Re: language as a cognitive parser

smagor who-is-at aardvark.ucs.uoknor.edu
Sat, 11 May 96 11:45:06 -0500

In case you missed it, Melanie Sperling has an article in the most recent
Review of Educational Research on speaking/writing relationships.

At 09:09 AM 5/11/96 -0400, you wrote:
>Judy, The distinctions and similarities of speech and writing pedagogies
>are very much on my mind these days. I will be teaching this summer in
>an experimental program in which a group of students will be taking both
>freshman comp and basic public speaking. The writing and speech
>instructors are paired up and we have been trying to develop
>complimentary syllabi, if not overtly cooperative assignments.
>
>All of us, my writing partner and I and you, seem to have the same
>perspective, that both writing and speaking are part of a larger
>rhetorical process, and that both need to be taught in ways that allow
>and encourage the students to develop their own voices, to understand
>the constraints and challenges of social/discourse norms and
>expectations, and to become fluent with the technology of choice
>(writing, speaking or media; none of us will tackle music, dance or
>visual arts though it could be done in principle)
>
>The voice/presence/kairos is my (still very rough) attempt to re-orient
>the speech curriculum away from the emphasis on conformity to Western
>norms of analytical argument. My aim is to develop a course in
>rhetorical competence that focuses on the situation of academic
>speaking, but does not set those norms up as anything but the
>expectations of one particular sort of audience in one particular sort
>of circumstance. Obviously a writing curriculum would do the same thing
>when it focuses on the rhetorical process and not on conformity to some
>set of Harcourt Brace or Strunk & White rules.
>
>The reality, of course, is that I still spend most of my time dealing
>with issues of stagefright, delivery and issue analysis, just as a
>writing instructor spends the bulk of instructional energy on sentence,
>paragraph, and argument construction. The important thing is to frame
>these as negotiated elements of voice and presence, done with a
>sensitivity to the appropriateness of the moment, and not as measures of
>how well a student can 'learn' the rules and techniques of public
>speaking.
>
>I don't think my views are particularly unusual or innovative, although
>it is not yet possible to find a text book that supports them very well.
>
>dale
>
>
Peter Smagorinsky
University of Oklahoma
College of Education
Department of Instructional Leadership and Academic Curriculum
820 Van Vleet Oval
Norman, OK 73019-0260
(405)325-3533
fax: (405)325-4061
smagor who-is-at aardvark.ucs.uoknor.edu
psmagorinsky who-is-at uoknor.edu