Process vs. Mimesis
[1,025 words]
At the conclusion of a recent reading weblog entry entitled “The Logic of Reading and Writing,” I offered up a theoretical classroom research unit. Here are the relevant paragraphs:
How did
students from the past learn to write?
How could the reading public during the founding of our republic have
picked up the daily newspaper and read the Federalist Papers by Publius (Hamilton, Jay and Madison)? Have you ever tried to read a Federalist
Paper? Who taught the union soldiers to
write such beautiful letters home during the Civil War? How could they have done so in the absence of
what we think we know today about learning to write?
Prior to the
current revolution in writing theory, most of us learned to write by mimesis,
that is by imitation. We studied models
and tried our best to produce them. In
the world of art it is called ‘tracing the masters.’ That is how Benjamin Franklin taught himself
to write, by reading issues of
I would love to see a research study of two groups: one would be a control group, utilizing the latest methods; the second would be an experimental group, where students would be encouraged to write and write and write, and then handed solid and multiple models of what good writing looks like. After a few weeks, give both groups the same assessment. I would double-down on group two.
This writing unit, utilizing a control group and an experimental group, seems like a worthy classroom research assignment. I have always encouraged my colleagues to use their classrooms as ‘think tanks’ and do primary research. Students make wonderful subjects and studying their work, not just assessing it, can profoundly affect the way we do our jobs.
I have since contacted a high school Language Arts teacher and we are preparing to implement such an experimental design to see if we can discover which method of teaching written discourse is the more effective, the one used for over two millennia, which I will call ‘mimesis,’ the Greek word for imitation, or the modern method, in vogue for the past 30 years, which I will call process writing. To the extent possible we will differentiate between these methods and present them to students as distinct approaches. In practice, however, a teacher would more likely use a blended method. Our research may then serve to illuminate which approach would receive priority in the blending.
In describing and differentiating between these two methods, let’s begin with the mimetic approach, the more ancient and traditional of the two. Here is a useful definition I located on a web-site:
Imitation was a fundamental method
of instruction in ancient Roman and in Renaissance humanist curricula, the
practical counterpart ("exercitatio") to
rhetorical theory ("ars"; see rhetorical ability).
Imitation took place on many levels
and through many methods. At an elementary level students used imitation in
learning the rudiments of Greek or Latin (spelling, grammar), copying the
purity of speech of a given author. As they progressed, they were taught
parsing (finding the parts of speech), which led to various kinds of rhetorical analysis of their models (finding
figures of speech, argumentative strategies, patterns of arrangement). Students
were instructed to use copybooks to record passages from their reading that
exemplified noteworthy content or form, which they would then quote or imitate
within their own speeches or compositions.
Most
students, for the past 2,500 years, have learned to write, and to produce works
of art, by studying models and copying both their content and style. This approach is associated with Platonic and
Aristotelian thought and is closely aligned with Aristotle’s scientific
method. If you want to learn something,
you study it closely. The current
writing theory, what I will term process writing, is, ironically, associated
with an older philosopher, Socrates, but only in one particular. Socrates did not see humans as vessels into
which teachers would place knowledge. Rather, he saw humans as already possessing
all knowledge. It was the role of the
teacher to draw that knowledge out of students and the best way to do so was by
questioning. The Socratic method of
questioning still has strong support within the educational community,
especially in some law schools and in the work of the Great Books
Foundation. The process method appears
to assume that an essay is inside a student and can be drawn out of him using
various devices, such as brainstorming activities and graphic organizers. Given enough pre-writing activities, and
multiple drafting opportunities, an excellent polished final essay will
emerge. Alas, most teachers, given the
choice to teach both ways, will find that Aristotle trumps Socrates;
that is, strong models defeat graphic organizers every time.
There is
another problem with process writing.
The underlying assumption is that students think associatively, not
logically. It then becomes the teacher’s
job to harness the randomness of student thought and, by means of strategies,
activities and exercises, super-impose a logical structure. This, however, becomes a self-fulfilling
prophecy. Students asked to brainstorm
before they even know what they are doing will produce the randomness the
process calls for and justify the activities that follow.
The
mimetic approach stresses the power of modeling and the instruction becomes
much less focused on the underlying structure, thus reducing the need for
arbitrarily restrictive approaches, like the 5 paragraph essay, the location of
the thesis sentence in a specific spot, and formulas like two commentary
sentences for every concrete detail.
Powerful models were not produced by writers relying on such an
artificial system. The thesis sentence
may often come without a label and find itself more organically located. It may only be implied. There will likely be a free flow between
assumptions, assertions and evidence in authentic models and students will
actually write more powerfully if they are not constrained by the artificiality
of the process model.
This all
remains to be proved, or disproved. I
will report after the students have written and the methods have been
studied. I may also report along the way
as the unit takes shape.