{"id":6106,"date":"2004-06-11T19:06:24","date_gmt":"2004-06-11T19:06:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2004\/06\/11\/odell-1980-need\/"},"modified":"2004-06-11T19:06:24","modified_gmt":"2004-06-11T19:06:24","slug":"odell-1980-need","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2004\/06\/11\/odell-1980-need\/","title":{"rendered":"Odell, 1980, “Needed Research in Discourse Theory”"},"content":{"rendered":"\u23f3 Approximate reading time: <\/span> 5<\/span> mins<\/span><\/span>

 Odell,
\nLee. “Teachers of Composition and Needed Research in Discourse Theory.” On Writing Research: The Braddock Essays, 1975-1998<\/i>.
\nEd. Lisa Ede. New York: Bedford St. Martin’s, 1999. 84-92. <\/p>\n

Big Idea
\n<\/b>Lee Odell argues for yet-to-be-done composition research as of 1979. 
\nHe contends that we must not only be practical and pedagogically centered, but
\nwe must also shape discourse theory and adapt it to benefit students.  His
\npremise rests squarely on the basic notion that theoretical investigations in
\ncomposition must always return to practical matters, to pragmatic application in
\nthe classroom on Monday morning.  I’m not certain how long before Odell’s
\n1980 piece the Monday morning question became a fixture in composition
\nstudies.  "How will you use<\/i> this to teach?" was often
\nbandied about by some of the practice-heavy folks in my MA program.  It’s a
\nline of thinking that somehow<\/i> characterized the useful and worthwhile
\nqueries as ones that can be proven to funnel toward students’ proficiencies in
\nwriting.  Unless it shapes student writing, it’s fluff, abstraction (or
\nthat’s the script, anyway).  Odell’s brief article starts with a push away
\nfrom Kinneavy’s Aims of Discourse; he faults the aims for their overemphasis on
\nproduct at the expense of attention to the series of choices reflected in a
\nstudent text.  Odell thinks composition folks should investigate student
\nchoices by engaging in comparative readings of drafts, redirecting student
\nprojects through revisions toward "different purpose[s] and appeal[s] to a
\ndifferent audience," and by enlisting students to explain–even through
\ntape-recorded narratives(!)–their own choices while writing. Odell suggests
\nadvantages in comparing unassigned student writing (writing done for
\nnon-academic purposes) to assigned student writing.  How, for example, do
\nstyles vary when the writing is subjected to the forces inherent in the
\ninstitutional arrangement?  Because we can be sure student writing
\nperformance varies, we must acclimate our evaluation methods. Odell’s case
\naspires to getting inside why students do<\/i> what they do<\/i> when they
\nwrite and understanding full well how our own work affects what they do<\/i>. <\/p>\n

Wondering About
\n<\/b>This is a brief little article, under ten pages.  It reminded me about
\none of the research interests of a professor in my MA program.  He
\ncontended that one of the first orders of business in teaching composition was
\nto come to terms with the thing<\/i> that governs students’ sense of essayism.
\nHe supposed a kind of accumulation of essayistic force compelled many students
\nto write mechanically, guided by their overpowering sense of what an essay is
\n(often conditioned by years of Thou Shall Not’s) rather than what the specific
\nlanguage in the prompt asks them to do.  In these terms, students’ choices
\naren’t always<\/i> affected by consciousness, choices aren’t always<\/i>
\neasy to articulate, decisions aren’t always<\/i> precise or simple.  And
\nI wonder if the same is true for more experienced, even professional
\nwriters.  Must we always be able to explain choices?  Is every
\narticulation governed by a choice?  Is it possible for unchosen (free,
\nunrestrained, accidental) articulations to achieve a desired aim or must the
\nentire writing process be underscored by choice after choice in pursuit of an
\nexplicit aim?<\/p>\n

