See

discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269222534

A Relationship between Reading and Writing:

The Conversational Model

Article in College English · February 1980

DOI: 10.2307/375913

CITATIONS READS

51 2,359

1 author:

Charles Bazerman
University of California, Santa Barbara
165 PUBLICATIONS 2,975 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

ILEES Project View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Charles Bazerman on 07 December 2014.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

A Relationship between Reading and Writing: The Conversational Model
Author(s): Charles Bazerman
Source: College English, Vol. 41, No. 6 (Feb., 1980), pp. 656-661
Published by: National Council of Teachers of English
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/375913
Accessed: 08/11/2010 17:27

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ncte.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

National Council of Teachers of English is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
College English.

http://www.jstor.org
CHARLESBAZERMAN

A Relationship between
Reading and Writing: The
Conversational Model

THE CONNECTIONBETWEEN WHAT A PERSON READS and what that person then writes
seems so obvious as to be truistic. And current research and theory about writing
have been content to leave the relationship as a truism, making no serious attempt to
define either mechanisms or consequences of the interplay between reading and
writing. The lack of attention to this essential bond of literacy results in part from
the many disciplinary divorces in language studies over the last half century: Speech
has moved out taking Rhetoricwith it; Linguisticshas staked a claim to all skilled
language behavior, but has attended mostly to spoken language; Sociologyand An-
thropologyhave offered more satisfactory lodgings for the study of the social context
and meaning of literacy; and Englishhas gladly rid itself of basic Readingto concern
itself purely with the higher reading of LiteraryCriticism. Writing in its three incar-
nations as basic composition, creative writing, and the vestigial advanced exposition,
remains an unappreciated houseguest of Literature. All these splits have made it
difficult for those of us interested in writing to conceive of writing in terms broad
enough to make essential connections: our accommodation has been to focus on the
individual writer alone with the blank piece of paper and to ignore the many con-
texts in which the writing takes place. This essay will review developments in com-
position in light of this difficulty, propose a remedy in the form of a conversational
model for the interplay of reading and writing, and then explore the implications of
the model for teaching.

One of the older views, with ancient antecedents, held that a neophyte writer was
an apprentice to a tradition, a tradition the writer became acquainted with through
reading. The beginning student studied rules and practiced set forms derived from
the best of previous writing; analysis and imitation of revered texts was the core of
more advanced study of writing. The way to good writing was to mold oneself into
the contours of prior greatness. Although current composition theory largely rejects
this tradition/apprentice model as stultifying, teachers of other academic disciplines

CharlesBazermanis an associateprofessorof Englishat BaruchCollegeof theCity Universityof New Yorkandserves

as co-chairof the CUNY Associationof WritingSupervisors.He haspublishedon a numberof literarytopicsas well as
composition,and he is currentlyinvestigatingthe characterof writing in academicdisciplines.

