RE: Against Formulaic Writing -Reply

[Denise Rogers <drogers@linknet.net>]

>Denise has a good point about the use of formats and structures in what we
>laughingly call the real world.
>
>And about the needs of instructors in other fields to have thesis etc. laid
>out for them so they (and we) can work through thousands of essays.

I have been thinking about alternative models, and I want to suggest that
people look at Ken Macrorie's I-Search model. A couple of years ago when I
was a grad student working in the University of Arkansas' tutoring center,
we had a young woman come into the center to get some help preparing her
thesis for her B.F.A. in painting. She was having trouble figuring out how
to structure it. Her topic was fairly personal--a response to a set of
Frieda Kahlo's paintings about family relationships. I had been using the
I-Search model for my research essays, and I thought she might be able to
adapt it. She did, and the director of her committee said that hers was one
of the best theses he had ever read.

Anyway, the model, for those of you interested in it, is basically:

1. What I Knew About My Topic Before I Began
2. What I Want to Know and Why I Want to Know It (Demonstration of the
importance of the search to the searcher).
3. The Search (the story of how the writer found the answers to his or her
questions).
4. What I Learned (or Didn't Learn) (from conducting the search).


You can find the sample essays in Macrorie's book, The I-Search Paper. I
believe it's a Boynton-Cook book.

Denise
University of Southwestern Louisiana