris' "A Teaching Subject," I found myself nodding in agreement more often than not during the chapter entitled "Process". Early on in this chapter, Harris admits, "My aim here isto try to get at what it might have meant to teach writing as 'process not product' "(55). The destructiveness of teaching writing as a product is illustrated through Harris' examination of Sandra Perl's study of "The Composing Processes of Unskilled College Writers." (My first thought when I read this title was "Unskilled compared to who? Other college writers? Professors? My little sister? But that's for a different discussion.) Harris states that "From her perspective, then, the goal of teaching is to guide...yet Perl seems to pay little attention to what they say." According to Harris, Perl is caught up in fundamentals, rather than what her students are saying. Harris belives in focusing on content rather than whether or not all of a student's T's are crossed. I have to admit that I agree with Harris. What is the purpose of writing if priority is not given to content? While I admit that improper sentence structure and grammar can take away from one's writing, it shouldn't come at the cost of content. How many times have students in high school or college thrown away a sentence which portrayed his/her idea perfectly for fear of having points deducted due to structure. While grammar does have its place, it should not be seen as the focal point in the writing process.

Later in Chapter Three, content must once again suffer as Linda Flower sees a student's writing as self-centered instead of reader based. As Harris points out, the writing is geared towards a different type of reader than the teacher represents. Harris states, "What we see in these two passages is not a process of decentering--of the writer learning to shape her prose for a reader--but of acculturation, as the student starts to rework her text for a different sort of reader than she has written before" (66). Unfortunately, we find that the text the student wrote has lost something due to Flower's suggestion of revision and it ends up becoming vague in order to reach the kind of "Cliff Notes styling" product Flower (not the student) desires. I would rather read a sentence with substance and comma splices than a sentence perfect in structure which states nothing. I can learn perfect structure from any grammar book.

Despite the fact that this only represents a small portion of the chapter, I kept asking myself, "When does grammar and sentence structure become important in a student's writing?" since it seemed that Harris kept coming back to this point as well. (In Chapter Five he touches upon it again.) Don't students need to be taught about comma splices? I found myself struggling wtih these questions and wondered how Harris would answer them as I continued to read. Much to my dismay, he barely grazed upon answering these questions and I was left to deal with them. Yes, grammar and structure are important and need to be taught, but not at the expense of content. When grammar and structure are taught and lead to a fear of writing by students then what purpose does grammar serve? For a writer who doesn't know all the "rules" of writing, a book on grammar can lead one to fell inferior as a writer. Perhaps, the question which needs to be answered is "Who doesn't feel overwhelmed and a little intimidated at the sight of   his/her first three-hundred page grammar book in school?" I remember feeling overwhelmed and inferior looking over that book. Instead of feeling empowered by being an author, writer, composer in my English class, I became the student with everything to learn and nothing worth contributing. When the teaching of grammar impedes a student from writing his/her true feelings because his/her confidence level as a writer has not yet been fully developed, then grammar and structure must take a backseat to content and the expression of original thoughts no matter who the teacher or what type of writing class. Grammar can be taught at any school level and therefore can wait to be taught once a student is comfortable expressing his/her own thoughts, but encouraging and empowering students to state his/her true feelings must occur at the earliest level of writing classes and be consistantly encouraged from then on. Voicing one's opinions is the riskiest part of writing for students and must be promoted from day one.

Harris' Chapter Five, "Community", began with my total agreement and left me with concerns regarding his stand. Early on, Harris states, "What I am arguing against, though, is the notion that our students should necessarily be working towards the mastery of some particular, well-defined sort of discourse. It seems to me that they might better be encouraged towards a kind of polyphony--an awareness of and pleasure in the various competing discourses that make up their own" (104). Harris argues that a general knowledge compiled and built upon rather than a student shifting from community to community during the learning process is a more valued way of learning. Harris promotes moving away from the term "community" within the classroom and instead uses the term "public" to classify it.

In general, this I agreed with, or at least the ideas behind it. Whether the term "public" or "community" is used, the argument Harris makes for the relationships that should occur within the classroom is valid. While "public" refers to a place where differences are made visible and where the threat of conflict is present, "community" is seen as a group of people with a common goal who pose little to no threat to one's comfort zone (109). It seems to me that neither "community" nor "public" alone accurately defines the classroom, or at least what should be in the classroom as a part of the University. The comfort zone of community and the conflict zone of public need to coexist in the classroom. A student needs the comfort zone to aid in bringing confidence to the student which will enable him/her to bring personal thoughts and ideas into a classroom discussion. Without a comfort and confidence level present, there is little hope of true reflective ideas being presented in class. However, a conflict zone of public must also be present. A stagnant, comfortable classroom is no place for ideas to be challenged and for students to defend their interpretations or ideas. Harris, preoccupied with the "public", never gives the term "community" credit for originally creating an atmosphere conducive to students opening themselves up for discussion. Instead, entering the "community of academic discourse" is seen as a fictional community.

In some respects, this community of academic discourse is fictional. Who hasn't run across the infamous "they" referred to and often quoted (yet never cited) during a heated debate? Moreover, teachers can seem intimidating to students when they refer to the almighty "they" during a class discussion, despite the fact that "they" only refers to three authors who, while sitting around smoking pipes, recorded and ended up publishing their discussion which became Bible. Yet, the community undeniably exists at some level, whether it is a positive or a negative depends on the perspective. Simply because some aspects of this community may be negative, one can not dismiss the entire community as non-existent. An academic community exists in each classroom. Students are assembled because they wish to learn either from their peers or from their teachers. While some students may contribute to the percentage of students daydreaming, they nonetheless form a community with a teacher/facilitator at its center (all too often, unfortunately).

Harris does make some valid (albeit at times safe) points, but nothing revolutionary or highly questionable ever presents itself. While presenting both sides of his arguments, he effectively takes the weight out of composition teaching/facilitating issues and instead his book becomes a nice long essay on the dos and don'ts of teaching.   (His repetitive use of the phrase "I don't think" did not aid in catching my interest. If he does not think, why am I reading this?) The case study in Chapter Five and the student interaction present was interesting, despite the fact that it at times contradicted what he preached. Again, Harris comes across as writing about the dos and don'ts of composition teaching. The middle of the road, or slight detours, he takes from mainstream ideas do not amount to much in this book.