COLLEGE ENGLISH Vol. 41, No. 6 * February 1980

656
 A RelationshipbetweenReadingand Writing: The ConversationalModel 657

still find the model attractive, because writing in content disciplines requires mas-
tery of disciplinary literature. The accumulated knowledge and accepted forms of
writing circumscribe what and how a student may write in disciplines such as his-
tory, biology, and philosophy.
Recent work in composition has chosen instead to emphasize the writer's original
voice, which has its source in an independent self. The model of the individual
writer shaping thought through language informs recent investigations into the
composing process, growth of syntactic maturity, and the source of error. We have
aided the student in the struggle to express the self by revealing the logic of syntax,
by asking for experiential and personal writing, and by offering techniques for
pre-writing and invention to help the student get closer to the wellsprings of thought
that lie inside. Even traditional rhetoric finds its new justification in the reflection of
organic psychological realities. By establishing the importance of theivoice of the
writer and the authority of personal perception, we have learned to give weight to
what the student wants to say, to be patient with the complex process of writing, to
offer sympathetic advice on how to rather than what not to, and to help the student
discover the personal motivations to learn to write.
Yet the close observation of the plight of the individual writer has led us to re-
member that writing is not contained entirely in the envelope of experience, native
thought, and personal motivation to communicate. Communication presupposes an
audience, and deference to that audience has led to a revived concern for the forms
of what is now called Standard Written English. E. D. Hirsch, in The Philosophyof
Composition(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), locates the entire philoso-
phy in readability; that is, concern for the audience. We have also noticed that most
writing our students do during college is in the context of their academic studies;
interest in writing across the curriculum has been the result. In the most thoughtful
study coming out of this approach, The Developmentof Writing Abilities(11-18) (Lon-
don: Macmillan, 1975), James Britton and his colleagues begin to notice that stu-
dents use readings, but in personal and original ways, in order to write for their
academic courses. "Source-book material may be used in various ways involving
different levels of activity by the writer" (p. 23).
We may begin to understand those "various ways" and "different levels of activ-
ity" Britton refers to if we consider each piece of writing as a contribution to an
on-going, written conversation. Conversation requires absorption of what prior
speakers have said, consideration of how earlier comments relate to the responder's
thoughts, and a response framed to the situation and the responder's purposes. Until
a final statement is made or participants disengage themselves, the process of re-
sponse continues. The immediacy of spoken conversation does, I must admit, differ
significantly from the reflectiveness of written conversation, but the differences
more illuminate the special character of writing than diminish the force of the
model. Speech melody, gestural communication, rapidly shifting dynamics, and
immediate validation on one side are set against explicitness, development, complex-
ity, contemplation, and revision on the other. The written conversation also may
bring together a more diffuse range of participants than the spoken one, although
the example of an exchange of office memos or the closed circle represented in
professional journals indicates that such is not always the case. Further, in spoken
conversation the makers of previous comments are more likely to be the auditors of
658 COLLEGEENGLISH

the response. But again the counter-examples of the teacher who turns one stu-
dent's question into the occasion for a lecture to the entire class, or the printed
back and forth of a literary war, suggest that this distinction should not be over-
simplified.
The conversational model points up the fact that writing occurs within the con-
text of previous writing and advances the total sum of the discourse. Earlier com-
ments provide subjects at issue, factual content, ideas to work with, and models of
discourse appropriateto the subject. Later comments build on what came before and
may, therefore, go farther. Later comments also define themselves against the earlier
even as they dispute particulars, redefine issues, add new material, or otherwise
shift the discussion.
If as teachers of writing we want to prepare our students to enter into the written
interchanges of their chosen disciplines and the various discussions of personal and
public interest, we must cultivate various techniques of absorbing, reformulating,
commenting on, and using reading. In the tradition/apprentice model such skills
were fostered only implicitly under the umbrella assignment of the research paper,
but they were not given explicit, careful attention. Only access to the tradition
(information gathering) and acknowledgement of the tradition (documentation) were
the foci of instruction. In the newer model of the voice of the individual self, as-
signments such as the research paper are superfluous, remaining only as vestiges of
former syllabi or as the penance imposed on a service department. The model of the
conversation, however, suggests a full curriculum of skills and stages in the process
of relating new comments to previously written materials. The following partial
catalogue of stages, skills, and assignments points toward the kinds of issues that
might be addressed in writing courses. The suggestions are in the form of a
framework rather than of specific lessons in order to leave each teacher free to inter-
pret the consequences of the model through the matrix of individual thoughts, ex-
periences, and teaching styles. Similarly the teacher will need to interpret the model
through those conversations that are most familiar and important to students. Given
the diversity of existing written conversations and the variety of individual re-
sponses, it is not profitable to prescribe a single course for everyone.
Intelligent response begins with accurateunderstanding of prior comments,not just of
the facts and ideas stated, but of what the other writer was trying to achieve. A
potential respondent needs to know not just the claims a writer was making, but also
whether the writer was trying to call established beliefs into question or simply add
some detail to generally agreed upon ideas. The respondent needs to be able to tell
whether a prior statement was attempting to arouse emotions or to call forth dispas-
sionate judgment. The more we understand of the dynamics as well as the content
of a conversation, the more we have to respond to. Vague understanding is more
than careless; it is soporific. Particular writing assignments can help students be-
come more perceptive readers and can help break down the tendency toward vague
inarticulateness resulting from purely private reading. Paraphraseencourages precise
understanding of individual terms and statements; the act of translating thoughts
from one set of words to another makes the student consider exactly what was said
and what was not. Summary reveals the structure of arguments and the continuity
of thought; the student must ferret out the important claims and those elements that
unify the entire piece of writing. Both paraphrase and summary will also be useful
 A RelationshipbetweenReadingand Writing: The Conversational
Model 659

