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Articles Conference Reviews |
2007C01GuignardC.01: Rhetorical Grammar and the Construction of a Writer’s Identity While teaching an Independent Study on rhetorical grammar this semester, I’ve become fascinated by the connections between style and grammatical choices. I’ve loved every minute of the IS, not only for what I’ve learned, but also for the ways it has helped me become a better writer and teacher. Apparently, I’m not the only one who enjoys this stuff—nearly fifty people joined me to hear Cornelia Paraskevas (Western Oregon University), Loretta Gray (Central Washington University), and Martha Kolln (Penn State) as they shared their insights into the study of rhetorical grammar. Margaret Artman (Western Oregon University) moderated. Paraskevas took the podium first. Her presentation, “Linguistic Principles and Writer Identity,” discussed ways to help students learn to write effectively for academic contexts by breaking down the grammatical structures most often used by academics. Paraskevas couched her discussion of written texts in terms of the “dimensions of context” based on “field” (ideational choices), “tenor” (interpersonal choices), and “mode” (textual choices). Furthermore, she defined what the primary characteristics of academic writing were for each of these dimensions, and she gave numerous examples. After framing her presentation thusly, Paraskevas compared professional and student texts in ways that highlighted the differences between texts. She provided a most striking example of how professionals and students often develop their themes (a component of mode) differently. The professional, as to be expected, stayed on theme and used such grammatical structures as “clause combining” and “given/new information” to provide clarity and focus. The student, in contrast, used metacommentary to help the reader follow the student’s theme, but broke from the original theme (about writing a paper) to focus on himself. In a handout, Paraskevas provided a detailed discussion of her findings. While there was much here that I knew, I appreciated the way Paraskevas helped me to think about elaborating the grammatical choices that pros make to help my students attain an “academic identity.” Loretta Gray was second. Her paper, “Formulaic Expressions: Scaffolding for Fluency,” focused on—you guessed it—formulaic expressions. Drawing on work from CWU’s composition sequence, Gray discussed how formulaic expressions help students establish an academic identity by providing them with templates of moves that academic writers make when composing their texts. Drawing on the work of Alison Wray, Gray defined these formulated expressions as “a sequence of words or other elements that appears prefabricated” and which are “sorted or retrieved from memory, rather than generated.” Gray supplied a handout that contained examples of formulaic expressions for use in summarizing, responding—with the grain, against it, and with and against it, and synthesizing. Gray also pointed out that peer reviewers can be taught to look for these templates as well. She addressed the fact that this approach to teaching academic writing may seem to be a “cookie-cutter approach,” but she also pointed out how the use of formulaic expressions “helps students to gain control of a new genre, thus new academic identity as well.” Her presentation brought to mind Graff and Birkenstein’s They Say, I Say, a book I have used in class with mixed success. Gray’s presentation offered another way to approach the teaching of academic writing in the classroom. Martha Kolln was last. In “Metadiscourse: Enhancing a Writer’s Identity,” Kolln examined how metadiscourse is used by effective writers to help bring their readers along with them, and she argued that students need to be taught this as well. (She also does this in Rhetorical Grammar.) Borrowing from William Vande Kopple, Kolln defines metadiscourse as “writing that signals the presence of the author and that calls attention to the speech act itself.” Many discourses function through language that offers thoughts or propositions and language that offers the reader guidance through the subject. Metadiscourse serves the latter function in that it “helps readers organize, classify, interpret, evaluate, and react” to the propositions. Thus, metadiscourse is “communication about communication.” Kolln then launched into a discussion of how it is necessary to teach metadiscourse to students, but she also warns that it can be overused. Perhaps my favorite part of her presentation was her discussion of E. B. White’s Rule No. 17: “Omit needless words.” Kolln used this rule—which she called the “gist” of The Elements of Style—as a way to frame her discussion that students need to be taught how the use of metadiscourse can help them guide their readers through their texts. Implicit in this suggestion is the way that writers also learn to guide the reception (as far as possible) of their texts—a decidedly academic move. Because the presentations—interesting as they were—ran long, there was little time for Q & A. That’s usually my favorite part of any panel, and I missed hearing the audience question and interact with the speakers. Nonetheless, I carried away a better understanding of how to make rhetorical grammar more meaningful for my students and connect it more explicitly with academic identity. I couldn’t wait to talk with my IS student at our Wednesday meeting and extend our ongoing conversation. (Note: Each presenter provided a useful handout with lengthy lists of references that were in short supply. Each presenter also volunteered to email copies to interested parties.) Comments? |