RE: Big Yes for Formulaic Writing

[Linda Bergmann <bergmann@umr.edu>]

I disagree; I think it has very wide and multi-faceted possibilities for
application.  (The "modes" are another matter altogether, for reasons I do
not have time to get into here.)  I've helped students take their muddled,
jumbled, disorganized writing (what they called a draft, but what read like
brainstorming) and turn it into a reader-friendly communication by using
the 5-paragraph model, expanded perhaps, and adapted to the particular
issues and purposes they were aiming at.  There's no intrinsic reason, it
seems to me, that this form or any form (the sonnet, for instance, or the
sestina) necessarily leads to mindless writing or prohibits more complex
thinking.  
If it is taught and learned as a mindless formula (x is true because a,b,
and c), it will probably produce dull thinking; but if it is taught as a
means of organization--not a means of generating ideas, not a means of
simplifying them, but a means of communicating them--it can be a very
useful tool.

Linda Bergmann

>Students who have learned the five-paragraph theme structure want 
>to write everything that way.  Unfortunately, that structure has 
>a very limited application.  Why not do as you suggest and have 
>students look at how real writers structure their ideas?
>
>Lynne Belcher
>Southern Arkansas University
>

Linda S. Bergmann
Associate Professor of English and Director of Writing Across the Curriculum
University of Missouri-Rolla
Rolla, MO  65409

(573) 341-4685

bergmann@umr.edu