Reaction to Moffett article

As a new teacher, I still feel a bit in the dark about scope and sequence. Thus, Moffett’s assertion that there is, in fact, a logical sequence of forms intrigues and encourages me: “The student is never assigned a subject, only a form, and the forms are ordered according to the preceding ideas. Thus, the assignments are structural and sequential.”

The sequence that he suggests—going from interior monologues to, ultimately, essays of generalization and logical argumentation—seems to defy the status quo, at least, at the university level. Moffett’s suggested sequence confirms my idea that students should start from what they know. However, I am not advocating that teachers indulge young writers’ tendency toward narcissism, as per our conversation on Tuesday, but every student knows something. An interior monologue, for example, can function as exploration. In the words of Oregon author George Venn, each of us possesses a “magic circle,” which starts with the self and moves outward toward family, neighborhood, community, nation and the larger world (Marking the Magic Circle: Poetry, Fiction and Essays).

I heartily agree with Moffett’s assertion that “one doesn’t learn exposition just by writing it all the time. An enormous amount of other learning must take place before one can write worthwhile essays of ideas; that is the nature of the whole abstraction process.” I would add that an enormous amount of living must take place in order for the writer to have something to say, for abstractions come from life experience. For example, while attending a university expository writing class, I wrote an essay about my stay in Taiwan (August of 1990-June of 1991). While living in Taipei, I survived an earthquake, 6.2 in magnitude.

As one can imagine, the seismic event made a lasting impression on me, so much so that I still cannot shake the incident from my memory. Having had gone through such an experience, I was able to make a number of abstractions, as well as form my thoughts in metaphors, such as the following: “If there was a seismograph of the heart, what would the nod of the needle reveal?” It is through experience that we can make such “cosmic leaps,” as Robert Bly calls them, with genuineness and authority. If I had known earthquakes academically only, it is unlikely I would have made such a leap, being far upwind of Bly’s “dragon smoke” (News of the Universe: Poems of Twofold Consciousness).

I am interested in Moffett’s research and curriculum to adapt to my own pedagogy. I was deeply disappointed with one aspect of my graduate teaching program: my “methods” class turned out to be little more than a gripe session among two other student teachers. We talked next to nothing about methodology in the English classroom, and subsequently I felt terrifyingly unprepared for my first year. I will want to leave this program with greater sense of direction for my second year.