Along these lines, Odell’s essay sent me reminiscing about a hard camp-line
\nin my MA program.  The line basically divided those who held that, in
\nfairness, instructors must account for the entire semester’s plan at the outset
\nof the term of study.  Students should be able to look ahead;  proper
\nplanning by the instructor ensures a more organized semester and, as a result,
\nthe course will come off as more polished, more coherent.  Over on the
\nother side (Me<\/i>? Oh, back then I straddled.  Good<\/i> MA students
\navoid the wrangling, stick to the middle.) were folks who contended that we
\ncannot know where what the next assignment should be until we’ve read the one
\nbefore it.  It was more in line with responsive pedagogy–the kind that
\naccepts that we need to improvise, bend the curricula to our students who vary
\nfrom term to term, and allow for contextual factors to steer the course rather
\nthan proceeding from an inflexible master plan.  How does this connect with
\nOdell?  I think his work here supports a version of the second approach,
\nthe loose and responsive plan.  After all, he argues that we must get to
\nknow our students and, in doing so, realize that effective pedagogies are
\nfine-tuned to specific students.  <\/p>\n

It makes sense that composition instructors should care about un-assigned
\nstudent writing.  Digital media have given us greater access to unsolicited
\nwriting done by students; we can read weblogs and participate in chats without
\ngetting wrapped up in institutional dynamics.  But what other sources of
\nun-assigned writing are there?  Where might we look harder at writing done
\nby students outside of academia?  Why are they writing?  How might our
\nwriting curricula navigate the assigned-un-assigned binary for the betterment of
\neveryone involved (including the assessors, accreditors–who unfortunately matter)?<\/p>\n

Notably, several of Odell’s methods for getting to know the choices students
\nmake when writing strike me as incredibly laborious.  Tape-recording? 
\nReading multiple drafts and attempting comparative readings of multiple drafts
\nis challenging, but listening to students’ voice-recordings explaining the
\nchoices they’ve made in a particular essay draft seems impossible.  Could
\nbe my own sense of appropriate pace and workload, but I can’t imagine attempting
\nmore than two essays in a sixteen-week semester if multiple stages and careful
\ninterrogations of choices were part of the plan.  At times, I have used MS
\nWord’s document comparison feature to read revised essays against their
\npredecessor, and although it doesn’t come with a student narrative about
\nspecific choices, it does reveal patterns and lend insight to the scope of
\nchanges being applied between drafts.  I can also see the use of a
\ndiscussion of choices when conferencing with students.  I’ve never tried
\nit, but I am curious about the experiences of folks who have used voice-clip
\ninserts to comment on student writing (in the mix of text-based comments,
\nperhaps).  And I suppose this comes close to one of the recent discussions
\non the WPA list about the writing assessments used by UPhoenix where, because of
\nthe burden of responding to student writing, human readers are teaming up with
\nmachine readers–layering computer and teacher–toward a two-part rendering of
\nresponse to student writing.  It’s not exactly what I had in mind when I
\nwrote about collaborative
\ncommenting<\/a> a few months ago, but it churns up some interesting (disturbing,
\nexciting) possibilities.   <\/p>\n

Passages
\n<\/b>"One basic assumption in current discourse theory is expressed in James
\nKinneavy’s claim that purpose in discourse is all important" (85). <\/p>\n

"A second major assumption in current discourse theory is that different
\nwriting tasks make quite different demands on writers" (86). <\/p>\n

"The writing of our students represents a kind of information that is
\nalmost impossible to obtain in any context other than a course that is primarily
\nconcerned with students’ writing" (84). <\/p>\n

"Whereas we once could use a single, widely-agreed-upon procedure for
\nevaluating all the writing done in a given mode, we may now have to use a
\nvariety of evaluation procedures, most of which we have to create for
\nourselves" (88). <\/p>\n

"When our colleagues complain to us that we’re not teaching students to
\nwrite, they often mean that they’re tired of seeing misspelled words and
\nsentence fragments" (89). <\/p>\n

