Curt's post on paths to improvement

Casanave’s third chapter, “Paths to Improvement”, in her textbook, Controversies in Second Language Writing, examines how what became known as process writing emerged as a pedagogy from the writing as a product-oriented versus writing as a process-oriented endeavor. Matsuda in “Process and post-process: A discursive history,” places this opposing writing ideologies in a form of succession in that the process-orientation that was part of a student-centered pedagogy had replaced the product-orientation of a teacher-centered pedagogy, because the development of individual writing competencies is a process that is centered upon the student’s participatory experiences. I have found that to be true in my own writing experiences. Each genre of writing has within it a preconceived idea of what an end product should have as an acceptable example of an article written in that genre. For example, a good cover-letter and resume will be required to conform to set of acceptable formatting within a culture of the writer’s targeted audience. If the product does not fit within these expectations, it will be rejected. The process-orientated model is established to center upon the student’s needs to develop what will become a good resume with an appropriate cover-letter for it given purpose of soliciting the writer’s targeted audience. Since no one has been known to be born knowing how to construct the perfect resumes or basically any other genre of writing upon their first try, writing then had to become a process-oriented endeavor, thus this activity is a recursive cycle. Then researchers have begun to examine writing as an activity endeavor that is as much a part of the relationship with the social environment of the individual writer’s discourse community. Atkinson examines in “L2 writing in the post-process era: Introduction” that the writing process-pedagogy paradigm has shifted to a post-process conceptualization with the act of composition as being considered to be a cultural activity. However, I do see writing as an action that is only affected by culture, but it provides a powerful discourse medium for affecting culture as well. Writers through the use of their writing have made profound sociocultural changes not only through their content, but also through their manner used in presenting that content as well. Looking at text, the long explanatory narrative passages have in many instances given way to using dialogue and constructed examples as a means of conveying meaning. The typical responses against the long passages are that reading such a vast sea for text is usually “boring” or “confusingly unclear” that seems to encourage more lively dialogue in fiction and clearly presented concise examples in non-fiction. As a previous middle and high school teacher, I find that the examinations of rhetorical and compositional methodologies to be both insightful in gaining a greater understanding of the writing endeavor itself as well as to be able to teach this endeavor to others in a meaningful way.