Beaufort and Murray

from Beaufort's Writing in the Real World (chapter 4)

In studying the writers at JRC, who included newcomer and old-timer, novice and expert, I observed five domains of context-specific knowledge critical to full-participation in the community: discourse community knowledge, subject matter knowledge, genre knowledge, rhetorical knowledge, and process knowledge. The domains, both overlapping and distinct, existed in a kind of symbiotic relationship to each other. Each of these knowledge domains also represented a continuum from general knowledge to more context-specific knowledge. Becoming expert within the community, handling the most difficult and important writing tasks, involved a movement from more general knowledge brought from other contexts to increasingly context-specific knowledge and expertise unique to JRC. (63-64)

Later, in Table 4.1, Beaufort provides a comparison of novice and expert writing knowledge. Under "Process Knowledge" she writes:

Novice:

• Uses similar process for all writing tasks
• Writing task is labor-intensive; hard to get started, easily sidetracked

Expert:

• Streamlined writing process adapted to specific tasks
• Works well under pressure

from College Writing and Beyond

"the nature of writing expertise" (5)

"We know that writing is a complex cognitive and social activity and that the mental processes involved as well as the contextual knowledge bases that must be tapped are enormous" (6).

I'm finding in Beaufort a concise explanation of why Murray's work lost it's pedagogical persuasiveness for me.

In the "Introduction" to her book College Writing and Beyond, Anne Beaufort concisely summarizes the critique that has been leveled against first-year composition courses "based on social constructionism and activity theory and the related perspectives of literacy studies, genre theory, and critical theory" (9)--concepts which, in some cases (social constructionism and literacy studies), gained currency in the field of composition during the later years of Murray's career, and in other cases (activity theory, genre theory, and critical theory), after he retired. In her summary, Beaufort succinctly explicates a view of writing and writing instruction that I have found increasingly pedagogically persuasive and which, frankly, has been at the root my own distancing from Murray's work. From the various theories cited above, Beaufort writes, "all acts of writing--and writing instruction--are viewed as socially situated human activities. Writing literacy is a form of social and political capital. Genres perform functions. Writers assume positions and political positions through the genres they employ" (9). While this view of writing has not led me, as it has others, to argue for the abolition of first-year writing, it has lead to a fairly dramatic shift in my teaching--a shift which has required me to ask students to read different kinds of materials, enact different kinds of writing, and focus on different goals and outcomes. Whereas, once, my focus was on helping students learn to be better writers, my evolving emphasis focuses more on helping students learn "to be sensitive to authentic social contexts for writing" and to see that "writing standards are largely cultural and socially specific (Beaufort 10 & 11). And I have felt an urgency about this work because, as Beaufort points out, "novice writers usually get little instruction in how to study and acquire the writing practices of different discourse communities" (11). To foster "positive learning transfer" my ongoing pedagogical orientation has focused on helping students learn to "examine, question, or understand the literacy standards of discourse communities they are encountering in other disciplines, in the work world, or in other social spheres they participate in" (11).

THE POINT:

In short, Murray's teaching about writing suddenly seemed not enough, seemed to capture only one part of the work that I felt needed to be accomplished within a writing class.

---

This captures the essence of Murray more concisely than I have seen!!!

In making the point that the endeavor of first-year composition has always been politicized, Beaufort reminds us that since its inception, "educational institutions--and their benefactors--have appropriated freshmen writing in a number of different directions to serve larger institutional or societal aims." First-year composition, Beaufort points out, has served as a "gate-keeper," as a "handmaid of the scientific industrial communities" and as a "rebellious partner in the anti-establishment/expressivist movements of recent times" (223).

---

"theoretical model for writing expertise" (17)

"While writing expertise does not transfer wholesale from one writing context to another, it is possible to identify the common knowledge domains within which writers must develop context-specific knowledge" (17)

"So the question becomes, what knowledge domains best represent the mental schema employed in expert writing performances? And what knowledge domains--or mental schema--do writers need to invoke for analyzing new writing tasks in new discourse communities?" (17)

"equipping students with a mental schema for learning writing skills in new genres in new discourse communities they will encounter throughout life" (17).

"writing process knowledge," which she describes as "how to get writing done, from pre-drafting to final draft" (17)

Can writing process knowledge be separated or abstracted from contexts? Can we speak of general writing process knowledge? And if so, what would that knowledge entail or consist of and how does Murray help us build or communicate that knowledge?

Beaufort laments the fact that there are "few overviews in composition studies of writing expertise," but points out that we have a good deal of scholarly work which identifies "single components of the domain knowledge and skills associated with expert writers performances: writing process skills (Flower and Hayes 1981, Perl 1979, Sommers 1980)..." (18)

Here it occurs to me that what Murray is offering us is not so much systematic research into writing process skills, as in the case of Flower/Hayes, Perl, and Sommers), but a kind of extended anecdotal meditation on writing process skills that is of value. Carol Berkenkotter must have recognized this when she decided to use Murray in her study.

"general vs context specific ways of thinking of writing skills" (18)--would Murray fall under general?

Beaufort on the Knowledge Domains

First, the overarching concept: a theory of discourse communities. What writing expertise is ultimately concerned with is become engaged in a particular community of writers who dialogue across texts, argue, and build on each other's work. (18)

Besides the knowledge entailed in understanding and engaging the broader goals and activities of a discourse community, writers must engage a specific subject matter considered within the purview of a discourse community. (19)

Writers must also develop knowledge of genres whose boundaries and features the discourse community defines and stabilizes. (20)

In addition to discourse community knowledge, subject matter knowledge, and genre knowledge, writers must address the specific immediate rhetorical situation of individual communicative acts" (20).

And finally, writers must have writing process knowledge, i.e. knowledge of the ways in which one proceeds through the writing task in its various phases. This procedural knowledge associated with writing process is also affected by the material, socially specific particulars of a given writing situation or "community of practice" (Flower, 1994, Rogoff 1994). (20).

NEXT: revisit Appendix A, "From Research to Practice: Some Ideas for Writing Instruction" to see if there are any connections between what I am trying to say about Murray's usefulness to us and Beaufort's suggestions for teaching.