post for 4/17

I'm more familiar with the LW approach to teaching writing, especially in the writing center when I am working with students whose content areas I'm unfamiliar with. Since I don't know anything about the TV show "Making a Murderer" or how spinal chord injuries affect heart rate variation, the only way I can help is making sure the words are doing what the author wants them to do. I try to understand the content mainly in vague, large ideas. By abstracting what the students tell me about the content they are trying to convey, I can help them structure the smaller, important words around the content words so that the writing supports the ideas. I often find myself saying things like "THIS concept x IS BASED ON concept w WHICH WE KNOW BECAUSE concept y AND THEREFOR concept p IS TRUE." So, I'm certainly not teaching WLC.

I do think that the categories could do with some blurring. I liked the idea of the genre approach to writing, as Ortega outlines on p.246 when she writes about the issue of authenticity in teaching writing. Genre, "as opposed to tasks and content (WLC) or language forms (WLL) ... offers a more authentic explanation for what written communication does, namely linking language and content in ways that mediate the interpretation and organization of human experience." This approach steers away from purely one form or the other, focusing instead on teaching skills needed for specific, applicable contexts such as email writing, note-taking, speech-giving, instead of the "inauthentic," as she puts it, five-paragraph essay. So it's learning to write based on different content needs and language contexts (or, LW based on WLC and WLL).

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