Response to Atkinson

I enjoyed Atkinson’s article on post-process writing, since I hadn’t considered the criticism on process writing before writing it. The notion that Atkinson makes in his article that literacy is much more than simply reading and writing and is instead a collection of social activities that influence our entire concept of language and literacy, makes perfect sense to me. Language lies at the heart of what writing is, and our social activities influence our language so much and as result of this our concept of writing is thus wrapped up in these social activities as well. However, it seems to me, that these social activities are hardly ever given a thought inside a freshmen composition course, and instead the teachers champion the academic essay in which the students write about subjects that are dead to them and have no bearing on their lives whatsoever. It seems to me, that if students are to be truly literate in this social world they must address and respond to these social activities of which they are a part of through writing, through their expression of a social language.

I see these social activities going hand in hand with the power struggle that exists within the process centered classroom. It is the power that defines what ideas are privileged over others, and what is and isn’t appropriate to discuss and write about in a writing class. The struggle between the teacher and students sets the stage for who holds the power, while the ultimate power holder is the grade. No matter how much power the students are given, it is all a front, since the only true power that exists in the classroom is the grade. How do you address the social realm of language and writing in a classroom that is ultimately defined by a power structure build on letter grades? Yet at the same time, how do you remove that power structure and still maintain a successful writing classroom? After all, everyone knows that freshmen only write in these classes because of the final grade. The notion of self-motivation lies at the heart of this, and I think it will ultimately be the self-motivating classroom that is successful in getting students to write about and address the social world that they are a part of. I just hope that Facebook isn’t the answer to all of this.