"Writing"? As a Mode of Learning

When I first encountered Janet Emig's "Writing as a Mode of Learning" a few years ago in my previous teaching writing course, her emphasis on the differences between the spoken and written word reminded me of Walter J. Ong's work on orality and literacy. Re-reading the article again today, I am struck by the kairos of this topic in the late 1970s and early 1980s. By 1977 when Emig published this piece, Ong had already published The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History (1967), which is his first major work that deals with the significant (and complex) shift in consciousness that occurs between a primarily oral and a primarily literate culture. However, most scholars know Ong's work from his much more concise 1982 book Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (if you have not read it -- you should).  In a few brief chapters, Ong traces the history of language from the spoken to the chirographic and also the major shift that occurs as a result of the printing press. Ong also looks forward to new technologies that will again transform writing into something new and continues to explore what is often referred to as "secondary orality" in some of his later works as well. Yet Emig is interested in the question of the difference between spoken and written language in learning for more ppedagogical purposes. And unlike Ong, Emig's project is clearly to establish and defend the value of writing as heuristic.

She accomplishes this by first outlining the distinctions between writing and "all other verbal languaging processes -- listening, reading, and especially talking" (122). Some of her distinctions seem too essentialized or even outdated for a contemporary reader, but her overall point is still valid. In addition to successful learning being "engaged, committed, and personal" (126), Emig summarizes John Dewey and Jean Piaget to emphasize that learning requires "re-inforcement and feedback" (124). There are three ways in which this is accomplished: 1. learning by doing 2. learning through depiction 3. learning by restatement in words (124). Emig's point is that writing actually incorporates all three of these activities: "If the most efficacious learning occurs when learning is re-inforced, then writing through its inherent re-inforcing cycle involving hand, eye, and brain marks a uniquely powerful multi-representational mode for learning" (124-125). Though this notion of multiple ways of re-inforcement and feedback is interesting, it still seems to only scratch the surface of how we actually learn (but, let's not forget this is 1977). 

Thus, I am mostly interested in Emig's discussion of speed -- writing is much slower than talking-- as well as the "epigenetic" nature of writing which allows us to visibly see the evolution of thought and even our revisions of this thought. Of course, some of the discussion of revision in writing is complicated by Word Processing, which allows me to delete words and phrases immediately rather than forcing me to cross them out as I would if I were hand-writing something. But still, the recursive nature of writing that happens in an arguably isolated space that is more outside of the immediate conversation than a verbal exchange is something to consider. Ong addresses this in multiple ways but perhaps most famously when he states that a writer's audience is always a fiction. I feel like a lot of composition theory in the past forty years has attempted to rectify this problem --- by encouraging an increase in class discussion in small groups, by having students perform writing in specific rhetorical situations in which they can receive immediate feedback, and by including more presentations, debates, and dialogues as a way to produce and deliver "texts." Yet, the problem of audience seems to always remain. I think this is partially because we do not consciously think of our audience in our daily verbal (or written) interactions. One assumes it is intuitive to most students that you do not say the same thing in front of your parents that you might in front of your best friend. But having to consciously think of audience even in an oral presentation is a stretch, which makes the next step to audience in writing even more complex. 

I am also struck by the way that multimodal composition changes the three re-inforcement and feedback elements that Emig uses as support of her argument that writing is heuristic. When we start defining "writing" in a myriad of ways, how does this effect our definition of learning (and vice versa). Finally, I am struck by Emig's final sentence in this article: "Yet I hope that the essay will start a crucial line of inquiry; for unless the losses to learners of not writing are compellingly described and substantiated by experimental and speculative research, writing itself as a central academic process may not long endure" (127). The notion that "writing" (however we might define that and for whatever purpose we think is best) is in fact an essential element of education and skill to possess for a variety of reasons is now possibly stronger than ever. Yet, precisely because of advances in technology and what we might (in a very basic way) think of as "secondary orality" produced by radio, television, videos, soundclips, etc., the definition of and the process of "writing" is now incredibly murky. Is creating a persuasive "text" through visual images just as efficacious in learning as traditional writing?