post-process pedagogy
I just read:
Breuch, Lee-Ann M. Kastman. “Post-Process ‘Pedagogy’: A Philsoophical Exercise.” Cross-Talk in Comp Theory: A Reader. 2nd ed. Ed. Victor Vellanueva. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 2003. 97-125.
In this essay, Breuch articulates that the teaching of the writing process is too much of a what-centered pedagogy, a body of knowledge. Post-process theory is meant to avoid the “pedagogical imperative” described by Sidney Dobrin (98) and instead “encourages us to reexamine our definition of writing as an activity rather than a body of knowledge, our methods of teaching as indeterminate activities rather than exercises of mastery, and our communicative interactions with students as dialogic rather than monologic” (98-99). Thomas Kent critiques the teaching of writing: “he does not suggest that teaching writing is impossible; he suggests that teaching writing as a system is impossible” (101). Post-process theory has three tenets: “writing is public; writing is interpretive; and writing is situated” (104). We must reject the idea that the writing process is something to be mastered (108) and any “formulaic explanations of writing” (110). Because writing is situated, James Sosnoski “asserts that postmodern classrooms ‘do not have to follow a single blueprint and should change according to the situation’” (Breuch 115).
Post-process theory is anti-foundational and “To articulate any kind of pedgagogy based on anti-foundationalism would be to support the claim that knowledge can be rooted in a particular approach or system and, therefore, would no longer be anti-foundational. It is for this reason that I do not advocate a specific pedagogical agenda that espouses post-process theory, for I believe doing so presents an inherent paradox” (117). We cannot even translate post-process theory into content to be learned because “what good does this do?” (117). Breuch writes that “Accepting post-process assumptions truly implies a ‘letting go’ of the desire to find a right way to learn and teach writing” (118).
From post-process theory, Breuch argues that we should let go of the idea of mastery of a subject and of monologic discourse. She incorporates Dewey and exposes how post-process is Deweyian (?) in nature. Dewey writes that education “must represent present life—life as real and as vital to the child as that which he carries on in the home, in the neighborhood, or on the playground” (qtd. 118).
I think I like this philosophy a lot, as of right now. It’s fascinating, seems correct in its assumptions, and, I think what’s most attractive of all, is that it resists the corruption of its own pedagogy. Truly, if writing (and teaching) is situated, there is no “right way” to teach, and no dictums for pedagogy to be laid down. I also like the Deweyian (?) idea here, and I am reminded of my firm belief that elementary should not be taught to “prepare” students for high school, which should not be taught to prepare students for college, which should not be taught to prepare students for the workforce. Within this paradigm, I am beginning to believe that teaching freshmen composition should not be “preparing” students to write for academia. Rather, it should be teaching writing. For, if school is to “represent present life,” we should engage with present life, not the future. When we teach sixth graders that they exist only to prepare for seventh grade, we tell them they are not yet whole people. They are not worthwhile as they now exist and as they now know. This, in my opinion, is criminal.
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If sixth graders are whole people, then how can we justify herding them around, monitoring their every action, indoctrinating their minds, disciplining, standardizing, and controlling them? The system requires subordination.
Terrific notes! Every time I hear post-process invoked, I get the sense that it’s used so variously–from generally rejecting processual orthodoxies (or Flower & Hayes’ schematic, specifically) to pushing away from explicit writing instruction (writing instruction that treats writing as an adaptable, transferable skill-set, that is). I wonder, still, whether there are limits to post-process as a theoretical choice for framing the teaching of writing. If pushed to an extreme position, does it follow that post-process pedagogy, keeping with “no *right* way” to teaching writing, could be (mis)understood as “no way” to teach writing? (I don’t know whether this is answerable, or even the right question…just that it’s what your notes got me thinking about).
We can only justify it by not respecting them, by not seeing them as whole people. If the system requires subordination, it is time to change the system.
Now, how?
Derek, great question. Breuch quotes Kent: “Writing and reading—conceived broadly as processes or bodies of knowledge—cannot be taught, for nothing exists to teach” (qtd. on 105). I think this has been misunderstood to mean that you cannot teach writing, when in actuality (unless I am mistaken) Kent meant this to mean that you cannot teach writing as a what, as a body of knowledge. I think this definitely complicates the teaching of writing, which I think is good. However, I think you’re right, and I think people have misunderstood this to mean you can’t teach writing.
I think that another concern we should have is those who read that there is “no right way” to teach writing to mean that you can teach writing “any way,” especially when we understand that models for teaching get bastardized quite easily (Dobrin’s “pedagogical imperative” comes in here). I wonder if, as Ede writes in Situating Composition, that just as many post-process advocates have reduced “the process movement” to less than what it is, that the next “waves of reform” will “encourage essentializing, totalizing readings” (65)of post-process. Meaning, I wonder if the danger doesn’t come in the way we characterize “movements” in the field to “demonize” them: “Post-process claims that there is no/any way to teach writing! We must reform!”