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This is to certify that the
thesis entitled
The Interests and Concerns of
Adolescents, Grades Seven Through Twelve,
as Expressed

in Their Written Composition
presented by

Susan Jane Koch

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

Ph . D . degree in _Engl:l_sh_'

DMe September 30, 1976

07339 J

 

 

ABSTRACT
THE INTERESTS AND CONCERNS OF ADOLESCENTS, GRADES

SEVEN THROUGH TWELVE, AS EXPRESSED IN THEIR
WRITTEN COMPOSITION

by

Susan Jane Koch

The purpose of this study was to investigate the writing
interests and concerns of secondary school students according to
both the topics they chose and the audiences to whom they addressed
their writing. To elicit student writing which called for a con-
scious choice of an audience and which allowed for a wide range of
possible subjects, a letter format was developed. Students partici-
pating in the study were given a list of possible audiences, ranging
from personal and known audiences to impersonal, unknown, and imagin-
ative audiences; in addition, they were given a list of topics rang-
ing from personal feelings and experiences to abstract, imaginative,
and issue-oriented subjects. Students were asked to write a letter
to an audience taken from the first list about a subject taken from
the second list.

Two sets of categories were developed from the writings of the
students, providing a two—dimensional view of each piece of writing.

1

Susan Jane Koch

The first set, Audience, includes seven categories: Self, Family,

 

Peers, Known Adults, Public Figures, Imaginary_Being, and Other.

 

 

 

The second set, Subject, includes eight categories: Personal Feel-

ings; Past Personal Experience; Recent Personal Experience; Future

 

 

Personal Experience; Goals; Ideas, Opinions, Theories; Imaginary

 

Situations; and Other. The cross tabulation of audience and subject

 

by grade and by sex reveals an almost total dominance in the girls'

selections of writing to Peers about either Personal Experience or

 

Personal Feelings. The only exception is in twelfth grade where

 

girls write to Family about Personal Feelings. The top two cross-

 

tabulated subject-audience categories (with the exception of seventh
grade) account for 32% to 45% of girls‘ total writings, emphasizing
the dominance of those particular categories.

Boys' writing reveals much more diversity in choices of sub-
ject and audience than does the girls'. Though the expression of

Personal Feelings is one of the top two choices at every grade level

 

for the boys, the percentages of letters written about feelings are
much lower than the same topics for girls; in addition,“the audi-

ences to whom boys express Personal Feelings are much more diverse,

 

including Public Figures and Known Adults, as well as Peers. In

 

 

addition, the top cross-tabulated choices show a greater variety

of kinds of writing including letters to Imaginary Beings about

 

Susan Jane Koch

Imaginary Situations, and letters to Known Adults and Public

 

 

Figures about Ideas, Opinions, and Theories, none of which appear
in the girls' top choices.
A second chapter focusing on the letters written by the
students explores ways in which language functions for the writer
to describe, define, and understand experience. In this chapter,
entire letters are reproduced which present a picture of adoles-
cents under various sub-topics: Adolescents and Feelings, Adoles-
cents and Experiences, Adolescents and Ideas, Adolescents and
Imagination, and Adolescents and "The Child I May Have Someday.“
The discussion of the letters centers on the complexity and diver-
sity of the adolescent world and the ways in which adolescents use
their writing to understand and cope with that world. In addition,
the various voices that adolescents use and the flexibility of their
language according to their audience and the purpose of the composi-
tion is described.
On the basis of this study, several conclusions were drawn:

1. Boys appear to be interested in writing to a much more di-
verse audience about a much wider variety of subjects than girls.

2. Both boys and girls show interest in writing about how they
feel, and appear to use writing to deal with experience and feelings

as a means of understanding them better.

Susan Jane Koch

3. Both boys and girls are interested in addressing their
writings with peers; in sharing experiences, ideas, and feelings
with their friends through the written medium.

4. While students show interest in writing to friends, they
also write to many other types of audiences. The audience they
choose to write to, as well as the subject chosen, affects the
voice, tone, and style of the letter.

5° Most important, this study does not support the notion
that there is a movement from personal and concrete writing to
impersonal and abstract writing as students mature. Students at
all grade levels show an interest in writing about a variety of
topics that include both the personal and the impersonal, the

concrete and the abstract.

THE INTERESTS AND CONCERNS OF ADOLESCENTS, GRADES
SEVEN THROUGH TWELVE, AS EXPRESSED IN THEIR

WRITTEN COMPOSITION

by

Susan Jane Koch

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of English

l976

@ Copyright by
SUSAN JANE KOCH

l976

1'1

© Copyright by
SUSAN JANE KOCH

1976

ii

For Emily

iii

 

.o-
n

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to thank the teachers whose students participated in
this study for their cooperation and willingness to share their
classes, and most especially the students without whose generosity
and enthusiasm the project could not have been done.

I also wish to thank members of my Committee--Russel Nye,
Jay B. Ludwig, and James Stalker--for reading my dissertation and
for their valuable and pertinent suggestions and comments. I am
most grateful to Stephen Judy for his guidance in the selection and
the development of the project and for his support throughout my

graduate study.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
LIST OF TABLES ....................... vi
INTRODUCTION ........................ 1
Chapter
I. A REVIEW OF RESEARCH IN STUDENT WRITING INTERESTS . . 3
II. THEORIES OF DISCOURSE: AN OVERVIEW ......... 38
III. PURPOSE AND DEVELOPMENT OF RESEARCH PROJECT ..... 79
Iv. DESCRIPTION OF CATEGORIES AND GENERAL FINDINGS. . . . 105
v. A PORTRAIT OF ADOLESCENCE .............. l47
v1. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS ............. 214
ENDNOTES .......................... 225
APPENDIX .......................... 233
BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................ 245

LIST OF TABLES

Table Page
I. Girls' Audiences by Percentage ............ l28
II. Boys' Audiences by Percentage ............. 131

III. Combined Percentages of Letters to Family and Peers. . l35

IV. Combined Percentages of Letters to Known Adults

and Public Figures ................. l35
V. Girlsl Subjects by Percentage ............. 137
VI. Boys' Subjects by Percentage ............. 139

VII. Two Top Choices of Cross-Tabulated Audience and
Subject by Grade and Sex . . . . . .. ........ l43

vi

INTRODUCTION

Recently the public and the press have voiced a great deal of
interest and concern--and it is a recurring concern--about an apparent
decline in students' writing abilities. The response to this concern
has been the development of a plethora of programs and suggestions for
how to improve students' writing, most of them centering on a return
to the "basics," which is usually described as a return to the teaching
Of grammar and expository writing. Whether or not there is a decline
in writing abilities is certainly questionable as can be seen by the
conflicting evidence and opinion on the subject.1 There is little dis-
agreement, however, about the desire to help students improve their
writing ability.

A major problem with much of the advice and methodology ad-
vanced on the teaching of writing to young people is that it doesn't
take young people themselves into consideration. Programs are too
frequently based on speculative or highly theoretical views of what
,young people are like, how writing shgglg_function for them, how they
ought to write. Students, however, remain oblivious to these "shoulds"
Land "Oughts," and thus programs developed with good intentions often

Iniss the mark.2 In order to help students grow in their writing

1

ability, however, we need to know much more about what students want
and nggd_to write about, and we need ways to describe the writing
that they do.

The purpose of this dissertation is to look at what we g9_
know about students' writing, to look at theories of discourse that
will help us more accurately and fully describe students' writings,
and to look at a large number of writings written by students in
grades seven through twelve as a way of developing additional infor-
mation about the writing interests and concerns of young people.
Chapter I, then, is a review of research on student writing interests
and writing done in school. Chapter 11 reviews theories of discourse
helpful in describing what students write about at various ages and
stages of development. Chapter III describes the methodology for my
own investigation of the writing of students in grades seven through
twelve. Chapter IV presents general findings about the nature of
student writing, discusses writing interests at various age levels,
and describes the differing concerns of males and females. Chapter V
is an analysis of individual student writings showing the variety of
interests and concerns students reveal in their personal writing. The
final Chapter discusses implications for the teaching of writing that

grow out of this research.

CHAPTER I

A REVIEW OF THE RESEARCH IN STUDENT WRITING INTERESTS

The notion that it is important to know something about stu-
dent writing interests in order to better teach writing is not a new
one. For over fifty years, researchers have sought to discover the
interests of students in writing, and to learn how writing functions
for students.

In 19l3, James H. Harris reported the findings of a study he
conducted about the interests of 520 students in seventh and eighth
grades in the Minneapolis public schools. The purpose for the study,
"An Inquiry into the Compositional Interests of Pupils in the Seventh

and Eighth Grades," was

to determine, if possible, the dominating lines of interest
of the child with reference to the material for composition.
It has long been my contention that the material for the
compositional purposes should be sought in the interests,
activities, and needs of the child, and that if we could
determine at any given stage what the dominating interests
of the child are, we could easily determine the line of his
expressional interests; that the material for compositional
wprk has been too much imposed from without and too little
invoked from within; that it has been determined by the con-
venience and views of the teacher, rather than the interests
and activities of the child; that it has been a forced and

artificial process rather than a natural and spontaneous
process.1

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Harris wanted to discover both the topics students were inter-
ested in writing about and the mode of discourse students preferred.
For the former, he developed a list of topics related to school
studies and school activities and actual and imaginary experiences of
the Child. The children were given eleven tOpics: "your study of
history,“ "your study of geography,“ "your study of physiology and
hygiene," "your study of civil government, “ "the life of some great
man or woman,“ “your work in manual training or cookery," "the liter-
ature you are reading,“ "some experience you have actually had," "some
experience another person or an animal has actually had,“ "some exper-
ience you imagine yourself having," "some experience you imagine some
other person or animal having." The students indicated their first,
second, and third choices, and wrote a composition on their favorite
topic.

To discover student preferences for types of composition--
narrative, descriptive, explanatory, and reasoning--Harris had students
do two things: first, he had them choose their favorite mode by giving
them a list of the four modes along with four examples of tOpics in
each one; second, he gave them the list of modes without tOpics and
asked them to state their preferences.

Harris described his results in the following way:

In a general way and by way of summary, it may be stated
that so far as types of composition are concerned, the

order of preference in the matter of types was as fol-
lows: (l) narrative; (2) descriptive; (3) reasoning;
(4) explanatory. The demonstration that narrative and
descriptive topics are largely preferred was conclusive.
On the basis of correlations and experiences, biography,
history, and manual training and cookery proved, in the
order named, the decisively preferred sources for com-

positional material.2
IrI aiddition, Harris discovered that “with boys, actual personal exper-
ience ranks higher than imaginative personal experience, while with
91‘ r‘ls the reverse is true-«suggestive perhaps of the fact that the
imaginative element is somewhat stronger in girls than in boys."3
Physiology and hygiene, geography, and literature rank low for both
boys and girls.

The major weakness in the Harris report is that he does not
describe the content or the form of the essays in any detail. Indeed,
lt:is difficult to determine if he took the compositions themselves
into consideration when doing his classifications. He seems to have
relied heavily on what students stated or listed as their preferences
rather than using what they actually wrote as a means of determining
preferences. It is not clear whether he relied on student essays or
simply lists of preferences to describe the content of the students'
choices of topic. For example, it is conceivable that a story about
George Washington might have been either a biography 95 an imaginative
projection into the experience of another person. The categories

might, indeed, have been overlapping in some cases, and-only a Close

 

4 _ .H__.—__4-—1. — -—4

 

analysis of the students' writing would make it clear how the student
developed the topic. Finally, there is no effort made to explain or
describe whether or not the writing done by students was motivated.
That the students wrote on a particular topic does not necessarily

mean that they cared about it, and only an analysis of content would

make that clear.

Like Harris, J. H. Coleman had an underlying assumption that

irrteerest is necessary to learning:

In the literature of education, interest has become
synonymous with concentrated attention, with persistency,
‘with an attitude which develops rapid learning. Interest
provides zest and drive. It is an aid to the continuity
of effort which is needed for the successful conclusion
of a learning activity. It is satisfying to the learner.
It is dynamic. Every unpreCedented achievement in science,
invention, or art bears witness to the unusual amount of
labor and effort which interest engenders.4

If! a study conducted in l93l, Coleman wanted to answer the following
Cluestions: "What topics do pupils prefer to write about? What types
(If discourse do they like? Are there sex differences in these inter-
ests? If so, what are they? DO interests tend to vary among differ-
ent grade groups? If so, what are the variations?"5

Coleman used two methods to determine students' interests. In
the first method, students were asked--in a typical classroom situa-
tion—-tO write a composition on a topic of their own choosing. In the

second method, students were asked to write three compositions, one

from each of three different litts of topics. They were also asked to
rank the titles according to which they liked most, which they liked
least, and which they liked next least. The titlg§_of students' com-
positions, in both the first and the second methods, were categorized
according to thirty-six broad areas of interest. The most popular
topics for all grade levels were Travel, Adventure, Outdoor Activities,
and Personal Experience.

