kastman breuch's practical definition

Breuch, Lee-Ann Kastman. Virtual Peer Review: Teaching and Learning About Writing in Online Environments. SUNY Press, 2004.

It’s only because I picked Breuch’s texts out of the stack before I left for a conference that I’m addressing her at this point. It’s been a positive happenstance.

Breuch is claiming that virtual peer review (“the activity of using computer technology to exchange and respond to one another’s writing for the purpose of improving writing”) is a different enough activity from face-to-face peer review (traditional peer review – my term) that it warrants a closer examination by writing teachers. The principle difference between traditional peer review and virtual peer review is that “computer technology must be used to interact with peer reviewers” (11). Bruech goes onto to refine the activity by claiming that computer technology must be used in three specific ways: 1) to write documents; 2) to exchange written documents electronically; and 3) to converse with reviewers about those documents through synchronous or asynchronous electronic comments.

I’m immediately struck by the similarity of virtual peer review activities to those of the modern knowledge worker (see Spinuzzi), and specifically to the fundamental activities of the modern technical communicator. Breuch notes as much in her examples of the frequently mis-identified activity of virtual peer review in professional and classroom contexts. “These examples demonstrate that virtual peer review has begun to appear in classrooms, online writing centers, workplaces, and even daily lives… Several other writing practices may already include virtual peer review; it is just that we have not recognized it in any consistent or formal way” (12).

I’m early yet into the text, so at this point I want to situate Breuch’s claim within the theoretical and pedagogical framework I’m building. She begins with Depardo and Freeman’s four categories of collaborative writing: 1) responding to writing (peer review); 2) thinking collaboratively; 3) writing collaboratively; and 4) editing student writing. She extends their first category to Ruggles Gere’s definition of peer review – of “writers responding to one another work.” Breuch also draws on Kenneth Bruffee’s interchangeable definitions of “peer criticism” and “peer evaluation” to further refine her definition of virtual peer review.

And it’s at this point that I found myself looping back to how I saw Berlin’s epistemic transactional rhetorics in opposition to objectivist theories -- those most closely related to positivistic pedagogies, the current traditional, and common Comp and Tech Comm pedagogies based on objective rhetorics. In Bruffee, in particular, we have social constructivist who claims that “knowledge is created through social interaction … peer review can be defined as responding to another’s writing for the purposes of improving writing” (10). Through Brufee, Depardo, Freeman, and others, Breuch is making a claim for a pedagogy that aligns with Berlin’s epistemic transactional rhetorics, where "all truths arise out of dialectic, out of the interaction of individuals within discourse communities” (Berlin 16-17). I now see transactional rhetorics as not oppositional to objectivist theories, but yet another useful type of rhetoric in the Comp and Tech Comm classroom. In Breuch I’m seeing that I can’t create an artificial Comp vs. Tech Comm binary in which to consider my major exam. I have to locate the principle claims and debates, and find out how and where they’ve been taken up by either discipline.

It’s likely that this early into the text I’m oversimplifying Breuch’s claim, but I see the pedagogical implications of her definition of virtual peer review on Comp and Tech Comm. More to come, I’m sure, but it seems that the ubiquity of technology-enhanced writing practices would require Com and Tech Comm teachers to employ pedagogies shaped by of inclusive of virtual peer review activities.

more on berlin

Berlin, James. Rhetoric and Reality Writing Instruction in American Colleges, 1900-1905. Southern Illinois University Press, 1987.

I’ve already considered Berlin’s Objective rhetorics – particularly in regard to positivism and current-traditional rhetoric. The remaining two top-level spaces of Berlin’s taxonomy belong to Subjective and Transactional theories of rhetoric.

Subjective theories of rhetoric locate truth within the individual. I’m still interested to dig deeper to see if these theories include or are related to social constructivism. There clearly seems to be a relationship to philosophical idealism, particularly in regard to how Berlin invokes the Foucault and the “terministic screen” in his retort to Robert Connors’ critique of his historical narratives (of Connors arguing that history can be done objectively, claiming Berlin was biased by his "terministic screens). Berlin and Foucault see otherwise, not arguing the existence of such screens, but claiming that it is impossible to perceive any object except through terministic screens.

In regard to the teaching of writing, Berlin notes that, “The most immediate sources of subjective theories for college writing courses during the 20s and 30s were encouraged by the rise of aesthetic expressionism and the proponents of progressive education  .... in the 60s and 70s by cognitive psychology ... and by English department interpretations of romanticism" (11-12).

Subjective theories require that the writing teacher create an environment that allows the student to come to their own versions of the truth as they can best express it. I see here some application to the teaching of professional, business, and technical writing at a time when English was dealing with its own issues of disciplinary identity. Subjective pedagogies are based on three activities commonly found in engineering and the sciences -- the use of original metaphor, the keeping of a journal, and participation in peer group editing.
 
Transactional rhetorics arise out of the interaction of some or all of the elements of a rhetorical situation: subject, object, audience, and language. Pedagogies shaped by transactional rhetorics fall into three types: 1) classical, 2) cognitive (Emig, Lauer, Phelps, etc.), and 3) epistemic (Ohman, Berthoff, Young, Becker, Pike).