"If it is true that students are likely to be more successful with one
\nsort of writing task than with others and if it is true that we must vary our
\nevaluation procedures according to the specific writing task at hand, we may
\nhave to make substantial changes in the way we assign and evaluate writing"
\n(90). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u23f3 Approximate reading time: <\/span> 5<\/span> mins<\/span><\/span> Odell, Lee. “Teachers of Composition and Needed Research in Discourse Theory.” On Writing Research: The Braddock Essays, 1975-1998. Ed. Lisa Ede. New York: Bedford St. Martin’s, 1999. 84-92. Big Idea Lee Odell argues for yet-to-be-done composition research as of 1979.  He contends that we must not only be practical and pedagogically centered, but we must…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[167],"tags":[577,232,143],"class_list":["post-6106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reading_notes","tag-comments","tag-discourse","tag-research"],"yoast_head":"\nOdell, 1980, "Needed Research in Discourse Theory" - Earth Wide Moth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2004\/06\/11\/odell-1980-need\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Odell, 1980, "Needed Research in Discourse Theory" - Earth Wide Moth\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u23f3 Approximate reading time: 5 mins Odell, Lee. “Teachers of Composition and Needed Research in Discourse Theory.” On Writing Research: The Braddock Essays, 1975-1998. Ed. Lisa Ede. New York: Bedford St. Martin’s, 1999. 84-92. 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Cynthia Selfe and Susan Hiligoss, eds. Research and Scholarship in Composition Ser. New York: MLA, 1994. 56-75. Barton is chiefly concerned with two discourses of technology: the first, enthusiastic, euphoric, celebratory,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Writing Technologies"","block_context":{"text":"Writing Technologies","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/category\/writing_technol\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6993,"url":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2006\/07\/05\/phelps-the-doma\/","url_meta":{"origin":6106,"position":1},"title":"Phelps, “The Domain of Composition”","author":"Derek Mueller","date":"July 5, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Phelps, Louise Wetherbee. \"The Domain of Composition.\" Rhetoric Review 4 (1986): 182-95. Phelps frames the field of composition studies by identifying its domain, a term she uses both as \"a scene of action\" and also \"a space one controls.\" Tracing through each of these senses of \"domain,\" Phelps accounts for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Writing Technologies"","block_context":{"text":"Writing Technologies","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/category\/writing_technol\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6071,"url":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2004\/04\/21\/connors-1982-mo\/","url_meta":{"origin":6106,"position":2},"title":"Connors, 1982, “Modes of Discourse”","author":"Derek Mueller","date":"April 21, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0Connors, Robert. \"The Rise and Fall of the Modes of Discourse.\" On Research Writing: The Braddock Essays, 1975-1998. Ed. Lisa Ede. New York: Bedford St. Martin's, 1999. Big Idea Connors historicizes the ascent and decline of the modes of discourse as a widely favored, pervasive scheme for organizing FY composition\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reading Notes"","block_context":{"text":"Reading Notes","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/category\/reading_notes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7010,"url":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2006\/07\/27\/olson-the-death\/","url_meta":{"origin":6106,"position":3},"title":"Olson, “The Death of Composition as an Intellectual Discipline”","author":"Derek Mueller","date":"July 27, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Olson, Gary. \"The Death of Composition as an Intellectual Discipline.\" Olson 23-31. Olson begins with a glaring critique of the perceived split between high-theory elites who avoid \"the problems of the classroom\" and those who would see composition as centrally concerned with \"self-reflection about the teaching of writing or about\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Writing Technologies"","block_context":{"text":"Writing Technologies","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/category\/writing_technol\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7083,"url":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2006\/11\/22\/fulkerson-compo\/","url_meta":{"origin":6106,"position":4},"title":"Fulkerson, “Composition at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century”","author":"Derek Mueller","date":"November 22, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Fulkerson, Richard. \"Summary and Critique: Composition at the Turn of the Twenty-first Century.\" CCC 56.4 (2005): 654-687. Fulkerson's ten-year follow-up to earlier reports on the condition of composition studies concludes with premonitions about the field's disunity and the \"new theory wars\" (681). As a \"map [of] a large and complicated\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Writing Technologies"","block_context":{"text":"Writing Technologies","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/category\/writing_technol\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Fulkerson Grid - Composition's Pedagogical Quandary","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static.flickr.com\/111\/303929124_222ba3b5e7.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6090,"url":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2004\/05\/16\/dangelo-1977-in\/","url_meta":{"origin":6106,"position":5},"title":"D’Angelo, 1977, “Intelligible Structure”","author":"Derek Mueller","date":"May 16, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0D'Angelo, Frank. \"The Search for Intelligible Structure in the Teaching of Composition.\" On Writing Research: The Braddock Essays, 1975-1998. Ed. Lisa Ede. New York: Bedford St. Martin's, 1999. 51-59. Big Idea Look!\u00a0 We, compositionists, are disciplinarily vital. We have an epicenter, proven radials, recognizable and defensible structures holding our work\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reading Notes"","block_context":{"text":"Reading Notes","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/category\/reading_notes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6106\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}