Two Feet In | Writing and the Institution

[ Part 1  where I introduce Peckham's discussion of argument and middle class "objectivity"] Di. "Spew" 10 October 2013. Flickr Creative Commons Objectivity, Redux  Peckham continues with the discussion of objectified pronouns, with the first person "I" largely permitted in most courses, though even there the first person must be objectified, "the writer in possession of her reason, language and stance" (69). Working-/ poverty-class students resist using the first person "I" in writing even in ethnographic or public discourse writing because of their secondary education training, even when it makes rhetorical sense with the project at hand. On the other hand, they tend to use the second person easily, naturally, as if somehow the first person has been drummed out of them but instruction about second person pronouns was overlooked. Something is happening, then, in secondary education about that author-as-expert vs author-as...

Creative Commons Peckham, Irvin. "Arguing." Going North, Thinking West: The Intersections of Social Class, Critical Thinking, and Politicized Writing Instruction . Logan UT: USUP, 2010: 67-85. Print. FYW's distinction is to see one's writing from the other's eyes. This goes back to Flower and Hayes and earlier -- the need for the author to write beyond himself, expecting a reader to experience and interpret.  As cognitive psychology progressed in the late 1970s, more specific applications of the social science were proposed for the composition course. In 1977, Carnegie-Mellon English professor Linda Flower directly proposed the use of problem-solving strategies in composition (Flower and Hayes, “Problem-Solving Strategies” 450-452). [Flower and her psychologist colleague John Hayes believed that heuristics open complex communication processes to the possibility of rational choice. These problem-solving strategies could help the struggling writer put idea...