Cross Talk in Comp Theory Response Journal

Cross-Talk in Comp Theory is intended to be used by teachers as an overview of composition studies. According to the editor, Victor Villanueva, the readings in the book are presented such that you can come to your own conclusions by looking at different viewpoints. The idea is to establish a dialectic through these many readings. The first two readings assigned did just that. Donald M. Murray’s essay “Teach Writing as a Process Not Product” argues that writing is about the process more so than anything else. He says there are three main stages in writing: prewriting, writing, and rewriting. Murray presents the idea that when students spend their time working through this process, they learn a lot more about themselves as a writer because “you don’t learn a process by talking about it.” Janet Emig, in her essay, “Writing as a Mode of Learning” makes note of the higher cognitive functions that develop through writing including analysis and synthesis. She argues that talking and writing are productive functions, but is clear about the differences between the two. While talking is valuable to the prewriting process, writing is not classified as talk recorded – there is no tangible audience, and it is a considerably slower, more defined process.

In my own experiences of being taught to write, I learned to go through the process of writing in steps. We would start by researching, then write out a draft, and then finally revise it several times until the argument was clear and well supported. When I was learning to write, my biggest shortcoming was in researching because I would often want to just jump straight to writing the paper and not take enough time to really analyze my argument as well as the arguments against it. I agree that writing is very much so a process which you learn through experience and past errors. I also believe that higher cognitive functions do develop through this process of writing because you must analyze not only your argument, but the arguments of others in order to synthesize all of the information together into your paper on any given topic. I was always taught the importance of supporting your argument when writing, which I now understand to be crucial to the process.

I can easily see how the instruction of writing has changed over time, in accordance with the historical time period and what was happening in the world. According to Berlin’s “A Short History of Writing Instruction,” the view of teaching writing as a cognitive process or as an expressionist process has evolved over the years. Now, however, I believe that as Cross-Talk asserts, while writing is a cognitive process, it also engages both sides of the brain. Therefore, it is an expressionistic process using cognitive functions. Cross-Talk and Berlin both reference Bruner’s work arguing that writing is a cognitive process. I agree that writing is a crucial cognitive process which forces students to think creatively and develop their own process and means of producing a final product.