As a part of his study, Coleman had students write why they
chose their topic. He categorized their responses into sixteen classes
of reasons. Two reasons were given by over half of the students for
choosing the topics. The most frequent was that students liked the
topic they wrote about, and the second most frequent was that the stu-
dent had special knowledge about the topics. The other three most com-
mon reasons given were that the student expected to see or do the thing
he wrote about, that he liked to write about the subject he chose (as
oDposed to liking the topic itself), and that he thought he coufld write
the best composition on the topic he chose.

In the final part of his study, Coleman investigated the modes
0f discourse students prefer. To do this, he gave 4,660 students ques-
tionnaires in which they were to mark four out of ten items on dis-
course. The results for all grades showed the following preferences:
I) lfidendly Letter, 2) Argument,. 3) Description, 4) Narration.

The four dislikes comon to all grades were (1) Poetry, (2) Business

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Letter, (3) Editorial Essay, (4) Exposition. In addition, Coleman's
study showed an increasing preference for debate brief and argument as
students advanced in grades. When comparing sex differences he found
that exposition was preferred more by boys than girls, while the
friendly letter and poetry were preferred more by girls.

Like the Harris study, the Coleman study provides limited in-
fOrmation about student writing, because it does not look at the Egg;
tent of the compositions that students wrote, but merely at the titles,
in order to determine interest in writing topics. In addition, like
Harris' study, students' preferences about discourse mode were sought
only through the questionnaire; Coleman did not use the essays the
students wrote to see what forms of discourse students actually used,
but had them mark preferences. Nor did Coleman examine the content to
determine intensity of interest or involvement in the topic. Braddock,
Lloyd-Jones, and Schoer (in Research in Written Composition) add
another problem:

distinct and mutually exclusive Classifications were not
developed, suggesting that it was often arbitrary in just
what Classification of interest a composition was placed.
For instance, "war“ was not one of the categories used.
Of those used, under which would a war story be placed--
“Adventure," "Contemporaneous Famous People," "Historic

Events, Sites, or Characters," "Outdoor Activities,"
“People," “Sympathy," or "Social Problems"?6

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Again, a more detailed discussion of content with an emphasis on
student interests and concerns rather than on categories would have
shed more light on what students care about and what to write about.
Though Coleman‘s analysis of the data does not provide as
much information about student interests as one would like, he did
at least have students write compositions as a part of his research.
A study done by Harold L. Herber, “A Comparison of the Composition
Interests of Six Hundred Sixty Students in Grade Eight through Twelve,"
done twenty-six years after the Coleman study must be viewed with some
skepticism because of his reliance on the questionnaire to determine
student interests in topics for composition.
The questions Herber was seeking to answer are almost identical
to the ones Coleman asked:

l. What are the topics in which boys and girls of grades
8-l2 are the most interested?

2. Is there a difference of interest in topics between
the grades.

3. Is there a difference of interest in topics between
the sexes in each grade?

4. Is there a difference Of interest in topics between
the sexes in all grades?

5. What are the topics in which boys and girls of grades
8-l2 are the least interested?7

"RIanswer these questions Herber prepared an Objective inventory of

three hundred eighty three composition topics, “each requiring an

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interest reaction from the student. . . . He marked the 'VI' column
for those topics on which he would be very interested writing were
they assigned to him. He marked the 'OK' column if moderately inter-
ested and the 'N‘ column if not at all interested."8 The inventory
was divided into nine major categories: Personal Interests, Daily
Responsibilities, Civic Interests and Historical Facts, Friends and
Leaders, Recreational Interests, Social Behavior, Vocational Interests,
Imagination, and Social Interests.
Herber's results showed no similarity between boys and girls
in terms of topics Of interest. The boys' choices in order of prefer-
ence were: Sports, Automobiles, Hunting, Driving a Car (under the
Social Behavior category), Driving an Auto (under the Personal Inter-
ests category), Fishing, Driving Autos (under the Vocational Interests
category), Money, Wild Animals, and Adventure. The girls' Choices in
order of preference were: Selecting Right Clothes, Juvenile Delin-
quency, Dancing, Listening to Popular Music, “After High School,What?,"
Clothes, Dates, High School Life, Good School Spirit, My Favorite
Singer.9
Herber's study, too, is flawed by the use of questionnaires and
surveys as a means of determining what students §Qy_they like to do as
0Pposed to what they actually do. Herber did include this reminder in

his instructions to the students: "Remember, this is to determine if

 

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you are interested in WRITING a composition on these topics. It is
possible that you might be interested in the topic but not so as to
write a composition about it. In that case, let the desirability for

writing govern your choice.“10

Even with this admonition, however,
students might very well have been making decisions solely in terms
of personal enjoyment, not writing satisfaction. People enjoy driving
cars, fishing, selecting the right Clothes, and listening to popular
music, bUt are these topics they chose to write about as well? The
Herber study does not say. Most important, Herber's study does not
tell one anything about students' actual composition--what concerns
and interests become important to students when they put pen to paper.
Another study of students' interests using the questionnaire
should be acknowledged in passing, mostly for its negative qualities
rather than its helpfulness in describing student writing. In a study
reported in l946 (“Student Preferences in Written-Composition Assign-
ments in the Junior High School"), Catherine B. J. McDonald describes
a survey done with 250 junior high school students. The purpose of
the study was to find out the writing assignments students preferred,
With the choices given as: letter-writing, outlining, writing a play,
writing a paragraph, writing a report, and writing a news article.
Thelve topics were chosen to accompany each of the above assignment

tiypes.or discourse forms. Though McDonald was trying to determine

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preferred assignment type or form, she found rather that the topics
or subjects listed with the assignment types "influenced the pupil's

11 Her other conclusions

preference more than the type of writing."
were that topics "dealing with personal experience or topics Of per-
sonal interest rated highest,“ that "items with high interest, such

as hobbies, aviation, radio, pioneering, and camping rated high with
these adolescent students,“ and that “friendly letters were preferred
over other kinds of letters."12

An obvious problem with McDonald's study is that, once again,
the students didn't actually produce any writing. In addition, the
possibilities she offered, both in terms Of forms of writing and in
terms of subjects, were quite limited. Finally, the complexity of her
survey--offering twelve topics in each of six discourse forms--makes
it difficult to assess the variables which underlie student choices.

A few studies Of students' composition interests look more
directly at the content of student writing and are therefore more
helpful and revealing of students' interests and concerns. In a 1971
study, "A Study of the Written Composition Interests of Senior High
School Students," James Baird Bell collected 1502 compositions from
students in grades l0, ll, and 12. The students wrote a composition

'hitheir regular English class “under conditions designed to encourage

the free expression of writing interests. It was assumed that

l3

compositions written by students under these conditions would best
reveal their writing interests."13

Bell developed nineteen categories for classification Of
writing interests and used two independent judges to verify his
analyses. His description of his results included a general descrip-
tion of each category, a list of sub-tOpics related to each category,
a representative sample of students' ideas, and illustrative quota-
tions from student compositions.

The first nine of the nineteen categories included eighty-
eight percent of the responses: Education, Our Society, Life, Sports,
Home, Our World, People, Experiences, and Friendship. The common in-
terest of boys and girls was in Education, Our Society, Life, Our
World, and Experiences. The boys showed a significantly higher inter-
est in Sports, while the girls showed more interest in Home, People,
and Friendship. In addition, "students in the matriculation program
revealed a stronger interest in the tOpic 'Our World' and a wider
range of writing interests than that revealed by students in the non-
matriculation program.“14 The least favorite topics were Animals,
Music, Hobbies, Travel, Space, and Literature. Bell provides this
general summary of the student writings:

The students, in general, were interested in writing

about conditions that they perceived as affecting their
lives. The school's program, society's values, the human

‘5

 

l4

condition, and the generation gap served as sources for
many compositions that were usually critical. Within
the framework of each topic, students expressed a wide
range of ideas at different levels of SOphistication.15

The Bell study is more helpful and probably more accurate in
its description of student writing interests than many studies, since
it uses students' writing to establish categories and to classify
writings. He does not set up, g_prjggj, a set of writing assignments;
nor does he rely on checklists to determine interest.

Three studies done on the elementary level are significant in
that they look closely at student writing to learn about the life of
the child, and about the child's concerns as revealed in writing.

They also look at writing which is personal and/or spontaneous, rather
than public discourse.

Marnie E. Miller did an exploratory study with creative writing
of students in grades one through six to see what children revealed
about themselves in their writing. Miller found that "children reveal
information about themselves in a wide range of aspects" and "that al-
most every sample of writing considered contained at least one inter-
esting piece of knowledge about that child, his problems, experiences,
or attitudes."16 In the study of stories of children, Miller found
that children often reveal information about themselves even when they

are not aware that that is happening. “Sometimes the use of other

characters seems to indicate that one of them represents the writer,"

l5

and “the conversation of the characters and the actions and reactions
expressed seem in reality to be those of the child and his associ-
ates."17
Miller also looked at samples of free writing and found sixty-
four different categories of information which children reveal about
themselves; she grouped these into six broad areas: 1) Self impres-
sions--concerns about “appearance, behavior, capabilities, self-
estimation, and inadequacies;“ 2) Home and family--information about
“home, family background, relations between parents, attitudes toward
parents and siblings, and family problems“; 3) Friends and social re-
lations-~attitudes about “relations and problems with friends and
their attitudes toward others, including adults“; 4) School and citi-
zenship--"favorable and unfavorable attitudes toward school, teachers,
and schoolwork . . . including problems, fears, and a child's part in
citizenship“; 5) Interests and experienceS--"a vast area from interest
in wiggling your ears to the sublimity of religion and from experienc-
ing a romp in the snow to voyaging in imagination to the vast reaches
of space“; 6) Emotions and problems-~anger, boredom, and fear; "poetic
thoughts and wondering which were surprising for people so young.
Problems were disclosed which ranged from the rather insignificant in-
cident to attitudes and outlooks which might be cause for serious con-

cern for the emotional health of the child."18

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The Miller study is impressive in its emphasis on the relation-
ship between the inner life of the child--the child's thoughts, feel-
ings, ideas, relationships--and the child's writing. It goes beyond
a mere cataloguing of topics and categorizing of titles to a concern
for writer-as-person. The importance of writing for personal growth
is strongly implied. Miller concludes that writing can be used to pro-
mote more “positive values of attitude and understanding among children"
and to develop self-confidence with Children's realization that "their
ideas could be considered important and appreciated."19

Another study showing concern for the child's inner life was
done by Richard D. Biberstine. He conducted a study of compositions
written by 352 fourth graders to determine whether children write about
their problems. Students wrote in response to a paragraph that asked
them to imagine that they had a magic power to Change what they wanted
to about the “world and the things that affect our lives." Students
wrote a story telling how they would change their lives. Out of 352
papers 18.7% of “the pupils did not express any problems that would
fit the definition accepted for this analysis“ (i.e., "situations
pupils wanted to change or deficiencies they wanted to overcome").

“The remaining 288 papers (81.3%) mentioned a total Of 498 problems

for an average of l.73 per paper."20

17

The problems discussed in the papers were divided into five
general areas: 1) School problems accounted for 222 (or 43.34%) of
total problems expressed. Eighty-nine pupils wanted to get rid of
school entirely; many students would change it into something else,
or change themselves in order to be more successful in school. 2)

One hundred and eighty-three (35.76%) of the problems expressed were
world problems with special emphasis on stopping wars and destroying
weapons; other problems related to starvation, poverty, sickness, and
death and the problem of crime in the United States. 3) Sixty prob-
lems (11.72%) mentioned were personal problems which emphasized a de-
sire to get rid of the Opposite sex and such concerns as having their
appearances changed or their situations changed so that peOple would
like them. 4) Home problems were mentioned thirty-four times (6.64%);
these expressed “the desire to Change their parents or home in some
way that would indicate a deep dissatisfaction“; there were also ex-
pressions of sibling animosity or desires to get rid of some member

of the family. 5) Thirteen problems were categorized in a miscel-
laneous category and were seen as problems of "lesser importance such
as getting rid of dognappers, taxes, L.B.J., and other 'problems' that
seem to be accepted from external sources."21

It must be noted--and Biberstine does--that the paragraph used

to elicit the writing might have led the children to write more about

   

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desired changes than would normally be the case. The writing problem
is set up as one in which students concentrate on what makes them un-
happy, what they don't like about the world. Whether students would
choose the same kind of topics to write about under different circum-
stances cannot be determined on the basis of Biberstine's study.
Nonetheless, given the problem orientation of the writing project,

it is important and significant to note what the children actually
perceive as problems and what they describe as their concerns.

A 1971 study by Ruth Laura Varon, "Examination of the Content
of Unsolicited Compositions Written by Upper Elementary School Children
for their Teacher's Eyes Alone" is important in that it examines "inti-
mate, spontaneously written" compositions, "handed privately to their
teacher, the investigator."22 Varon looked at 794 compositions by
fifth and sixth graders to answer the questions: “(1) What is the
major theme? (2) Who, if anyone, is implicated in the major theme?"

