Bizzell, Patricia. “Cognition, Convention, and Certainty.” Cross-Talk in Comp Theory. Edited by Victor Villanueva. 365-389.
Bizzell begins by asking “What do we need to know about writing?” (365), observing that it is only recently have we needed to ask this question, and the very asking created composition studies, which in turn created views of the ‘writing problem.’ It is thus clear that “our teaching task is not only to convey information but also to transform students’ whole world view” (365), and many now see the aforementioned problem as “a thinking problem primarily because we used to take our students’ thinking for granted” (365). Bizzell relates this to a teaching style based on model essays, which “has not prepared us to explain or repair these students’ deficiencies” (366), and stresses the need for a reconsideration of the relationship between thought and language.
Bizzell thus points to two theoretical camps, one seeing writing as inner-directed and the other seeing writing as outer-directed (366). The former is interested in “the structure of language-learning and thinking processes in their earliest state, prior to social influence” (366), while the latter has greater interest in “the social processes whereby language-learning and thinking capacities are shaped and used in particular communities” (366). Seeking to discover writing processes that are “so fundamental as to be universal” (367), writes Bizzell, inner-directed theorists have a particular model on the development of language and thought (see Figure 1, 367). In explaining in greater detail the outer-directed theorists, Bizzell offers up a similar diagram (see Figure 2, 369). In essence, while inner-directed theorists believe that universal, fundamental structures can be taught, outer-directed theorists do not, believing that “thinking and language use can never occur free of a social context that conditions them” (368). Despite these differences, though, Bizzell stresses that “answers to what we need to know about writing will have to come from both the inner-directed and the outer-directed theoretical schools if we wish to have a complete picture of the composing process” (370), and she offers the perspective on the current debate as “the kind of fruitful exchange that enlarges knowledge” (370).
Delving deeper into the inner-directed theory, Bizzell makes mention of Flower and Hayes, who “see composing as a kind of problem-solving activity” (371), and explains further the Flower-Hayes model, ultimately critiquing it though for its emphasis on the how of the writing process and its ignorance of the why. Put another way, as Bizzell does, “if we are going to see students as problem-solvers, we must also see them as problem-solvers situated in discourse communities that guide problem definition and the range of alternative solutions” (373). This is what inner-directed theorists fail to account for, but, never fear, for outer-directed theory can help, specifically with planning and translating, the latter of which Bizzell names as the “emptiest box” in the Flower-Hayes model and the former of which Bizzell names as the fullest (373). In other words, “we can know nothing but what we have words for, if knowledge is what language makes of experience” (373).
Bizzell then moves briefly to Vygotsky and sociolinguistics, before ultimately offering a lengthy explanation of just what students who struggle to write Standard English need: “knowledge beyond the rules of grammar, spelling, and so on” (374). Furthermore, composition specialists need to learn from sociolinguistics to avoid George Dillon’s ‘bottom-to-top’ fallacy: “the notion that a writer first finds meaning, then puts it into words, then organizes the words into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, etc.” (375). In short, then, writes Bizzell, “educational problems associated with language use should be understood as difficulties with joining an unfamiliar discourse community” (375). Now, does this remind anyone of Bartholomae?
Moving on, Bizzell stresses that “finding words is not a separate process from setting goals. It is setting goals, because finding words is always a matter of aligning oneself with a particular discourse community” (375-376). Therefore, Bizzell prefers the term ‘interpretive community’ over discourse community (using Stanley Fish’s term), explaining that “because this interaction is always an historical process, changing over time, the community’s conventions change over time” (376). And, “changes in conventions can only define themselves in terms of what is already acceptable (even if such definition means negation of the currently acceptable)” (376). There are two other important passages on this same page:
An individual who abides by the community’s conventions, therefore, can still find areas for initiative—adherence is slavish adherence only for the least productive community members. (376)
Producing text within a discourse community, then, cannot take place unless the writer define her goals in terms of the community’s interpretive conventions. Writing is always already writing for some purpose that can only be understood in its community context. (376)
Bizzell then returns to the Flower-Hayes model, noting how neglect of the role of knowledge in composing makes it “particularly insensitive to the problems of poor writers” (378), noting that what is underdeveloped in students is “their knowledge of the ways experience is constituted and interpreted in the academic discourse community and of the fact that all discourse communities constitute and interpret experience” (379). And, in the very next paragraph, Bizzell makes some hypothetical observations which could relate quite well to the experiences Mike Rose details in his book (379), before explaining that, to help poor writers, “we need to explain that their writing takes place within a community, and to explain what the community’s conventions are” (380). Two more chunks:
To “define” a problem is to interact with the material world according to the conventions of a particular discourse community; these conventions are the only source for categories of similar problems, operational definitions, and alternative solutions, and a conclusion can only be evaluated as “well supported” in terms of a particular community’s standards. (381)
Discourse communities are tied to historical and cultural circumstances, and hence can only be seen as unenlightening instances of the general theory the cognitive approach seeks: the one model is the universal one. (381)
Bizzell then centers on Collins and Gentner’s approach, critiquing it thusly: “it assumes that the rules we can formulate to describe behavior are the same rules that produce the behavior” (382). Rhetorical situation anyone? Later, Bizzell reiterates her main argument: “both the inner-directed and the outer-directed theoretical schools will have to contribute to a synthesis capable of providing a comprehensive new agenda for composition studies” (383). She then makes mention of protocol analysis (383-384) before turning back to inner-directed theory and how no scientific research possess the authoritative certainty that inner-directed theorists seek (384). Ultimately, though, Bizzell calls for inspection of ‘the hidden curriculum,’ “the project of initiating students into a particular world view that gives rise to the daily classroom tasks without being consciously examined by teachers or students” (385). Furthermore,
If we call what we are teaching “universal” structures or processes, we bury the hidden curriculum even deeper by claiming that our choice of material owes nothing to historical circumstances. To do this is to deny the school’s function as an agent of cultural hegemony, or the selective evaluation and transmission of world views. (385)
Bizzell thus thinks we must acknowledge cultural differences in the classroom, even though this will increase emotional strain for compositionists as “members of one group trying to mediate contacts among various others” (385). And, it is discourse analysis, writes Bizzell, that would foster responsible inspection of the hidden curriculum, and it might offer students “an understanding of their school difficulties as the problems of a traveler to an unfamiliar country” (386).
In conclusion, then, writes Bizzell,
Composition studies should focus upon practice within interpretive communities—exactly how conventions work in the world and how they are transmitted. If the work of these disciplines continues to converge, a new synthesis will emerge that revivifies rhetoric as the central discipline of human intellectual endeavor. (387)