Shaping at the Point of Utterance Rather than Afterwards

According to James Britton, too much emphasis is being placed currently on revision. In his essay, "Shaping at the Point of Utterance," Britton notes that (1) concentrating on the reader in teaching writing can disturb the writer's ability to formulate what he or she wants to say; (2) the essence of the writing process is not writing something to be cleaned up later, but rather creating connections between ideas; (3) a precise and explicit mastery of the rules of writing can obstruct effective writing; and (4) writing develops in a complex relationship to speech and not by a process of differentiating between spoken and written discourse. This information conflicts directly with some of the basic principles that underly many composition texts and teaching models. Britton also states that the basic force of writing comes less from the effort to persuade a reader and more from the effort to articulate the writer's experience. This suggests the great value in writing instruction of using very frequent short writings, emphasizing validation through the writer's experiential knowledge, and staying aware of the close relationships between writing and speaking and between writing and learning. (HOD)