In examining the compositions, Varon derived five major categories
which form the basic structure of the classification system: Human,
Material Goods, Nature, Abstract Concepts, and Activities. In addition
to classifying themes, Varon searched for references to persons used

in conjunction with the major theme. The human referents category in-

cluded: Self, Familial Persons, Extra-Familial Persons, World Persons,

Persons Generally, Fanciful Persons, and No Persons.

19

Varon found that “the greatest frequency of use of a major
category was the Abstract Concepts category." The order of the others
was: Nature, Activities, Material Goods, and Human. The most frequent
human referent in conjunction with the Abstract Concepts category was

Persons Generally. The order of others used with this category was:

 

Self, Extra-Familial, World, Familial, Fanciful, and NO Persons.

Some of Varon's general conclusions about upper elementary
school writing which is spontaneous and free from restriction are that
children respond in matters of content

(1) with a common interest in particular themes; (2) by
relating the major themes tr persons rather than no per-
sons; (3) by writing more frequently of the intangibles
(abstract concepts) of live [Sic] (love, hate, etc.)
than of nature, activities, material goods, and human
beings; and (4) by appearing to avoid descriptions which
involve characteristics such as the physical or racial,
but, rather, show interest in the inner core of man.23

Varon's study is unique in its attention to the persons impor-
tant to the child's writing developed concomitantly with the themes
used in the writing. The writing is thus viewed in a multi-dimensional
way. The study is also a useful addition to research in Children's
writing in that it looks at writing that is informal, personal, and
spontaneous. Many writing tasks established by researchers grow out

of their own assumptions about what children “should" write. In order

to understand more about what children write, it is helpful to have

20

writing that is as natural as possible, topics that are self-selected,
with few expectations imposed by the teacher or researcher.

Another study--an informal one--of spontaneous, personal writing
was done by Daniel Dyer with 2978 writings done by his seventh grade

24

students. Dyer collected writings done on free-writing days in his

English class for a period of two years (1972-73, 1973-74). Dyer allowed
his students to write on any tOpic they pleased and in any genre they
wished. Their writing was privileged; he assured them that no one else
would see it unless they wanted it to be seen. Although the writing could
be private, to be shared only with the teacher, time was allowed at the
end Of the class period for students who wished to share their writing to
do so. In addition, the assignments were not graded (he wrote back com-
ments about what he felt the writer was trying to accomplish), and students
did not need to be concerned about spelling, mechanics, or form. In short,
students had freedom in terms of topic, form, and selection of audience and
were free from restraints and fears about the effects of errors.

Dyer classified the writings in six categories: Personal Ex-
.pgriengg,(East,hPresent, and Future), Letter to the Teacher, Fiction,
£93331, m, and Miscellaneous. The Recent Personal Experience

category accounted for the largest percentage of writings done: 35% (Past

Personal Experience accounted for 7%-and’Future, 3%). The personal exper-

 

ience writings “were simply descriptions of the writer's recent, past, or

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future (planned) experiences. Sometimes the writing was of the mind-
less diary variety, tedious catalogs of routine activities in which
the writers made no attempt to see meaning; but other times I read of
experiences I knew had altered the writer in some way."25 Dyer him-
self wrote with his students and often shared his writings which were
usually about his childhood. Some of his students responded by writ-
ing of their own memories from their pasts.

The Letter to the Teacher category comprised 16% of the total

 

writings, with 25% of those being girls' writings and 5% boys'2 Dyer
describes these as

writings for which I_was clearly the audience, so, al-

though the content may have been personal experience

(and almost always was), I classified the writing in

the letter category if I felt the writer's intent was

to share something personal with me and with no one
else.26

This category involved students in sharing all kinds of problems and
concerns with Dyer; it seemed to provide an outlet for young peOple
to deal with problems that couldn't be dealt with in other ways.
Students informed Dyer of their "most recent illegal activities" and
of problems they were having with their friends and families. Some-
times students would come from intense experiences and use the class
time to vent anger and frustration.
The Fiction category accounted for 28% of the total number of

Turitings done. “The writings of this group were easily the most varied

22

crf them all-~ranging from attacks on other kids in the class thinly
clisguised as fairy tales . . . to serious creative attempts by stu-
dents who one day hoped to become serious writers." Most of the
students who wrote fiction would take many weeks to finish their
efforts "often building to weekly climaxes in a manner reminiscent
(If the old Saturday morning serials, but an occasional kid managed

to turn out a complete and thoughtful work in one forty-five minute

period.“27

The Poetry category accounted for 3% of the total writings.

Dyer describes the poetry in the following way:

Most of the poetry I received was awful stuff, bordering
on doggerel or embarrasingly simple-minded quasi—poetic
constructions . . . . Somewhere these kids had learned
that poems are sing-songy jingles, that pretzled word
order, spastic rhythm, and senselessness are all the
object but dutiful servants of the Master, the sine_
gggflngn of all poetry: Rhyme.

Since these kids had flawed conceptions of poetry,
they were able to produce only artless, contorted

compositions, that brought no joy to the writers--
nor to the listeners.28

Only 2% of the writings done in Dyer's class were Exposition:

An examination Of curriculum guides would convince
mast people that English teachers spend more time
teaching "expository" writing than any other type;
yet, these youngsters chose to write very few ex-
pository compositions. An occasional kid might
have a sermon to preach . . . . But most students
simply did not engoy exposition enough to write
very much of it.2

23

The Miscellaneous category accounted for 6% of the writings.
These writings "ranged from unclassifiable 'literary experiments,‘ to
i'llegible scrawls, to pieces that bordered on other categories . . . P30

Dyer underscores what he perceives to be the more notable fea-
tures of the data: 1) In both years the boys wrote a much higher per-
<:entage of fiction than the girls did, while the girls' writings were
concentrated in Personal Experience and Lettgr_categories. Dyer con-
cludes that the girls "were much more concerned with reality.(they
didn't see fiction as a way of confronting reality) and with the
present“ than the boys were. 2) "Writings about :ggent_personal ex-
perience far surpassed the others, indicating mnot just the concern
with the present so typical of young adolescents but also an ease with
which most students ggn_write about themselves and their activities."
3) Dyer accounts for the high percentage of letters from girls (“as
high as 30% of all their writings" in one year) to their reaching
puberty prior to the boys. He suggests that the girls "used their
writing as therapy, as a way to cope with the problems brought about
by the bewildering rush of the new feelings and concerns of approach-
ing womanhood.“ 4) “Except for the Letters category, the differences
between boys and girl s--as writers--were not so acute as I might have
imagined prior to the accumulation of the data. Their tastes in

genre were nearly identical.“31

 

 

.P

 

24

The importance of Daniel Dyer's research has to do, in great
part, with the naturalness Of the situation in which the data were
C(Jllected. Students were not performing for a researcher or partici-
pating in an artificial situation. Dyer collected writings which
were composed in a truly free atmosphere, an atmosphere of trust in
\Mthh students were able to develop their thoughts, their ideas, and
their relationships with other students and with the teacher.

The kinds of private writings Dyer received attest to the fact
that the students felt secure in sharing very private matters. In ad-
dition, the act of writing was a unique way of sharing these experi-
ences and concerns, quite unlike talking about them. Dyer explains
that when students shared a problem, he would give them the opportun-
ity to discuss it by writing a note at the top of the paper: "I'll
be glad to talk to you about this if you want to stop by sometime,"
but, he reports, “very few did. They preferred the relative anonymity
and impersonality of a private correspondence with me."32

One of the great strengths of Dyer's research is that it
focuses on students, students' concerns, and students' writing. His
cmservations of individual students augments his descriptions of his
data. In addition to describing the general categories of composi-

tions, Dyer writes about the student who never turns any homework in,

but'who enjoys the safety and freedom of Friday writing and who knows

,..u
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25

he: can entertain his friends with his writing; he talks about the boy
wfio doesn't do anything fOr several weeks and then becomes involved in
wr~iting a long and sensitive war story; he writes about the student
WH10 is never able to share his writing or his past experience with
(Ither students, but weaves a long narrative over a period of weeks
about growing up in a remote hill region. Dyer's work is important,
then, in that it focuses on the relationship between the writer and
his writing. Dyer's discussion of writing is not done in an attempt
to classify and categorize students in an abstract or superficial way,
but he looks beneath the surface to see what the person is experienc-
ing and what he wants to communicate of that experience to other
peOple.

Dyer's study is significant for its analysis of students' per-
sonal and free writing. Another much more formal and extensive study
completed recently looks at writing done by students fulfilling re-
quirements in sghggl_subjects. The Development of Writing Abilities
.fifl;l§) authored by James Britton, Tony Burgess, Nancy Martin, Alex
lkLeod, and Harold Rosen, reports the findings of a study conducted
in England from 1965 to 1972 (from the date the proposal was completed
until information was fed into the computers). The original proposal
for the study included the aim ''to undertake a developmental study of

the processes by which the written language Of young children becomes

26

differentiated during the years eleven to eighteen, into kinds of
written discourse appropriate to different purposes—-in particular,
a study of the dynamic relationship within these kinds of discourse,
of personal to impersonal uses of the written language . . . ."33
The method for the research into the development of students'
writing was comprised of two parts. The first part of the project
was theoretical and involved setting up "hypothetical categories of
written discourse appropriate to the general needs of the individual
in our society.“ In order to do this, the team looked both at tradi-
tional categories in discourse and at the suggestions "arising from
recent work.“ The second part of the study applied the theory to
actual student writing; it involved “taking as wide a range as pos-
isble of written work by a representative sample of 500 boys and
girls aged eleven to eighteen,“ and investigating the stages at
which students acquire competence in the hypothetical categories
that the team set up, and investigating the developmental relation-
ships between the hypothetical categories.34
In order to understand Britton's research findings, it is
necessary to look first at the descriptions Of the hypothetical cate-

gories used in classifying writing. The research team developed two

sets of categories to describe student writing: a sense of audience

 

category and a function category. The sense of audience category

 

27

describes “the manner in which the writer expresses a relationship

with a reader in respect to his (the writer's) undertaking."35 The

 

 

five divisions of the audience category are (1) Self; (2) Teacher
(including child to trusted adult; pupil to teacher, general; pupil
to teacher, particular relationship; and pupil to examiner); (3)

Wider audience--known (including expert to known laymen, child to peer

 

group, and group member to working group); (4) Unknown audience

(writer to his readers or his public); (5) Additional categories (in-

 

cluding virtual named audience and no discernible audience).36

The second set of categories developed relates to the function
Of the writing. The team describes three major functions of written
composition which they place on a continuum. In the center of the

continuum is Expressive language, "language close to the self, reveal-

 

ing the speaker, verbalizing his consciousness, displaying his close
relationship with the reader. Possibly not highly explicit. Rela-

tively unstructured." Moving from Expressive to one extreme is Poetic

 

language. Eggtig_language is “a verbal construct, patterned verbaliza-
tion of the writer's feelings and ideas. This category is not re-
stricted to poems but would include such writings as a short story,

a play, a shaped autobiographical episode.“ At the other end of the

continuum is the Transactional function of language is "language to

 

get things done, i.e. it is concerned with an end outside itself. It

informs, persuades and instructs. ”37

28

In Britton's schema, the Transactional category is the most

 

highly developed and is broken down into a number of sub-categories.

The two major sub-categories are Informative and Conative. These are

 

broken down even further. Under Conative there are two functions

described: Regulative language is "language which lays down a course

 

of action to be followed, makes demands, issues instructions where
compliance is assumed, and makes recommendations which carry the

weight of authority or the force of the speaker's wishes." Persuasive

 

language does not assume compliance but attempts to “influence action,
behaviour, attitude by reason and argument or other strategy."38 The

other main sub-category under Transactional language is Informative,

 

 

which is broken down into seven functions:
RECORD: Eye-witness account or running commentary.

REPORT: The writer gives an account of a particular
series of events or the appearance of a particular
place (i.e. narrative and/or description).

GENERALIZED NARRATIVE OR DESCRIPTIVE INFORMATION:
The writer is tied to particular events and places
but he is detecting a pattern of repetition in them;
and he expresses this in generalized form.

ANALOGIC, LOW LEVEL OF GENERALIZATION: Genuine
generalizations but loosely related, i.e. the rela-
tionships are not perceived and/or not made explicit.

ANALOGIC: Generalizations related hierarchically
or logically by means of coherently presented
classificatory utterances.

29

ANALOGIC-TAUTOLOGIC (SPECULATIVE): Speculation about
generalizations; the open-ended consideration of ana-
logic possibilities.

