Progression of Writing Development

I, You, and It by James Moffett

            Moffett's progression of rhetoric development was logical and easy to follow. (Although his vocabulary was no less specific, his writing style was much easier for me to follow and understand than Britton's article.) 

A Summary for Myself           

            For my own reference, he mentioned several, related progressions:  from inner verbalization to formal writing, thinking to publishing, well-known audience to an unknown audience, and concrete matter to abstract ideas. I found it helpful to draw a diagram of the interrelatedness of these progressions. This is an adaptation of my own linear diagram.

            Not all of these progressions were so neatly broken into 4 categories, yet the idea of progression (usually one stage building on the previous one) remains.

Thinking Over the Progression

            Now to choose one to elaborate on. I like the progression from concrete (what is happening) to abstract (a generalization of what happens). How do I develop this with my students in writing? My experience has been with the Excellence in Writing curriculum which follows a writing progression with my students. We begin with outlining simple paragraphs, then narrative writing, report writing, and finally, persuasive essay style writing, which is saved for the older elementary grades. I should also note that we usually begin by reading and highlighting main points of someone else's good writing in an attempt to practice by reproduce the organization of ideas in that writing in a student's own words. This blog is not to analyze that curriculum but to highlight my primary experience in teaching writing.

            I started to create a list of different styles of writing for different stages, but as I elaborated it seemed that different styles can also be adapted to different levels of observation and audience. So I will explore that.

            A descriptive piece can have students look at a real object in the classroom and record as many descriptive words as they can from the five senses. This would seem a very simple and beginning style of writing. To progress, students could recall an object or person they know well, who is not present, and describe that person or object. To progress with that topic, students could describe less physical characteristics of a person or animal and attempt to recreate the character or emotion of that person or animal. Another venue would be for the students to describe a nonexistant person or animal i.e. the best fireman, the alien librarian, the typical cashier. Thus the same style of writing can progress in difficulty.

            My students have often practiced letter writing. I can see how this style of writing can progress in difficulty. Beginning with a simple letter to mom or dad about what the student has done in class that year (or that day) in the earlier grades, students could eventually write a letter to the principal to persuade them to allow specical dress on Fridays (our school had uniforms) or reduce homework. Letter writing can include several types of writing and vary in explicitness based on the receiver of the letter.

            These are just two examples of writing assignments varied based on progression of learning writing, inspired by Moffett's article. I suppose some genres of writing, such as the essay, can begin at a simpler stage but require some previous experience of more basic types of writing (and development in understanding) before beginning.