Within the Writer

If making meaning is the central function of language, such construction can be said to begin within the consciousness of the individual. Here, a writer transacts with experience and prior knowledge (Rosenblatt's "reservoir" of language data) to create a construct of meaning that can be used to modify that reservoir and/or to express the meaning to other persons. These inward and outward dimensions of meaning making are obviously not separate; they occur recursively and in tandem. Some people rely more on the outward activity, others on the inward, to provide the main channel of construction; but all of us transact meaning with ourselves as we try to make sense out of experience and ideation.

Although this field of transaction is naturally active in all of us, teachers in writing instruction contexts can help the process along as they encourage students to think about topic possibilities. In our class, teachers and assistants tried to get students to process their experience for ideas worth exploring further in writings.

For example, during the 103 course argumentation assignment, Angie (student) and Jeff White (teaching assistant) had an on-line interchange about Angie's topic. As Jeff encourages Angie to articulate her topic plans, she comes up with the following statement about Attention-Deficit Disorder/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD/HD): "I have never used it as an excuse in life and my children won't either." Angie's remark is not a direct response to Jeff's questions, as her previous ones are: it is the result of her thinking about her experience, in herself and through her children, and the significance of the disorder in relation to her life and the lives of people generally who suffer from it. This focus later became a major emphasis in Angie's essay.

Other on-line conference exchanges encouraged similar thinking about students' experiences. In one, student Jeff Chandler acknowledges gender-specific language as a fairness issue; in another, he articulates a deep attachment to his environment.

This invention stage then leads into composing of text that will provide the channel for communication with an audience. Here, writers must transact with their text in more focused ways, testing whether the language constructs their personal meaning successfully (the "felt sense" described by Perl, Elbow and others[check, add ref]) and whether their audience will interpret the text so as to come as close as possible to the writer's meaning.

After drafting her text, which was formatted as a letter to the editor of a magazine, Angie needed to rethink several passages and even some major ideas because her "felt sense" of what she wanted to say didn't match with what she herself read as she "tested" how the text might work with other readers. She is learning to transact with her own writing more fully, encouraged by readers--both instructors and peers.