TAUTOLOGIC: Hypotheses and deductions from them.
Theory backed by logical argumentation.39

On the basis of the theoretical descriptions of audience and
function categories, a team of three people classified the writings
Of the 500 students selected for the research project. The research
team collected a “pool of material to represent as widely as possible
the kind of writing work that goes on in schools--over the whole
secondary age range, over the whole ability range and across the sub-

40 One hundred and twenty-five students from

jects of the curriculum.“
each of four different grade levels and a total of 2122 pieces of
writing done for 21 different curriculum subjects were used for the
purpose of the study. Each script was examined independently by
three judges, one of whom was a member of the research team. Two of
three members of each examination had to agree on the category to
which a writing should be assigned in order for the writing to be
Classified. Verdicts were described according to fUnction and
audience, and were cross tabulated by sex, by type of school, by
year, and by curriculum subjects (English, history, geography, reli-
gious education, and science).

In looking at the relationship to the audience that students ex-

Pressed in their writings, it was found that the Teacher categories

30

dominated the writing that was collected. Most of the writing fell
into the teacher-as-examiner category, and the amount fOr this audience
increases throughout the four age levels, with Older students writing
the most for that audience. The second largest category is the
teacher-learner dialogue; there is a decline in the teacher-leraner
dialogue category with the increase in the teacher-as—examiner cate-
gory from the younger to the Older students. There is some evidence
of a movement toward a wider public audience with students in English,
in particular. But even with the increase in the public audience
categories with older students in English, over 75% of the scripts
are still in the teacher-learner and teacher-as-examiner categories.
In fifth year English, 10% of the scripts are in the public audience
category and 9% in the seventh year. The only other subjects in
which any writing is directed to a larger public are Religious Educa-
tion (5%) and Science (2%). History is the only subject which shows
any writing addressed to the self (17% in the seventh year); and
English and Religious Education are the only subjects which show much
writing directed toward a trusted adult (around 5%).41
In classifying writing according to function, the research

'team found that the greatest percentage of writing-~63.4% of all

Tvriting received--was Transactional, or writing to get things done.

 

Of that only 1.6% was Conative (or Persuasive/Regulative writing)

 

31

in the informative sub-category, Britton, et. a1. show the following

results:
Sub-categories %
Record 0.8
Report 12.1
Generalized narrative 5.7
Low-level analogic 14.7
Analogic 22.2
Speculative 2.4
Tautologic 1.7

They go on to analyze the findings:

The subdivisions within the informative function reflect
the scale of abstraction from recording to tautologic
‘theorizing. Here, while the pattern is fairly dispersed,
it is clear that the classificatory level predominates.
The greater part of the classificatory writing is what
we have called analogic--greater by about half as much
again as the amount of writing for the low-level analogic.
Both categories, though, involve the classification of
particulars under generalizations, and taking the totals
in the two categories together makes clear the predomin-
ance of this level of abstraction within the informative
writing in our sample. On the one hand, there is approx—
imately twice as much writing in these two categories as
in the three remaining levels of the abstractive scale
below it. On the other, and in some ways more surpris-
ing, there is nine times as much as any theoretical
writing in the two categories (speculative and tauto-
logic) above it.

In point of fact, though, it is not merely the in-
formative writing in the sample which is dominated by
the classificatory level: it would be more exact to
say that classificatory writing predominates in the
sample as a whole.43

The Expressive category and the Poetic category, obviously,

 

are a quite small percentage of the total sample, with 5.5% of the

32

writings being classified as Expressive and 17.6% as Pgetjg, More-
over, both expressive and poetic functions of language decrease from
the younger grades to the older grades.

In short, then, the students in this study spend most Of their
school writing classifying information and supporting generalities
with particulars rather than writing personal experience writings,
subjective thinking-it-through writings, drawing larger what-does-it-
all-mean-then conclusions or theories, or creating their own meaning
with the ideas or information they have encountered.

The writings in the sample done for English classes show a
somewhat different pattern than the combined percentages. The total

percentage of Transactional writing is 34%; Expressive writing, 11%;

 

 

and Egg; 5 writing, 39%. Though there is in the four years combined
a greater balance of types of writing in English than in the other
subjects, this balance does not remain constant in the four years Of
English writing. Britton describes how the balance changes from the
first through the seventh year:

the use made of informative writing in English and re-
ligious education before the seventh year is much less
marked and the proportions of writing in functions other
than the informative correspondingly higher. Thus, even
with its increase in the fifth year, the proportion of
informative writing in English is still only 27%, and

in the first two age groups of the sample it is consid-
erably lower. In religious education the proportion
actually diminishes after the first year. As for the

33

other functions--there is a significant prOportion of
expressive writing in both subjects, continuing in
English through to the seventh year; while poetic writ-
ing, appearing somewhat variably in the totals for re-
ligious education, is strongly, even dominately,

marked in those for English. In the seventh year the
pattern changes, the proportion of informative writing
within English rising from 27% to 69% and that of the
analogic subdivision from 4% to 41%; while there is a
corresponding decline in poetic writing. One notes

too that speculative writing, which gains a small entry
in English in the fifth year, is also increased. As a
result of such changes, the pattern of writing in Eng-
lish becomes much more like that of other curriculum
subjects in the seventh year, though even then the
proportions of writing in the expressive and poetic
categories are still relatively higher.4

In summarizing the interrelation of the audience and func-
tion of writings in the study, the research team suggests that “in-
formative writing is largely developed in school in the environment

of the teacher as examiner, while expressive and poetic writing are

most closely associated with the teacher-learner dialogue.“45

In describing the implications of their study, the research
team begins by emphasizing its disappointment at finding so little
Expressive writing in their sample:

Our disappointment arises from our belief that expres-
sive writing, whether in participant or spectator role,
may be at any stage the kind of writing best adapted to
exploration and discovery. It is language that extern-
alizes our first stages in tackling a problem or coming
to grips with an experience. Moreover, it represents,
we believe, the move into writing most likely to pre-
serve a vital link with the spoken mode in which up to
this point all a child's linguistic resources have been
gathered and stored.46

34

One Of the hypotheses that the research team had set out to
try to prove with the collection and classification of writing samples

was that writing development is a “process of dissociation, a process
47

 

Of progressive differentiation, of learning by dividing.“ The re-
sults of the study neither prove nor disprove the hypothesis:

If, as we had predicted, the development of writing'abil-

ities showed itself as a growing range of kinds of writing

shaped by thinking processes, we should have expected to

find in the sample a great deal of expressive writing in

the early years, in all subjects, and an increase in later

years of analogic, speculative and theoretical writing, as

well as persuasive and poetic-~all these compensating for

a reduction in the expressive; and at the same time, a

proportion of expressive writing maintained and developing

into its maturer forms and purposes.48
The research team believes that the narrow emphasis of writing at the
analogic level of the informative and of writing mainly for an audi-
ence of teacher in the examiner role has its roots in “the whole cur-
riculum and its Objectives" and that the curriculum does not foster
writing "that reflects independent thinking" but reflects "information
in the form in which both teacher and textbook traditionally present
it."49

The research team share Daniel Dyer's concern that curriculum

is heavily oriented toward expository, objective, and abstract think-
ing and composing when, in fact, students may be at another stage of

development in which experience and their thinking is more exploratory,

35

subjective, and concrete. Britton's team suggestions for curriculum
in English schools are applicable to curriculum in the United States:
we should like to see much more openness as regards what
children can achieve in writing, fewer of the limitations
which we have attributed to a restricted view of the cur-
riculum and the restrictive effect of examinations. We
should like to see deliberate attempts made in the future
to discover why the expectations generated in school act
so powerfully to inhibit expressive writing, and what can
be done to counter this effect.50

Britton's study is important in that it looks beyond the
superficialities of language--specific tOpics Chosen, traditional
modes used, length of sentence-~to look at more “basic" issues re-
lated to the relationship of the writer to his writing--how a writing
functions' for a writer-—and the relationship of the language and
learning theory relying on current thinking in psychology. linguis-
tics, philosophy, and education. The research—-and the theory it is
based on--is thorough and impressive. Nonetheless, the study has
limitations.

First, the theory and its development precede any real look
at students' writing. The development of the theory took place be-
fore the team did any in-depth study of student writing. The cate-
gories for classifying writings were developed on the basis of cur-
rent theories in linguistics, rhetoric, and psychology. Though it's

important to have a theory of discourse in order to have a frame of

reference when viewing student writing, it's also important to allow

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36

development of the theory to grow out of the writing itself, out of

what students really do when they write.

A second shortcoming of the research report is that it seems
to put primary emphasis on the definitions and descriptions of the

categories rather than on qualities and characteristics of students'

writings. The problem is one of emphasis. Though the purpose of this

study is to describe young people's writing, the import of the study
is to describe how and why writings were categorized, and the examples
Of writing were used more to characterize the category than to provide
insight into the composition and its characteristics.

Related to this is the matter of multiple functions and shifts
in the sense of audience that the research team found in many writings.
For purposes of classification clarity, the research team overlooked
these.

That there are multiple functions and shifts in audience is

significant, and the kinds of shifts students make might very well

reflect the overall description of the writing. Again, the idea and

use of a classification system into which the writings have to be
placed is disturbing, because the writing must be reduced or simplified
and its complexities ignored in order to fit within a category. In
this case, too, the emphasis on the categories rather than on the stu-

dents' writing limits what we can discover about writing.

37

One of the strengths of the study is also its weakness, and
that is the complexity of the system of classification. Even though
classification systems often end up placing the emphasis in the wrong
place, at least this system is a sophisticated one. The categories
are more finely and carefully delineated than most systems of categor-
ization. But herein lies a problem. The system is relatively diffi-
cult to use. One has to be well-schooled in the terminology and the
descriptions, and the results might not, in the end, provide any more
insight than reading and describing student writings in a more subjec-
tive and intuitive way.

Finally, Britton's study is limited in that it looks only at
assignment writing. That is an important thing to do, and, in this
case, that was very revealing. We need, however, to take a closer
look at what students or young people do with free writing. The de-
velopmental theories are not consistent with what happers in school.
More has to be done with students in a more Spontaneous, natural, and
relaxed setting, and over longer periods of time. Dyer has shown a
possible way of doing that, and Britton, some entirely new ways of

thinking about the results.

CHAPTER II

THEORIES OF DISCOURSE: AN OVERVIEW

Britton's development Of categories for describing written
discourse grew out of his view that traditional categories of dis-
course are inadequate to describe writing. Ever since the mid-
nineteenth century, discourse has been divided by rhetbricians into
four discrete classes of narration, description, exposition, and
argumentation. As Britton notes, however, the "four categories are
not equal in status," and “many pieces of writing employ one mode
to fulfill the functions of another.“1 He describes this blurring
of distinctions in greater detail:

It is no difficult matter to find narrative or descrip-
tive writing which has as its dominant function calcu-
lated persuasion or highly didactic explanation. Only
by giving narrative and description sharply distinctive
functions could the system be made consistent and work-
able. The concept of function, and how it relatesito
intention, is of course a difficult one . . . . Suffice
it to say here that such central concerns as the effect
on the writer of what he writes, the needs he is satis-
fying, his actual procedures--these are obscured rather
than illuminated by the distinctions embodied in the
rhetorical categories. Writing characterized as “nar-
ration" and writing Characterized as “description“ may
well be performing the same function for the writer;

on the other hand, two pieces put into the same cate-
gory might well differ widely in the kind of demands

38

39

they make on the writer: the broad category “exposi-

tion" for example would embrace tasks as far apart as

simple technical explanation and the elaboration of a

complex theory.2
The inadequacy is particularly evident with "description" which is
difficult to find in its pure form in writing. Rather, it is usually
found in supporting role with other forms of discourse—-narratives,
poetry, fiction, technical writing.

Another major problem with traditional descriptions of dis-
course is that they were derived from the finished products of pro-
fessional writers, 'from whose work come both the categories and rules
for producing instances of them. The tradition is profoundly prescrip-
tive and shows little inclination to observe the writing process: its
concern is with how people shgglg write, rather than with how they
do."3

Britton's notion that traditional ways Of describing writing
are inadequate-~particularly in describing the develOpment of young
people's writing—~led him to his creation of his own theory Of dis-
course. The categories in his schema have been described in Chapter I
in relationship to his research with student writing. Here I will
examine Britton's theory in a larger context, concentrating particu-

larly on a child's growth in development and comparing Britton with

other writing theorists, notably James Moffett.

Eu.

4O

Britton sees the development of young people's writing abili-
ties as a process of "dissociation," of learning by dividing, which
has its source in personal or expressive communication. It is his
goal to describe student writing in that process:

We believe that writing should not for our educa-
tional purposes be divided simply into traditional
rhetorical types, but that we need to find categories
which are based on valid criteria. Our experience sug-
gests that there is likely to be a hierarchy of kinds
of writing which is shaped by the thinking problems
with which the writer is confronted. The kind of writ-
ing first used effectively by the young writer appears
to be essentially personal; the last kinds to be
acquired (if they ever are) are those scientific and
social uses of language which appear to be essentially
impersonal.

Britton talkes about the development from an immature to a
mature writer in terms of develOping awareness of an audience--a lis-
tener or a reader. He also uses a speech comparison in describing how
one goes about adjusting for an audience:

In speech we can rely on society to make a fairly
good job of teaching a sense of audience; there

are immediate penalties for ignoring the audience.