skills when in the course of making original arguments the student will have to refer
to the thoughts of others with some accuracy and efficiency. Finally, having stu-
dents analyze the technique of writing in relation to the writing's apparent purpose
will make students sensitive to the ways writing can create effects that go beyond
the overt content. Analysis of propaganda and advertising will provide the extreme
and easy cases, but analysis of more subtle designs, such as that of legal arguments
or of reports of biological research, will more fully reveal the purposive nature of
writing.
The next stage, reactingto reading,gives students a sense of their own opinions and
identity defined against the reading material. As they try to reconcile what they
read with what they already think, students begin to explore their assumptions and
frameworks of thought. At first their responses may be uninformed, either fending
off the new material or acquiescing totally to what appears to be the indisputable
authority of the printed word. But with time and opportunities to articulate their
changing responses, students can become more comfortable with the questions
raised by their reading; they enter into a more dialectical relationship with those
who have written before. Prior assimilated reading becomes grist for processing new
reading. Three kinds of exercise encourage the development of more extensive and
thoughtful reactions: marginal comments on reading, reading journals, and informal
reaction essays. From early in the semester teachers should encourage students to
record their thoughts about the reading in marginal notes. The teacher must be
careful to distinguish this kind of reaction annotation from the more familiar study-
skills kind of content annotation, perhaps by suggesting that content annotations go
on the inside margin and reactions go on the wider outside margins. This reaction in
the margins increases the student's awareness of moment-by-moment responses to
individual statements and examples. Reading journals written after each day's read-
ing give the student additional room to explore the immediate responses at greater
length and to develop larger themes. Again the teacher must insist on the distinction
between content summaries and reactions, no matter how tentative the latter may at
first be. Finally, the informal response essay allows the student to develop a single
reaction at length, perhaps drawing on a number of related, more immediate re-
sponses. Here the teacher should make sure that the response maintains contact with
issues growing out of the reading and does not become purely a rhapsody on a
personal theme unrelated to the reading. For all three types of assignment the
teacher can refer the student to previously held opinions, experiences, observations,
and other readings as starting points for reactions. As students become more sensi-
tive to their responses to reading, they will spontaneously recognize likely starting
points.
Developing reactions leads to more formal evaluationof reading,measuring what a
book or article actually accomplishes compared to its apparent ambitions, compared
to reality, and compared to other books. The evaluative review, if treated as more
than just a notice covered with a thin wash of reaction, is an effective exercise, for it
requires the student both to represent and to assess the claims of the book or article.
The reader's reaction to the book is also significant to the evaluation, for if the
reader finds herself laughing when she should be nodding in assent, the book has
failed to meet at least some of its purposes. Another kind of evaluative essay meas-
ures the claims of the reading against observable reality. The data the student com-
660 COLLEGEENGLISH

