Remixing Composition: Introduction and Chapter 1

 

                 Palmeri begins the “Track 1: Creativity” section of his first chapter by alluding to the work of Janet Emig in her 1971 work entitled Composing Process of Twelfth Graders. Emig seems argues that students actively “compose” their papers as opposed to merely “writing” them, a distinction that seems to suggest an added level creativity along with the bringing together and honing of various skills in this development process (28). Emig’s insistence on this idea of composing seems to link intrinsically to the notion of the writing process posed by Palmeri (24). By assessing not only the student’s final paper but also the “process” by which this paper came about, Palmeri implies that the end goal, the holy grail of multi-modal pedagogy if you will, seems represented not in a disregard for older, conventional writing instruction, but rather to create a combined or amalgamated form of teaching that caters to not only the devices that students wield, but one that is also in alignment with their own process of crafting their work. Later in his writing, Palmeri applies Sievert’s theories on pedagogy to Emig’s idea of composing and requests that his reader consider how this new idea might reshape the commonly discussed notion of writing-across-the-curriculum into a composing-across-the-curriculum. This re-adaptation combines the ideas of both Palmeri and Emig, suggesting that a student’s written product incorporates both the majesty of the final submission in conjunction with the manor in which the student created their work—the notions of the “writing process” and the “experience of composing” for Palmeri and Emig, respectively (43). This heightened focus upon the drafting, creating, and outlining stages of Palmeri’s writing process seems to open the proverbial door for Emig’s notion of the “generative process of selecting and ordering elements that is common among all modalities” (28). In doing so, Palmeri seems to suggest that this “ordering” should represent the focus of writing pedagogy, a dramatic shift from the strictly alphabetic instruction that lends itself to recreation not just in writing, but in the composition of all artistic expression. As a final point, I believe this focus upon the process of writing calls into question the idea of the 5-paragraph essay. Taking into consideration the theories of Palmeri, Emig, and Sievert, does the idea of the 5 paragraph essay seem to represent an outdated, regimented tool that students—specifically those in 8th through 10th grade—should ignore, or is this structure foundational in their writing process?