In particular, the Speaker runs into serious trouble
when he has to adjust to an audience with whose needs
he is unfamiliar or whose demands he has not been
taught by life to meet. Within his own linguistic
community the speaker can develop a delicate sense 5
of audience; outside it he can run into difficulty.

Adjustments for audience are more difficult for the writer than they
are for the speaker, because in speech speaker and hearer share a

fcontext of Situation"--Circumstances of time, place, and accompanying

41

activities. Context of situation for the writer does pgt consist of
the immediate environment, but rather includes

the universe of discourse he is entering (business let-
ter, official document, short story)--the situation of
writing this kind of thing in this sort of society for
this sort of person. The writer, then, must construe

his audience on the basis of Clues which are harder to
come by since they are on a more generalized plane. To

put it another way, the writer does not, like the speaker,
have the context of situation displayed before him, but
must represent to himself a context of situation, and

this includes his readers.6

 

When he addresses a public audience, condludes Britton, the mature
writer “must be able to call out in himself the responses which his
gestures evoke from others. He begins by being able to internalize
individuals and finally internalizes a 'generalized other' who speaks
for society at large."7

Britton sees growth in writing, in part, as a movement from
writing for the self outward to writing for an unknown audience. The
child's writing for the self is “writing from one's own point of view
without considering the intelligibility to others of that point of
view; a written form of 'speech for oneself.”8

The next stage that Britton considers in audience relation-
ships is writing done for the teacher. Because most of the writing
students do is in school, and because this is the writing in which

Britton is primarily interested, he gives a good deal of attention

to the variety of relationships that students establish with teachers

42

as their audiences. In describing the writer-teacher relationships,
Britton emphasizes the heavy dominance of the teacher as audience
and the pressures that puts on a student writer:
Ideally one of the goals of schools is that they

should, wherever this is possible, produce writers who

have developed the capacity to generate their own audi-

ences, which should include those which are large in

number and unknown. In school, however, it is almost

always the teacher who initiates the writing and who

does so by defining a writing task with more or less

explicitness. Not only does he define the task but

also nominates himself as audience.
The teacher acts not only as audience, but acts also as judge, arbiter,
grader, and appraiser of the performance. Often, then, the student is
concerned mainly with pleasing this audience and' meeting minimum re-
quirements. At times, there are other relationships that exist be-
tween pupil and teacher in which students are concerned with pleasing
themselves as well as the teacher or in which they are asked to repre-
sent themselves to a general audience. Thus, "many pupil-writers have
to Operate a double-audience system which may give rise to particular
tensions."10

Britton describes four different relationships moving from the

personal to the impersonal. The most personal relationship that
exists is the student writing for the trusted adult. Britton compares

writing in this stage with the kind of talking relationships a child

has with has with his mother. The writing is that which “accepts an

43

invitation because it comes from this particular person in whom there
is confidence.“ The confidence that "this particular adult wants to
hear anything you have to say may operate as a strong incentive, and

a liberator“ for children who have difficulty writing. Writing for
the trusted reader has some affinity with writing for oneself, in that
the writer relies on the understanding of his reader and "the shaping
responses of the "internalized other" can be less heeded."n

The second teacher-student relationship Britton describes is
the general on-going relationship between the student and teacher or
the student-teacher dialogue. There is likely to be an 'internalized
other' in these writings in which the student is aware of the expecta-
tions of his reader; these writings also indicate an expectation of
response rather than formal evaluation.

Another relationship between students and teachers is a combina-
tion Of a personal and a professional relationship fed by a student's
,growing interest in the subject taught. “When this happens the pupil
gains confidence both in the teacher as a person and in his own ability
to operate within the subject field--and this will be reflected in his
writing for this particular teacher."12

Finally, there is the pupil to examiner relationship in which

the writing is for an educational adult, but as a demonstration of ma-

terial mastered or as evidence of ability to take up a certain kind of

44

style. A culminating point rather than a stage in a process of inter-
action and with the expectation of assessment rather than response."13
The next group Of audience relationships Britton describes
move beyond the teacher as audience to a wider audience, but an
audience which is still known by the student. Britton describes
three types of relationships: expert to layman, child to peer group,
and group member to working group. The Child writing as an expert to
a group of laymen "will have chosen his own tOpic, or it will have
been suggested to him as an individual, as an expert. The writing will
be explicit down to the non-expert level: that is to say more of the
context will be supplied and less implied than would have been the
case where an expert wrote for his fellow experts." When the child
writes to a peer group, he is sharing with other children, and the
teacher often functions as “spectator and adviser, or he may identify
himself with the form's point Of view and remain a member of the
audience." The writing is characterized by a pseudo-journalistic
style used by form magazines. Writing in the group member to working
group category is Often “a link in a chain of group activity the past
phases of which will be taken for granted as a part of the initial
context“ and there are indications that the writer is taking into

“account the views and attitudes of individuals in the group."14

45

The most impersonal and abstract of the audience relationships
Britton describes is the writer to his readers or an unknown audience.
Britton describes the characteristics of this relationship in the fol-
lowing way:
(a) the writer's 'sense of the general value or validity of

what he has to say;

(b) his sense of the need to supply a context wide enough
to bring in readers whose sophistication, interests
and experiences he can only estimate;

(c) a readiness to conform with and contribute to some
cultural norm or trend;

(d) a desire to achieve an effect, or make an impression
on readers in general;

(e) a sense that the writer's audience is not one with
which he identifies himself in a personal way;

(f) a familiarity with adult writing of the kind he is

attempting which seems a satisfactory model to the

writer.15

A second dimension in Britton's theory of discourse is the
function that the writing serves for the writer. Chapter I provided
a brief overview of the function categories in Britton's schema; here
I will look in more detail at the theoretical bases for these cate-
gories.

Britton describes two major uses of language: language in the

_participant role and language in the spectator role. In the partici-

 

pant role, a speaker or writer is using language to get something

done: Language is a tool to act on the world. In the spectator role,

46

language is more likely to be an aesthetic or verbal construct, some-
thing to be appreciated and enjoyed. Britton elaborates:

given that man constructs a representation of the world
as he has experienced it in order to pperate in it, an
alternative kind of behaviour is then open to him: he
may manipulate the representation without seeking out-
comes in the actual world. The first of these two kinds
of behaviour (operating in actuality via the representa-
tion) we would call behaviour in the role of participant,
and the second (working upon the representation without
seeking outcomes in actuality) we want to call behaviour
in the role of spectator.

In a very general way the distinction between the
roles of participant and spectator is the distinction
between work and play: between language as a means (to
buy and sell, to inform, instruct, persuade and so on)
and an utterance for its own sake, no means but an Egg;
a voluntary activity that occupies us for no other rea-
son than that it'preoccupies.1

 

 

Britton uses the distinction between the two roles of language
(spectator and participant) as the basis Of his "scheme for distin-
guishing the principal functions of written utterances." He repre-
sents the functions with this diagram:18

Participant role --------- '-----e -------------- Spectator role

TRANSACTIONAL ------------ EXPRESSIVE ------------------ POETIC

The expressive function of language, both in speaking and in
writing, is language that is closest to the self. It is the language

through which people state their feelings, work through new ideas,

47

communicate immediate preoccupations and moods: "It is utterance at

its most relaxed and intimate, as free as possible from outside de-

19

mands, whether those of a task or of an audience.“ From the expres-

sive role, it is posSible to move easily into either transactional
writing or speaking (language in the participant role, language to get
things done), or into poetic writing or speaking (language in the spec-
tator role, language as a verbal construct for entertainment or pleas-
ure). Britton describes the importance of the expressive function of
language for young or immature writers:

what Children write in the early stages should be a form
of written-down expressive speech, and what they read
should also be, generally speaking, expressive. As their
writing and reading progress side by side, they will move
from this starting point into the three broadly differen-
tiated kinds of writing--our major categories--and, in
favourable circumstances, their mode of doing so will be
by a kind of shuttling between their speech resources on
the one hand and the written forms they meet on the other.
Thus, in developmental terms, the expressive is a kind of
matrix from which differentiated forms of mature writing
are developed.20

Though the expressive function provides the beginning point from which
other functions of writing develOp, the mature writer does not outgrow
his need for expressive language: “its interpersonal and exploratory

functions continue to operate, and he develops mature forms of expres-
sive writing to fulfill them--forms very different from the multi-

Purpose expressive writing of the young child.“21

48

The move from expressive language to either role is a move
from an intimate to a more public audience. To satisfy the demands
Of the spectator role or the poetic function of language an utterance
must become a verbal object. Britton describes in more detail kinds
or classes of poetic writing which include not just poetry, but also
fiction, drama, and shaped autobiographical episode:

[The poetic writer's] “verbal object" is a thing deliber-
ately isolated from the rest of reality: to respond, the
reader must contextualize only after he has reconstructed
the Object in accordance with its internal complexity.
From this conception of global contextualization we de-
rived sub—categories of poetic utterances. Novelists,

may for example, put over "a message" and that message
may be Classified in accordance with the kind of transac-
tion. But to operate the conventions of the poetic, a
message must be communicated in and through the total
verbal construct, the artefact. The first thing to record
about the poetic work, therefore, is to classify it as
poetic; however, we may then go on, if we wish, and allot
it to a second category in accordance with the participant
function that seems appropriate to its global contextuali-
zation. We might, for example, call Orwell's 19§4_“poetic
(conative)," Patrick White's Tree of Man, I'poetic (informa-
tive)," and perhaps Malcom Lowry's Under the Volcano,
“poetic“ (expressive)."22

 

At the other role in Britton's schema is transactional
1anguage--1anguage to get things done-~which he subdivides into two
functions: informative and conative. While informative language is
used to make information available, conative language

is used to order, instruct, advise or persuade someone
. . . . Although nearly all language can be thought of

as to some degree an attempt to persuade, we have delib-
erately defined thecconative as a fairly narrow category

49

so that it will only include cases where an attempt to

change someone's behaviour, attitude or opinion can be

easily diScerned.23

Britton's descriptions of the various informative functions

of language are his most detailed and explicit, probably because it
is the most common writing done by school children. Chapter I de-
tailed the seven categories that Britton"has developed to describe
writing in the informative. By way of review and summary, Britton's
categories move from the present, particular, and concrete outward
to the more distant, general, and abstract organization and communi-
cation Of information. Thus, the subdivisions begin with nggyg, in
which a writer attempts to record what is immediately present in his
environment, either in terms of events or appearances; in a Reppyp,
the writer is no longer.recording what's happening in the present,
but is recording past observations or experiences; the Generalized
narrative or descriptive information "suggests that events or appear-
ances have recurred." This writing is one step removed from report
(even though it is still tied to particular events) in that the
writer is detecting a pattern of repetition (usually expressed by
the present tense of the verb); one step further away from Report is
Analogic,_low level of generalization in which there is genuine gen-

eralization, but it is loosely organized. The relationship between

one generalization and another “or amongst groups of them or a

0

Ah.

I\I

D u

50

developing relationship running through the whole, is not made ex-
plicit. At.the next level--the analogic--generalizations are organ-
ized and related hierarchically or logically.

While generalized narrative, low-level analogic, and ana-
logic describe different levels of generalization, Analogic-
tautologic (speculative) and Tautologic describe writing which is
more abstract and more theoretical. At this level, "the writer be-
gins to inspect his generalizations and to make them the very sub-
ject of his discourse." With speculative writing, “the writer begins
to consider alternative possibilities and perhaps to weigh them. This
speculation is for the most part open-ened . . . . It is, so to
speak, a thinking ploy in which the writer proposes to himself a
potentially valid analogic utterance without feeling that he must
push it to a firm conclusion or relate it to a closed logical system."
Tautologic writing "concerns itself with tpgpyy_and therefore with
making propositions about propositions, or propositions about the re-
lationship between propositions. It will produce hypotheses and make
deductions from them."24

Britton's audience categories and function categories taken
together provide a view of develOpment in which the child's egocen-

tric speech is the starting point for moving outward to wider audi-

ences and more diverse and complex functions of language. Though

a
I

q

I'"

D\n

I.

51

Britton structures the movements in what looks like a step-by-step
fashion, he does not.insist that a child's growth following a strictly
defined pattern of development. Rather, he clearly delineates pos-
sible ways of organizing experience in writing and advocates that
young people be given opportunities for all.

The emphasis on the work of James Britton up to this point
might give the impression that the only serious theories of discourse
are British. In fact, however, James Moffett's Teachingithe Universe
of Discourse, published in 1968, describes a theory of discourse
which, in some important ways, parallels the work of James Britton.
Moffett began by developing a theory of discourse in fiction, ngp§§_
gjyyi E (New York: New American Library) which, published first in
1962, provides the basis for his work in the development of children's
writing.