I’m not addressing the classical simply because I don’t see the implications/applications of its role in shaping the similarities and tensions between Com and Tech Comm. I am trying to see how cognitive pedagogies different greatly from pedagogies based on objective theories. Like subjective pedagogies, there are elements of the cognitive in use-case scenarios, highly contextualized writing, and perhaps the embedded writing instruction models we are currently using with WRT 407. I see in Berlin’s description of the cognitive some of what I struggle with in the classroom. "The work of the writing teacher is to understand [the] basic cognitive structures and the ways they develop in order to provide experiences for students that encourage normal development and prevent structural distortions. The teacher intervenes in the composing process of students in order to ensure that their cognitive structures are functioning normally, this enhancing their ability to arrive at truth in examining the external world. The emphasis in this classroom is on the individual, but the individual is conceived of as inherently transactional, arriving at truth through engaging the surrounding material and social environment" (16).

In the epistemic, I see a clear opposition to objective theories (those most closely related to positivistic pedagogies and the current traditional. Berlin notes (as opposed to the objective), "All truths arise out of dialectic, out of the interaction of individuals within discourse communities. Truth is never simply out there in the material world or the social realm, or simply in there in a private and personal world. [Truth] emerges only when the material, the social, and the personal interact, and the agent of the mediation is language" (16-17).

So here I come back to Berlin’s taxonomy and historical progress narrative fleshing out my framework. With the emergence of the current-traditional rhetorics that appeared in the late 19th century English department, we see the alignment with attempts to create more specialized and focused “advanced” writing instruction provided in reaction to industrialization and external demands on the university. “Grounded in positivistic epistemology, it provided a counter-part to the scientific logic that distinguished the methodology of the courses in the new elective university from those in the old college" (26) For the specialized writing teacher, the task was to provide instruction in arrangement and style--arrangement so that the order of experience is correctly recorded, and style so that clarity is achieved..." (26-27). No doubt this approach necessitated the early use of forms in the technical and science writing classroom.

In the end, Berlin finds the influence of the current-traditional unfortunate: "...creation of rhetoric that defined the role of the writer, reader, and language as arriving at meaning, that instead placed truth in the external world, existing prior to the individual's perception of it" (36). I see the progress differently and perhaps not so pessimistically. I’m claiming that modern Tech Comm pedagogies contain current-traditional DNA, which can at times place them in opposition to Composition pedagogies which do not give the writer the currency necessary to “reproduce in the mind of the reader the particular experience as it took place in the mind of the writer" (26). Does the prescriptive nature of teaching genre in the tech writing classroom trace back to the current-traditional?

james berlin's useful taxonomy

Berlin, James. Rhetoric and Reality Writing Instruction in American Colleges, 1900-1905. Southern Illinois University Press, 1987.

Berlin was an obvious next step for me in setting up a historical framework in which to analyze a range of pedagogical intersections between Composition and Technical Communication. I’ll start here with his taxonomy and focus specifically on the Objective category – that which is most historically related with the teaching of Tech Comm.

Berlin’s taxonomy provides a nice flexible structure in which to place various writing pedagogies. When overlaid with progress narratives of disciplinary maturation (for both Tech Comm and Comp), the taxonomy takes on a depth that allows us to pull in all of the various pedagogical threads and strands that have been woven into the fabric of both disciplines.

At the top level, Berlin (choosing epistemology rather than ideology as the basis for his categorizations) sets up Objective, Subjective, and Transaction as the dominant rhetorical theories that shaped (continue to shape?) writing instruction. From the perspective of a practitioner, many of the operational activities of Tech Comm are drawn from Objective theories which, “locate reality in the external world, in the material objects of experience … rhetorics based on positivistic epistemology” (6-7). In regard to pedagogy, this is clearly in the current-traditional tradition of teaching technical writers to record reality exactly as it has been experienced.

The emergence of Objective rhetorics in the late 1880s and early 1900s aligns with the noted pressures being placed on universities to produce better science and technical writers (see Adams). Tech Comm traces its roots back to ancient Egypt (see Lipson), but clearly begins to codify certain tropes with the formalization of the scientific method (observation, documentation, proof, repeatability, etc.) in the mid- to late 1700s. “Truth is determined through the inductive method – through collecting sense data and arriving at generalizations. The role of the observer [technical writer?] is to be as objective as possible, necessitating the abandonment of social, psychological, and historical preconceptions…” (8).

The scientific method is based on positivist principles, hence the traditional presence of objectivist rhetorics in Tech Comm pedagogies. “The writing class is to focus on discourse that deals with the rationale faculties: description and narration concerned with sense impression…, exposition with setting forth the generalized ideas derived from sense impression …. this rhetoric makes the patterns of arrangement and superficial correctness the main ends of writing instruction … emphasis on exposition and its forms – analysis, classification, cause-effect, and so forth” (8-9). Specific to the pedagogical tensions between Comp and Tech Comm, Berlin sets up useful claim (aligned with Adams' humanist vs. positivist binary): “For the majority of English teachers, it has been a compelling paradigm, making it impossible for them to conceive of the discipline in any other way” (9).

