ERIC Number: ED281229
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 1987-Mar
Pages: 14
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Autobiography and Advanced College Writing.
Welch, Kathleen E.
Autobiographical writing can, by its nature as expressive discourse, connect to the residual orality and literacy that students possess before they enter college writing classes, because it crosses more easily between the spoken word and the written word than other forms of writing. Adapting the Ong-Havelock orality-literacy thesis to writing pedagogy rests on the assumptions (1) that all students are experts at manipulating spoken discourse and (2) that they are members of a discourse community with a fund of repeated stories, lessons, parables, and melodramas on which they are authorities. This acknowledgement of authority will shift writer and reader expertise to issues such as malleability in the presentation of self, readability and coherence, and even the psychological aspects of memory as a part of writing. One useful assignment for autobiographical writing is to ask students to choose a segment of their lives, locate a photograph as a cultural artifact from that period, and compose an essay on any aspect of the photo. For the next draft, students use a "critics' sheet" that enables them to analyze a peer's writing based on the experience of having written the same assignment. Both drafts are then discussed in small groups and in the whole class, which helps student writers explore specific ways of reseeing their writing. The presentation of the Ong-Havelock thesis to the students enables them to see more clearly their individual relationships to primary orality, literacy, and secondary orality, situating the students in language history. If writing instructors can exploit the pedagogical possibilities of orality and literacy, then the spoken word can also be exploited to achieve better writing. (Two pages of notes and references are included, and the "Critics' sheet" is appended.) (NKA)
Publication Type: Opinion Papers; Speeches/Meeting Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A