Both Moffett and Britton see language development as a move-
ment from the self outward, and both of their theories of discourse
are based on--and in some ways parallel--theories of language acqui-
sition. In addition, both Moffett and Britton describe their theories
through a two-dimensional schema: the writer's relationship to audi-
ence, and the writer's relationship to subject.

Moffett relies on the notion of abstraction to describe mental

growth and growth in writing:‘

52

The concept that I believe will most likely permit us
to think at once that both mental development and the
structure of discourse is the concept of abstraction,
which can apply equally well to thought and to language.
My effort here will be to make a very qualified equa- 25
tion between levels of abstraction and stages of growth.

Moffett defines abstraction through the concepts of selection and
hierarchies or categories of experience. The ability to abstract
is the ability to select and rank elements of experience in order
to reduce reality to manageable summaries":

A definition of abstraction, in sum, must center
on a notion of selection; but this selection, as it
operates through perception, memory, and generaliza-
tion, implies some reorganization of features accord-
ing to the nature of the apparatus doing the selec-
ting and according to previous knowledge systems that
have grown in the organism. A definition must also
include the notion of hierarchy and hierarchical in-
tegration--of orders of symbolization and stages of
internal processing. The combining of propositions
cannot take place until Classes exist, and classes
depend on the categorizating of experience, which
presupposes memories of perceptions.26

Moffett believes, then, that language growth is the progressive
ability to abstract, that students should be “speaking, writing,
and reading in forms of discourse that are succeSsively more ab-
stract," that such a movement “makes it possible for the learner
to understand better what is entailed at each stage of the hier-
archy, to relate one stage to another, and thus to become aware

of how hezand others create information and ideas.“27

53

Like Britton, Moffett describes discourse in terms of the
“set Of relations among speaker, listener, and subject.“ The "I-
it" relationship is the relationship between the writer and his
subject: "The I;j§_relation concerns information--how someone

abstracts from raw_phenomena.“ The "I-you" relationship is the

 

relationship between the writer and his audience: "The I-you rela-
tion concerns communication--how someone abstracts for an audience.

The first is the referential relation; the second is the rhetorical

relation."28

Moffett's description of audience moving from the self to
successively more distant and impersonal audience is similar to
Britton's, though Moffett does not give as detailed analysis of the
varieties of relationships that a writer can have with particularly
a known audience. The following is Moffett's description of increas-
ing distance between speaker and audience:

Reflection--Intrapersonal communication between two parts of
one nervous system.

Conversation--Interpersonal communication between two people
in vocal range.

Correspondence--Interpersonal communication between remote
individuals or small groups with some personal knowledge
of each other.

Publication--Impersonal communication to a large anonymous
group extended over space and/or time.29

54

The movement in audience relations is from private and personal com-
munication to a more public and impersonal communication. Throughout
the progression, feedback from listener/reader comes much more slowly
and tends to disappear. EmphaSis therefore shifts "from the communi-
cation drama between first and second persons to the bare message or
content: from the I;ypg.relation to the l;ip_relation."30

A difficulty with Moffett's audience categories is that he
equates them too directly with a type of discourse or a single func-
tion of language and often ends up describing a mode or a form rather
than characteristics of the writing that demonstrate the relationship
the writer establishes with his reader. Thus, Moffett represents
the spectrum of discourse through the following schema, which attempts
to describe the speaker-listener relation first, then the speaker-
subject relation, as well as a hierarchy of levels of abstraction:

Interior Dialogue P
(egocentric speech)

 

 

 

Vocal Dialogue Recording, the drama of PLAYS O
(socialized speech) what is happening
Correspondence
Personal Journal E
Autobiography
Memoir Reporting, the narra- FICTION T
' narrative of what
happened.

Biography

55

 

 

 

 

Chronicle

History Generalizing, the exposi- -ESSAY R
sition of what happens

Science

Metaphysics Theorizing, the argumen- - Y
tation Of what will,
may happen 31

 

Moffett's audience relations are represented in the left-hand
column. Moffett admits that the "linear model falsifies a lot" and
attempts to describe the multidimensionality of the schema.32

He begins, then, with "interior dialogue" which is vocalized
as “egocentric speech." Moffett connects interior dialogue with var-
ious modes of discourse: "In interior dialogue we have subjective,
spontaneous inchoate beginnings Of drama (what is happening), narra-
tive (what happened), exposition (what happens), and argumentation
(what may happen).“33

Conversation, or external dialogue, is the expansion of the
communication system “from two parts of a single nervous system to
two or more separate nervous sytems." Correspondence, the next
division of the I-you relations, is “dialogue-at-a-distance, an
exchange of written monologue between parties too small to require
publication of the discourse and known enough to each other so that

more personal rhetoric, allusion, etc., is appropriate.“ Correspon-

dence does not refer solely to the letter form, but can “include any

56

kind of writing to a small, familiar audience." Correspondence in-
cludes the possibilities of writing in all four of Moffett's major
divisions of discourse--what is happening, what happened, what
happens, and what will or might happen, but in correspondence, the
emphasis is still on “the rhetorical relation or communication
drama, which remains relatively intimate and therefore much more
Obvious than it will be later when the second person becomes anony-
mous, and still later when the first person 'erases himself.”34
From correspondence, Moffett moves to Public Narrative which

is writing in which there is still greater distance between writer
and audience: “Increasing pluralization and therefore generaliza-
tion of the second person tends to enforce higher abstractions,
formal writing of the sort one would publish."35 Moffett includes
a variety of types Of writing in this category, from personal
journal to detached autobiography:

First one writes about recent personal experience,

then about remote personal experience, then about

one's own and others' combined experiences of other

individuals, then about group experience-~the latter

two being of course secondhand.35

Though Moffett purports to be describing a writer's relation—

ship to his audience with the public narrative classification, his

focus is much more on the writer's relationship to his subject.

Though it is probably true that increasing distance from subject

57

accompanies increasing distance from audience, Moffet fails to
describe the distance in terms of the writer-audience relationship.
The following passage characterizes. Moffett's attempt to describe
the relationship with the audience which in fact focuses more on
the writer's relationship to the subject:

Enormously important for the abstractive process, when
writing about one's own experience is the time interval
between the events and the recording or narrative of
them . . . . Just as the transition from verbalizing
to oneself and vocalizing to another is gradually.
effected, so is the.transition from talking about
oneself to talking about other.pe0ple and things.
Eyewitness accounts and memoir, in which the speaker
becomes less protagonist and more observer, are steps
in this transition.

If the main issue in recording and reporting one's
own experience is time distance, the main issue in
writing Of others'experience is often space distance.37

In describing audience relationships in more formal discourse
and in more abstract writing tasks, Moffett is a bit more adequate;
he focuses somewhat more specifically on rhetorical structures em-
ployed in writings which are more public in nature:

In these upper reaches of the spectrum [public
generalization and inference], rhetoric becomes in-
creasingly synonymous with formal, explicit logic.
That is, the classes the speaker creates.and the
inferences he makes on the basis of them constitute
his main.way of appealing to and acting on his
reader. Since formal logic is such by communal.
agreement, rhetoric becomes as impersonal as it can
get, in keeping.with.the.growing anonymity of the
speaker., As.a loose.rule, we may state that the
pluralization and generalization of one “person“

58

tends to bring on the pluralization and generalization

of the others.38
In presenting a schema for the writer's relationship to his audience,
Moffett has listed an odd combination of language uses (interior
dialogue or egocentric speech), modes -(autobiography and memoir),
and philosophical approaches (metaphysics). Moffett does not
describe explicitly the language or language structures that char-
acterize the I-you relationship; rather, his categories are better
suited to--and indeed seem almost to be sub-categories Of--the
writer-subject or I-it relation.

In much the same way the Moffett describes the relation be-
tween speaker and audience as distance in the space that separates
them, he describes the relation between speaker and subject in terms
of distance in time that separates them. He represents the time dis-
tances by “translating the subject into a verb tense.“ He then re-
lates the verb tenses and the way in which they describe phenomena
to “different logics, which we may call time differences if we like,
but which amount to different levels of abstraction.“39 He repre-
sents the time relationships and corresponding logics with the fol-
lowing scheme:40

what is happening--chronologic of perceptual selectivity
what has happened
what happened--chronologic of memory selectivity

what was happening
what happens--analogic of classification

59

what may happen (will, could, etc.)--tautologic of transforma-
tion

Moffett, then, explains growth in abstraction as a movement from
present and immediate experience through distant and removed exper-
ience through theorizing about experience. He describes the move-
ment through these various levels and stages of abstraction in

this way:

(1) Just as the logics employed lead us up the abstrac-
tion ladder, so do the human faculties successively em-
ployed-~perception, memory, and ratiocination. (2)

One stage cannot take place.until the ones before it
have taken place. (3) The phenomenal subject expands
increasingly in time and space until the subject.begins
to become logic itself; that is, "events" become less
and less space-time bound, and in being processed from
narrative to generalizations to theories, an enormous
amount of phenomenal_material.is "used up" and replaced,
in assertions, by logic. Or, (4) outer events are more
and more substituted for.by.inner events, in accordance
with the definition of codification.41

Both Moffett and Britton agree, then, that language moves from the
personal, here-now, egocentric language of the yOung and immature
writer through language use which is impersonal, removed from con-
siderations Of time and space, and abstract. Where Moffett provides

four categories on the abstractive ladder, Britton outlines seven:

CATEGORIES IN BRITTON'S MOFFETT'S ABSTRACTION
INFORMATIVE CATEGORY SCALE
Record ................ Record
Report ................ Report

Generalized narrative

60

Low-level analogic

Analogic . ...... . . . . . . . . Classificatory
Speculative
Tautologic .............. Theoretical42

Probably the most significant difference between the theories
of Moffett and Britton has to do with the way they treat fiction,
poetry, and drama. Britton, as we have seen, creates a separate
category--the poetic--to deal with artefacts or verbal constructs,
arguing that they are deliberately isolated from the rest of reality
with their own internal complexity and logical structure. Moffett,
on the other hand, correlates the various genres with steps on the
abstractive scale. Thus:

what is happening--drama—-recording
what happened-—narrative--reporting
what happens--exposition--generalizing
what may happen--logical argument--theorizing43
In Moffett's schema, poetry runs up and down the abstractive scale.

Neither Moffett or Britton is completely satisfying in his
descriptions of poetic functions or modes. Britton does not make
enough distinctions about how various kinds of writing in “poetic"
or aesthetic forms might function for young writers. Moffett is
even weaker in this respect. Britton fails in that he does not go
far enough; Moffett fails in that, and in his attempt to create a

"tidy“ scheme, he oversimplifies and overgeneralizes. His scheme

does not account for soliloquies in drama, dialogue in fiction, or

61

the use of particulars of events or appearances in essays. Moffett's
overreliance on traditional modes of discourse--description, narra-
tive, exposition, and argumentation--create distortions and limit the
validity and usefulness of his theory.

In addition, Moffett asserts that "higher" orders of dis-
course contain “successive embeddings of the lower orders which they

44 In Moffett's system, then, the essay is the high-

have subsumed.“
est form of discourse and drama the lowest, with the essay using
the logical structures of drama, but not vice versa. The inadequa-
cies and distortions of Moffett's system become evident here: The
implication that drama and fiction are less SOphisticated and mature
than exposition and argumentation is patently absurd. Moffett's
plea for the reader's effort to see the multidimensionality of the
schema is not enough to correct its inaccuracies. A better effort
is the one Britton makes to see the artefact as a different way of
ordering in describing experience and uses abstraction of a differ-
ent sort in which experience is abstracted and recodified.

Another important developmental theorist, J. W. Patrick
Creber, provides a view of children's growth in Sense and Sensitivity
(Univ. Of London Press, 1965) that parallels, in many ways, the work
of Moffett and Britton, but with a different focus and emphasis--the

psychological, social, and intellectual stages of growth. Creber's

62

model concentrates not so much on modes and forms as it does on per-
ceptions and feelings. He is much more content-oriented than form-
oriented. He is much more eclectic, more subjective, less of a
pseudo-scientist. He explains his interest in children's growth
in the following way:
The sequence which the method follows represents

one possible attempt to achieve a correspondenceretween

the progressive demands made of a child on the one hand,

and the readiness of the child to meet those demands on

the other. The problems of maintaining some correspon-

dence between the child and the material that is Offered

to him is a recurrent one.. I have tried to.solve it by

deliberately utilising the characteristic interests and

enthusiasms of the child at succeeding stages of his or

her development. Such stages, of course, are approxi-

mate and theoretical, but it is helpful to think in

these terms, and the scheme has proved itself closer

to the habits and ideas of the children than have many

run-Of-the-mill textbooks, with their often speciously

'logical' progressions.35

Creber begins his description of children and their stages of

development with the first year of secondary school, or with students
ages 11-12. He calls the work for the first year "The Rediscovery of
the Familiar." It is his contention that at this stage “the training
of the imagination to recapture visual impressions" should be the
primary emphasis.46 Students at this stage connect the use of the
imagination with visual imagery, partially because the visual element
is so dominant in society. One of the reasons Creber emphasizes the

visual at the early stages is that perceives that a problem with

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63

adolescents (ages 14-15) to be their blunted sensibility:

Children appear to grow up without really seeing any-

thing, or to put it more accurately, perhaps, only

seeing what they want to see. Thus adolescents are

allowed to bury half their experience without ever

realizing its significance, and perception becomes

channelled and stultified, with.the cliche a common

feature not only of their expression but also, and 1

more seriously, of their mode of thought.47
The first year student, however, Comes to school prepared to work
with visual elements, and, in addition, "he has not yet lost his
childlike interest in the Object for its own sake and his sensibil-
ity is still fresh and vital."48 Creber advocates starting in the
first year, then, “with the child's world of experience--and exper—
ience of the world-~through sensation."49 Work in English is de-
signed

not only to help the Child enjoy the realness of his

world but also, possibly, to offer him an opportunity

to give order and form to his sense of realness. .The

Child, by keeping his eyes "greatly Open," extends and.

improves his knowledge of.t e world and, furthermore,

the attainment of this deeper and wider imaginative I

insight is in itself an enjoyable process for him."50
Creber advocates the use Of poetry, photographs, and color reproduc-
tions during this stage as stimulous for develOping a pictoral imag-
ination with the emphasis on concreteness and accuracy.

