Current Writing Pedagogy Essay -- English Writing Teacher Student

The student who is preparing for preservice or inservice teaching in any field must come two crucial questions What is scholarship? and What is teaching? The student preparing to teach pen must also answer the question, What is the purpose and the value of writing? Writing is a event nation in which the teacher cannot easily state why writing itself is valuable or what purposes ar served by learning the art and craft of writing, omit as a tool for communication in other subject areas. In his article Whos Afraid of subjectiveness, Robert P. Yagelski (1994), offers some answers to these questions about association, education, and writing, as well as addressing related questions concerning individuality.Current writing pedagogies value writing and writers in different ways. Yagelski compares the underlying epistemology of expressivist approaches with postmodern epistemological theory. Expressivist theories claim that knowledge is found within the individual, and writing is a fo rm of self-discovery. Process-oriented writing command is connected with this pedagogical approach. Postmodern theorists define knowledge as the fluid, shifting, and discriminating perceptions of reality that are tied to particular times, places, and cultures. Proponents of postmodern theories claim that expressivist practices spue ideologies that conceal both power structures and the position of students within these structures. Such practices are also thought to reduce awareness of social differences related to gender, class, and slipstream between individuals in the classroom. By encouraging only constructive critique and harmonious group work, expressivist teachers avoid confrontation over real-world issues. For postmodernists, writing is... ... rather than, in Keats words, remaining content with half-knowledge, and I think that an epistemology and a teaching that embraces paradox is rather well suited to the postmodern world.ReferencesKeats, John. Letter date Dec.21st, 1817. Cited in The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory (1991) by J.A. Cuddon. New York Penguin.Kluth, Paula. 2000. Community-Referenced Learning and the Inclusive Classroom Remedial & Special statement 21.1 (Jan/Feb) 19-26.Macrorie, Ken. 1988. The I-Search Paper. Portsmouth,NH Boynton-CookPhelps, T.O. 1992. Research or Three-Search? English Journal 89.1 76-78.Yagelski, Robert P. 1994. Whos Afraid of Subjectivity Postmodernism and the Composing Process. Taking Stock The Writing Process Movement in the 90s, edited by Lad Tobin and Thomas Newkirk. 203-217. Portsmouth, NH Heinemann.