pares to the book's claims may be from prior experience, new observations, formal
data-gathering using social science techniques, or technical experiments. Here the
teacher may discuss the variety of purposes, criteria, and techniques of data-
gathering in different academic disciplines as well as other human endeavors. Finally
the student may be asked to compare the claims and evidence of a number of dif-
ferent sources. In this kind of exercise the students have to judge whether there is
agreement, disagreement, or merely discussion of different ideas; then the student
must identify on what level the agreement or disagreement occurs, whether of sim-
ple fact, interpretation, idea, or underlying approach; and finally he must determine
how the agreements can be fitted together and the disagreements reconciled or ad-
judicated. Conflicts cannot, of course, always be resolved, but students become
aware of the difficulties of evaluation. Comparison of matched selections, reports
requiring synthesis, reviews of literature, and annotated bibliographies are all as-
signments compatible with this last purpose. Reviews of literature and annotated
bibliographies also give the student a coherent picture of how previous comments
add up in pursuit of common issues.
Students can then begin to define those issuesthey wish to pursue and to develop
informedviews on those issues. Two kinds of exercise, definitions of problem areas
and research proposals, require the student to identify some issue he or she would
like to know more about, to assemble the prior statements relevant to the issue, and
to indicate the limitations of those sources. The proposal requires the further task of
planning how the gap of knowledge in the literature can be overcome. Problem
definitions and proposals are early stages of the familiar assignment of the research
paper. Also familiar is the teacher's disappointment upon receiving a derivative re-
search report instead of an original, informed view in the form of a research essay.
The use of preparatory assignments-not just the proposal, but also progress re-
ports, reflections on the evidence, hypothesis testing and idea sketches-will help
remind the student of the original goal of the work while encouraging creative and
detailed use of the source material. Prior instruction in the skills discussed above
will also insure that the student knows how to use reading to form independent
attitudes toward the sources and so facilitate the development of original theses.
Other, more specific exercises that set the conditions for the development of in-
formed views involve setting factual and theoretical sources against each other.
Three case studies can be compared to elicit general patterns, or one writer's
theories can be measured against another's factual material. These two assignments
are, in fact, forms of critical analysis using a coherent set of categories derived from
a theoretical standpoint to sort out specifics. Such exercises show the student the
many uses of source material beyond simple citation of authority in support of pre-
determined opinion.
The independent, critical standpoint the student develops with respect to reading
other people's works can also help the student frame and revise his or her own
writing to be a purposeful and appropriate contribution to an on-going conversation.
Consideration of the relationship to previous statements will help the student decide
what techniques are likely to serve new purposes. Will a redefinition of basic con-
cepts, the introduction of a new concept, or the close analysis of a case study best
resolve confusion? Or perhaps only a head-on persuasive argument will serve. Fur-
ther, knowledge of the literature likely to have been read by an audience helps a
 Model 661
A RelationshipbetweenReadingand Writing: The Conversational

writer determine what needs to be explained at length and what issues need to be
addressed.
The model of written conversation even transforms the technical skills of refer-
ence and citation. The variety of uses to be made of quotation, the options for
referring to others' ideas and information (e.g., quotation, paraphrase, summary,
name only), and the techniques of introducing and discussing source materials are
the tools which allow the accurate but pointed connection of one's argument to
earlier statements. The mechanics of documentation, more than being an exercise in
intellectual etiquette, become the means of indicating the full range of comments to
which the new essay is responding.
When we ask students to write purely from their selves, we may tap only those
prior conversations that they are still engaged in and so limit the extent and variety
of their thinking and writing. We can use reading to present new conversational
opportunities that draw the students into wider public, professional, and academic
communities. Thus the students will learn to write within the heavily literate con-
texts they will meet in college and later life. Whether writing tasks are explicitly
embedded in prior written material-a review of literature, a research paper, or a
legal brief-or whether they are only implicitly related to the thought and writing of
others, as in critical analyses or matters of public debate, if students are not taught
the skills of creating new statements through evaluating, assimilating, and respond-
ing to the prior statements of the written conversation, we offer them the meager
choice of being parrots of authority or raconteurs stocked with anecdotes for every
occasion. Only a fortunate few will learn to enter the community of the literate on
their own.

View publication stats