Creber sees two concepts about children's development as be-

ing important in the second and third years of secondary school, a

stage which he calls ''The Growth of Consciousness“:

64

1. in this second year we may expect to see the
nascence of adolescent self-consciousness

2. by this time the children are readier to be
“art-conscious"--to look at their.work more
critically and to learn some simple concepts
of form and style51
Work in the second year is not a radical departure from work done in
the first year, but the difference is largely a matter of complexity:
"the more complicated scenes and sensory experiences now to be dealt
with call for a greater degree of organisation and conscious tech-

52 The emphasis will also differ in that the stress is on

nique."
people as Opposed to things. Creber suggests three types of activi-
ties which seem appropriate to students at this stage: scenes in-
volving descriptions of types of people familiar to students; des-
criptions of their own feelings in real situations; and descriptions
of their own feelings in imagined situations.53
Creber explains and justifies these activities in light of
students' psychological and social development. At ages twelve
through thirteen, young people are becoming more aware of their
own feelings and of the feelings Of other people, and writing can
give students the opportunity to explore some of their new feelings.
Creber describes the young person's changing interest in people from

stage I to stage II:

at the age of eleven or twelve he is interested in people,
but from a relatively external viewpoint and in a

65

relatively superficial way. For some years his char-
acteristic technique of "identification" will have
enabled him--by playing a series of imaginary roles--
to enrich his experience and, to some extent, to
deepen his insight. He is not yet really ready to
understand people, however; for him, the adult is.
still a person whose arbitrary commands represent

the incursion Of a different kind of being into his
own "real" world--he accepts such phenomena without .
giving them much thought. With the onset of puberty
all this begins to change. While Stage I seems to

me to utilise the kind of interest he is capable of
before adolescence really begins, Stage 2 is intended
to harmonise with his withdrawal from his earlier
extraverted attitude; His growing interest in his
own feelings will of course be interwoven with new
and Often disturbing feelings about other people;

for example, it is often at about this time that

the child acquires a totally new view of his parents.
All this experience is too raw, undigested and,.above
all, too private for us to trespass upon it. Later,
I believe, we may enable him by theiexercise.0f his
imaginative faculty to come to terms with at least
some of it; for the present, however, we do well to
limit ourselves. We can help him explore some parts
of his new self but we must be prepared for some
superficiality and, by comparison with what has gone
before, with an uncertainty and.apparent loss of verve
and zest in his writing.

The emphasis, in Stage 2, is still on the child's personal exper-
ience. But while the younger child focuses on details for their
own intrinsic interest, the older child focuses On experience in
an attempt to come to terms with it. Because of the newness and
confusion of feelings at this stage, Creber suggests working on
form. Details Of experience, then, are "used in order to produce

a particulareffect.“55

 

eoll

66

Creber calls the final stage of imaginative work in composi-
tion--with students ages thirteen to fifteen--"Imagination and
Morality.“ Creber considers this a difficult period of adolescence
when students are "much more vividly aware not only of internal
stresses but also of their relations with other people, whose be-
haviour interests them deeply." Students are more inhibited and
self-conscious during this stage, because of "the greater complexity
and disintegration of their lives and the shaner intensity of their
personal problems."56 Creber also sees this stage as an appropriate
time to focus on students' moral development. Creber is concerned
that students learn to make ethical decisions consciously:

Morality, for most children of average and below average

intelligence--as for most adults--is largely a matter Of

precepts and rules of thumb.which, though they may be

modified, or even rejected, are very rarely questioned

fundamentally: rejection, when it does take.place, is

emotional rather than intellectual.57
Creber believes that students can be helped to acquire an awareness
of their own moral development and growth through education of the
imagination: "firstly, by utilising their already lively interest
in people's behaviour; secondly, by turning their inability to think
abstractly into an advantage . . . . We cannot hope to change them
into philosophers but we can deepén their insight into people."58

In order to help students develop insight into others' feelings and

behavior, Creper recommends having students both read and write about

67

other people's lives, problems, and concerns in concrete and personal
terms. He emphasizes that "the topics should lead the children to
think deeply about other people in a variety of situations. I would
stress, however, the value of exercises which involve them in a par-
ticipation in diametrically opposed positions."59

Like Britton and Moffett, Creber's view of children's develop-
ment focuses on the notion Of decentering. All agree that writing in
the early stages should center on present and immediate experience,
and Moffett and Creber, in particular, emphasize the importance of
working with sensory experience. All three see students moving toward
philOSOphical and ethical concerns in later adolescence. Creber and
Britton are especially emphatic about students using their own personal
experience as a starting point, even when dealing with abstract and
philosophical concerns. Creber's view of development provides an
additional important aspect to the theories of Britton and Moffett in
that it focuses more on the inner life of the young person--his feel-
ings and concerns--rather than on kinds of discourse students might
use at various stages of intellectual development. Creber adds a
content-orientation to the form-orientation of Moffett and Britton.

Although related to the development of young people's reading
interests, G. Robert Carlsen's theories are interesting because they

roughly parallel the movement that Moffett, Britton, and Creber

68

perceive from the personal and concrete into more impersonal and
abstract modes of thought and expression. In an article published

in English Journal, "Literature Is," Carlsen describes a model of

 

growth in literary appreciation.

Carlsen outlines five ways that reading literature functions
to satisfy human needs. Carlsen also relates these purposes for
reading to stages of growth in response to literature. In addition,
they correspond to stages of writing development outlined by Britton,
Moffett and Creber. First, a person reads for Unconscious Delight.
"He momentarily escapes, slipping the surly bonds of real life, to
live in a world more splendid, more exciting, and perhaps more beau-
tiful than his own.“ Carlsen believes that this stage is a necessary
experience for continued reading: "Until a reader has had such an
interaction with a book, I am convinced that nothing else in litera-
ture will ever mean very much to him." 2) People read literature for
Vicarious Experience:- "Learning about people, times, and places is
another satisfaction that comes from literature." Reading books to
find out about all manner Of things in.the world is "like assembling
an infinitely huge jigsaw puzzle whose pieces gradually begin to fit
together.“ 3) “Reading literature is suddenly meeting ourselves,
encountering situations similar to our own, rediscovering our own

emotions and relationships?; people read to see themselves, to “find

69

comfort in discovering that we are not alone, that others live and
feel as we do, that someone, an author, has understood us." 4)
Reading literature helps people understand what it means to be a
human being. Literature provides a means of philosophical thinking.
"The satisfaction most often gained from reading involves the pro-
jection Of the mystery of our experience Of life itself. Literature
projects for us the unsolved dilemmas of human life." Finally, lit-
erature provides aesthetic experience, "the warp upon which the other
things are woven . . . ." People derive satisfaction from the con—
templation of a well-made Object" and the "harmony of the total pat-
tern."60
Carlsen is quick to add that these responses to literature
overlap and that each is worthwhile to the person who is experiencing
it at the time he experiences it. He then goes on to describe his
notion of the developmental stages of these responses:
I do want to hypothesize that in the customary pattern

of growing up there are periods of the reader's life-when

one of these is more_important to him than the others.

Nevertheless, I do not want to imply that at any one.period,

he is entirely devoid of interest in the others. .Suppose

we think Of a flow Chart.. . . . Late childhood and early

adolescence is the period when the reader generally demands

complete absorption in what he reads. .This.is the period

of unconscious delight.. This does not mean that "seeing

oneself“ or taesthetic_experience" are completely absent,

but they_are not as important as uncritical withdrawal

into the.fabric.of.the.story. .Next,.in early junior high
school, the reader is somewhat reality bound and seeks

7O

vicarious experience in.reading.. He collects infor-

mation on the way he collects.match.box.covers.or

stamps. By middle adolescence, he becomes ego ab-

sorbed and wants books that are about himself..

These may be realistic or they may be symbolic.'

As he matures, in his late teens and beyond, he

finds literature the avenue for philosophicale

religious-psychological speculation., And perhaps

it is the sated reader who.turns at last to the

only satisfaction that is 1eft--the aesthetic—-

which takes on an importance now that it did not

have earlier.51

Carlsen's emphasis is most like Creber's in his concern for
psychological-social-philosophica1 stages of development. Both Carl-
sen and Creber see early stages in young adolescent development as
centering on involvement with the world and gathering information
about the world. Both also see the importance of vicarious experi-
ence when children have not reached a level of maturity or awareness
of other people in which they can talk specifically about their per-
ceptions of people or themselves. Their adolescent awareness stages
parallel, too, with both of them seeing a need for young people to
be able to read about and write about their own growing awareness of
themselves. Finally, they both see a stage in which adolescents
move beyond a concern for their own world to more philosophical con-
cerns in later adolescence.
Two more theories of discourse, though not developmental,

should be touched on because they reinforce and augment theories of

discourse already discussed. In‘Persona,6g Walker Gibson puts forth

71

a theory of discourse focusing on the elements that Moffett and
Britton do--the writer's relationship to his audience and the wri-
ter's relationship to his subject.

Gibson describes style in terms of the various voices that
a writer is free to Choose when he approaches a subject. He centers
his attention "on the author's created persona, his mask or voice
in passages of prose," and takes the view "that our decisions about
the language we use are, in part, calculated to present our reader
or listener with a recognizable character who is to do the communi-

63

cating.“ He emphasizes that there is a constant interplay between

writer, audience, and subject that shifts according to the demands
Of the task:

Audience and argument affect voice, and the total impact
of any communication is surely a more or less indefinable
amalgam of all three. In the approach taken here, the
message or utterance is seen as modified by the created
personality put forth in the.act of communicating. In

at least some significant ways, the voice, like the
medium, jé'the message.6

Gibson describes how different relationships with the audience change
and affect voice, and how different relationships to the topic, sub-
ject, or argument do the same:

Our decision about who to be as we address ourselves to

a task in communication.is a controlled decision. It

is controlled by strong forces in the situation . . . .

One is audience--the.reader. listener. We create dif-
ferent personas for ourselves depending on the individual

 

72

or crowd we are addressing.. . . . Vocabulary, sentence
structure, style, vary depending on whether it's.an
article for students of history or a letter to Jane.

The second great controlling factor is our subject,

our argument, our purpose, the point we are trying to
make. We create a different persona for ourselves de-
pending on whether we're speaking of sunsets or sociol-
ogy. cabbages or kings. And the values we put upon
these things, our feelings.for or against them, have

a further bearing on the voices we choose.

Gibson uses the following diagram to represent the relations between
voice, audience and subject. The relations between voice and audi-
ence, he describes as tone; the relations between voice and subject,

as attitude:

Audience 2. as

 

Like Britton and Moffett, Gibson describes the relationship
between voice and audience~-or the tone--in terms of the distance
between them. In the formal style or what Gibson calls the "writer-
style" there is a good deal of distance between the writer and his
reader, while the informal style of the colloquial writer which Gib-
son calls the btalker-stylef approaches the reader much more 2195211,

sharing his experience more intimatelyP:

73

The metaphor we are using in this explanation is the
metaphor of physical space. Much of our discussion .
of tone can be carried on with the assistance of this
metaphor. Ask the question: How close is the imagined
speaker to the imagined listener? Is the speaker talk-
ing to the listener as they sit face to face, or side
by side? Or is the speaker, as it were, reading to

the listener, perhaps from a platform? .Answers to

such guestions will help us make distinctions of

tone. 5

To illustrate the rhetorical structures that distinguish
matters of distance and closeneSs, GibsOn analyzes the beginning

of David Copperfield which he considers to be an example of a formal

 

relationship to the reader, and the voice of Caulfield in Catcher in

 

the Rye which he considers to be an informal relationship to the
reader. He concludes by presenting a list of characteristics of the
writing of each which create distance or closeness. The formality of
David Copperfield is Characterized by a periodic sentence, consider-
able parallel structure, several verbs in the passive voice, no use
of the second person pronoun, and no use of contractions. the in-
formality of Caulfield's voice is characterized by loose sentence,
little parallel structure, almost all active verbs, direct reference
to the reader--you, and contractions.67 In addition to the time-
space distance and shared-experience notions that Moffett and Britton
set up as ways of determining closeness or distance from the audience,
then, Gibson describes some rhetorical principles that can be used to

describe the relationship between the writer and his audience.