That's where I see the influence of Objectivist rhetorics re: Berlin’s lens and taxonomy. As I move through the Subjective and Transactional, I’m piecing together a small visual organizer to represent where I see the connections through and among the various narratives.

Reiterating conclusions found in Adams’ and other narratives, Berlin’s history indicates that literacy (in all of its forms and definitions) continues to be the intermediary between college writing instruction and larger social developments. [See the emergence of advanced composition courses in science and engineering at the turn of the 20th century; the rapid creation of technical and engineering writing programs post 1945.] Literacy, then, may be a useful place for me to mediate the various disciplinary arguments and tensions as they are exposed.

katherine adams and historical frameworks

Adams, Katherine. A History of Professional Writing Instruction in American Colleges. Southern Methodist University Press, 1993.

I want to start with Adams because I’ve always liked where she ends: “The professional discourse and teaching experience of rhetoric, composition ... technical writing and business writing need to blur" (152). Adams made this claim in the early 1990s at a point in time when Composition seemed to be establishing a more stable disciplinary identity. I’m not sure where the claim places Adams in regard to debates about pedagogy, but I have a sense she wasn’t really interested in drawing those boundaries with this particular historical narrative.

Adams’ narrative is useful for my purposes of identifying relationships and tensions (pedagogical and curricular) because it provides the appropriate historical framework in which to position the various disciplinary debates. From her emphasis on the emergence of "advanced composition" courses at Harvard and Yale to the departure of specialized writing instruction at the land grant schools, Adams is sketching the evolution of English, Composition, Rhetoric (and later, Technical Communication) as modern academic disciplines. When she notes that A.S. Hill “envisioned advanced composition as being devoted not to textbook study or college formats but to experience with professional forms ... in projects of the students' own choosing" (43), Adams identifies a point at which writing instruction in America begins to creep away from the humanist curriculum that viewed language simply as a tool to persuade -- of rhetoric as a means of civic engagement. Positivism and the emphasis on clarity, conciseness, and objectivity was the focus of the new composition course as pressure was placed on colleges and universities by an increasingly industrialized private sector. Schools could no longer focus on classically trained rhetoricians. "As the classical education gave way to specialized college majors, students no longer received the earlier required rhetorical training... as commerce and publication took on an ever great prominence ... the elite few who graduated planned on becoming civic and business leaders. How would these students achieve the high level of skill expected by the public and required by their professions" (14-5)? Adams notes that the "impetus for more and better writing instruction came not only from critics of high school and college courses. It also came from business and industry, and especially from professionals reacting to the writing in their own disciplines... In the expanding scientific community, critics responded to the professionals' inability to communicate complex ideas to various audiences ... they found these young graduates to be barely literate--and not even aware of their deficiencies" (26-7).

During the early part of the 20th century we begin to see schools supplement the freshman composition course with specialized writing courses specific to majors. The tension with English and the not yet fully defined disciplines of Composition and Technical Communication emerge from this point. "As writing teachers broke away from traditional methods of teaching composition, their classes began to seem like an anomaly in the English department. And the teachers themselves did not fit in there since they rarely met the increasing requirements for graduate education and scholarly publication... Technical and business writing teachers never secured enough support from engineering, agriculture or business schools to develop as a separate unit. These teachers generally remained as peripheral members of English departments" (148). It would not be until the late 1940s/early 1950s when technical writing courses entered many colleges to prepare students for modern communications... "English majors began to specialize in technical writing and editing" (149).

Adams illustrates the birth of the English department in the 1870s as the owners of grammar rules, exercises, spelling, vocabulary, and the new concept of "English Composition." We can see from these early constructions the obvious tensions that would ultimately lead to disciplinary divisions (and diversions) as the college curriculum continued to become increasingly specialized throughout the industrial revolution and beyond. It would not be until the late 1960s when CCCC found it necessary to define advanced composition. And while light on specific curricula advice, CCCCs did tether professional writing (forms) to the composition curriculum -- specifically within the advanced composition course.

Adams notes that CCCC’s lack of clarity led to a "narrowing, an immersion into one specific field... advanced writing instruction never found a secure niche. For upper-division writing instruction to flourish, it would have to be designed by specialists who could gear it to one student population and to one type of writing" (60). This same time period saw renewed interest in rhetoric, which led to the vocal reevaluation of the current/traditional paradigm of the freshman program. Modern rhetorical theory began to influence technical writing instruction, creating more emphasis on the writing process and on audience analysis, "bringing to the discipline well-trained writing professionals who were not awaiting their chance to escape to literature courses" (150).

So there is my corner stone. I have a feeling I’ll be returning to Adams’ seemingly neutral narrative as I flesh out the historical disciplinary relationships and tensions I’m looking for.

here we go

Thanks in no small part to a wonderful faculty adviser, mentor, and all around inspirational person, I am back on track with my qualifying exams. Barring any major concerns the graduate committee might have with my proposal, I'm hopeful to have a complete green light later this month. In the meantime, I'm getting back into my freshly revised reading lists.

I'll be using this space extensively to sort through my thinking, which is what this space has always done for me. Reading, writing, thinking, learning -- and facing forward again.