74

Attitude--the relationship between the writer and his sub-
ject--shows how the writer feels about his subject. Gibson distin-
guishes between writing in which the writer's intent is to focus
on explaining his own feelings and writing which focuses on informa-
tion about the subjection. He makes two other distinctions to
describe how attitude is communicated. "Honorific" adjectives are
used to communicate a favorable attitude and "perjorative" adjectives
describe an unfavorable attitude. But context also determines whether
words are being used honorifically or perjoratively. The context pro-
vides information about whether a speaker's attitude is ironic. In
spoken language, gesture and tone of voice provide clues about the
speaker's attitude toward his subject, but in writing the technique
is more complex:

In actual practice, of course, an expression_of attitude
is seldom a choice between “I like it" and "I hate it"
. . . . £fll_interesting attitudes are complex. The
skillful writer constantly manipulates shadings of hon-
orific and perjorative language, to show his subject as
a worthy and complicated experience, and to show him-
self as a worthy and complicated man.68
Gibson represents a writer's attitude toward his subject through

vertical relationships which “suggest variations of approval and

disdain.“ Clearly honorific statements without irony are repre-

sented:
C”

75

A critical attack, loaded with perjorative language looks like this:

. (D

An objective attitude, an observation, looks like this:

(D 6

While Gibson is helpful in describing what various attitudes

 

toward subjects might be and while he can represent them visually,
he is not very helpful in describing the means to determine whether
language is being used ironically. He uses examples to illustrate
the various attitudes that writers express toward their subjects,
but he does not describe the characteristics of the language from
which others may abstract a definition or description that can be
applied to other writings. There is not in his discussion of atti-
tude--as there is in his discussion of tone--a particular set of
rhetorical or stylistic structures that can be applied to writing

in order to describe it as honorific, perjorative, or ironic. None—
theless, his description of the writer's attitude toward his subject
is a helpful one, particularly when he talks about the complexity of
attitudes that can be expressed along the honorific, perjorative,

ironic continuum.

76

One final description Of discourse must be looked at briefly
because it relates specifically to Britton's distinctions between
his spectator and participant categories. Janet Emig, in discussing
the writing process in The Composing_Process of Twelfth Graders,
puts forth her own notion of modes and functions of writing. It is
her contention that “all student writings emanate.from an expressive
impulse and that they then bifurcate into two major modes." She be-
lieves that Britton's categories are too absolute: "Rather than
describing two general kinds of relations between the writer and his
world, they specify absolute states--either passivity or participa-
tion."69

Emig uses the following schema, supporting her belief that

all writing begins from the expressive impulse:

Modes of Student Writing

Expressive

field

of
Reflexive vi scours? Extensive

The terms reflexive and extensive have the.virtue of rela-
tive unfamiliarity in discussions of modes of disocurse.
Second, they suggest twogeneral kinds of relations be-
tween the writing self and the field of discourse--the

"reflexive, a.basically contemplative role: "What does
this experience mean?“: the extensive, a basically

77

active role: "How, because of my experience, do I

interact with my environment?" _Note that neither.

mode suggests ultimate states of passivity or par-

ticipation. Note too that the mid-modes or transi-

tional writings have been eliminated from this schema

as a needles complexity--at this time.70

Like Gibson, Emig suggests the possibility of subcategories
being developed or established for the register or tenor of discourse.
"which concerns the distance observed between the writing self and
the field of discourse, expressed by the degree of formality Observed
in the writing itself. Formality or decorum in written discourse can
be established by one or more of the following means: lexical Choices,
syntactic Choices, rhetorical choices. Obviously, the most formal
discourse would employ all three means."7]
Because Emig is focusing on the process of writing, rather

than the product, she does not develop categories for determining
formality, but looks at how students in the process of writing make
those choices. However, she does describe "past and current compo—
sition guides" which argue that “there are established and widely
accepted indices of written decorum and that student writers of all
ages can learn and employ them“:

Levels of diction really refer to corpora of lexical

items that are consigned some place on a formality

continuum. Syntactically, certain orderings of words

are regarded as more formal than others: the "balanced"

sentence, for example, as aginst the "loose“ sentence.
Rhetorically, certain arrangements of sentences and

78

the kinds of signals that precede and connect them
are also regarded as more formal than others; for
example, the use of explicit "lead sentences" and
explicit transitional devices, such as nevertheless
and however.72
Though Emig does not provide classes or categories which use the in-
formation about informality and formality of structure, she is able
to talk about the kinds of choices students made in the process of
writing which provide insight into how students' writing is func-

tioning for them in ways that focus specifically on them rather than

on classes or categories.

 

 

‘-
v.)

{/v

:-

 

CHAPTER III

PURPOSE AND DEVELOPMENT OF RESEARCH PROJECT

A good deal of research has been done and continues to be
done to determine how student writing can be improved, how growth
in writing can be measured, and how various factors and techniques
in teaching writing influence growth or change in children's and
young peOple's writings. Much less has been done to discover what
students actually do when they write, what things they consider im-
portant to write about, and the various ways writing functions for
students at various age and grade levels.

James Britton and Daniel Dyer together point a new direction
for research and study of children's writing. For the most part,
research about children and about young people's writing interests
has been rather superficial, looking only at the kinds of selections
students make, not with the concerns writing reveals or how it func-
tions. Dyer's work is important in that it looks at student's free
writing, writing done without external controls, pressures, require-
ments, or expectations. Britton's work provides another way of deal-

ing with writing in its emphasis on the audience that the writing

79

80

is directed toward and in its very close analysis of how writing
functions for the individual--i.e., to report information, to class-
ify and categorize information, to develop theories and to philoso-
phize, to work through ideas and feelings, to play, to entertain,

to experiment.

Britton's research, of course, deals with students' school—
related writing. The purpose of this study is to look at students'
personal self-selected, self-sponsored writing to see the kinds of
audiences students choose to address, the ideas they choose to write
about, and to see in what ways young people use writing for their
own ends--the ways in which writing functions for them. A related
purpose of the study is to determine if there are developmental
changes in students' self-sponsored writing, if there are distinct
changes in interests in audience, in subject matter, and in the pur-

poses for writing from seventh grade through twelfth grade.

The Pilot Study

The stimulus used to elicit student writing had to serve
various purposes: First, it had to allow for a range of writing
interests; second, it had to allow for a variety of possibilities
for audiences, real or imagined; third, it had to be engaging in

order to meet the requirement of becoming a self-sponsored writing

81

(though administered in a school setting, it had to be removed from
school expectations); fourth, it had to be sufficiently open-ended
for students to feel free in choosing topics; and fifth, it had to
be simple enough to read and understand so that a writing could be
completed within a single class period by students in grades seven
through twelve with varying abilities.

The review of research by Braddock, LloydsJones, and Schoer,

1 provided additional information

Research in Written Composition,
about the collection of writing. Though they focus on experimental
research, some of their suggestions and admonitions are relevant in
collecting writing for a descriptive study.

The writers reinforce a concern already mentioned, that is,
that the tOpics used be appropriate and interesting for students.
Hackneyed topics and too much openness ("Write on anything you wish")
do not stimulate students as well as they should. "Surely there must
be some stimulating factor in a topic and, if possible, in the writing
situation, too, if the writing they trigger is to have any signifi-
cance for research."2 This, of course, was a central concern, that
students find a topic they could make their own, a topic that allowed
for personal engagement.

Braddock, et al., also provide. advice for time that should

be afforded for writing. Though there has not been any good research

82

about the optimum time for writing, the writers give this advice:

Investigators should consider permitting primary

grade children to take as much as 20 minutes, inter-

mediate graders as much as 35 to 50 minutes, junior

high school students 50 to 70 minutes, high school

students 70 to 90 minutes, and college students two *

hours. These somewhat arbitrary allocations of time

doubtless should be adjusted according.to the upper

limits of the range of intellectual maturity of the..

students and to the topic and mode of discourse of

the writing.3

Research in written Composition also discusses the importance
of the examination situation. The admonition to provide identical
situations for the experimental and control group was not relevant
to this study. It was important, however, that instructions given
to all groups of students be identical "to prevent the inadvertent
intrusion into the instructions for one group of a remark which may
stimulate them more or less than the other group."4 This was rele-
vant in this Study only in that it was important that all students
feel the same flexibility and independence, and be clear on how to
fulfill the general expectations of the writing.
A final concern that Braddock, et al., express is the im-

portance of anonymity. In the case of experimental studies in which
comparative evaluations of students are being made, anonymity is im-

portant so that raters of student writing can remain objective. In

this case, however, anonymity is important so that students could

83

feel free to write whatever they wanted without fear of being iden-
tified by teachers or researcher.

One final issue was taken into consideration when preparing
the stimulus and instructions for writing--the need for a rough
draft. In his critique of the National Assessment of Writing, John
C. Maxwell puts forth the concern that NAEP "did not.call upon stu-
dents to revise their papers or give them time to do so" and that,
in effect, students' rough drafts were being examined and assessed.5
Though in this study, the purpose was not to evaluate students'
writing ability, the notion that some students need the opportunity
to rework their writing for their own reasons is an important one.

The first step in the research project was the development
of a writing assignment that was stimulating and suggestive, but
open-ended. It needed to allow for a range of possible audiences--
from the self outward--and for a range of subjects--from very per-
sonal through abstract and imaginary. The first attempt was a list
of twenty-five writing possibilities that did range from personal to
impersonal and from concrete experience to abstractions about exper-
ience:

This morning I woke up and looked in the mirror and
found I had become . . .

Write about the happiest or saddest day in your life.

The most important thing in the world to me is . . .

84
Write about the last good fight you had with your
parents. Who was right? Who won? .

Describe the funniest person you know; or the
strangest person.

If you could live anywhere, where would you live?
Describe your ideal place.

Write about your ideas on childrearing. What are
the good qualities parents should have? What do.
you think parents should teach their children?
What are some things parents should not do?

Design an ideal school. What subjects would it
offer'(if any)? What would the teachers (if any)
be like? What would it look like?

Write about what you see as the most serious prob-
lem we have in the United States. What do you see
as some possible solutions to that problem?

Describe some invention or technological advance
that you'd like to see. What's it good for?6

There were two major problems with using such a list of
topics. First, the list contained many words and ideas; it would
have been difficult to process all the information in the topics
I95 well as the syntax), think about the composing possibilities
and problems inherent in each one, and then make a decision about
which was the most interesting, and finally to write it in one
class period. Such a list is appropriate for a term or year's

worth of work.

85

The second problem with the list was that the writing sugges-
tions were a bit too specific and directive. Something more open-
ended was needed.

The second possibility considered for a writing stimulus was
the use of five very open-ended topics. However, it was difficult
to come up with topics specific enough to be stimulating to a wide
range of ages and general enough to cover a wide range of possibili-
ties. The concern of Braddock, et al., that topics not be too open
or hackneyed became appropriate here. Finally, the problem with
both lists was that they were “themey” and schoolish; the task—
orientation of both did not meet the requirement of a writing stimu-
lus that was immediately-engaging.

The solution was the development of a letter format. Stu—
dents would write a letter to a person taken from a list ranging
from personal and known to impersonal and unknown; they would write
their letters on a topic taken from another list ranging from per-
sonal experience to abstract or philosophical concerns.

The letter seemed to be an especially good way of getting
engaged, personal, involved writing in a "one-shot" situation. The
use of the letter form insures that there is a good deal of personal,
familiar fkid talk': In that medium, the personal voice (with its

variations for different audiences) is likely to be used. In

86

addition, it is unlike the typical school theme topic in which
students often remove themselves from the writing in order to meet
some academic standard of objectivity often required (or presumed
required) by the teacher in school writing.

The letter form also seemed useful in that students choose
directly a preferred audience. In that way, it is superior to a
journal as a source of personal writing, because the journal usually
presumes no audience or self-as-audience. The letter form, then,
is a relatively personal form in which students choose their own
voice, their own topic, and their own audience.

At the same time, the letter is a public form, used to com-
municate to unknown and unfamiliar audiences for business, social,
or political reasons. It is a medium for getting things done and
sharing ideas as well as for sharing feelings and experiences: It
is used to get jobs done and services rendered; it is used for pri-
vate and public entertainment; it is also published in magazines
and newspapers for stating problems (Dear Abby, doctor's columns,
insurance and business columns, clothes and make-up problems, and
etiquette problems), sharing information (Ask Andy and Heloise),
and expressing opinions (All magazines and newspapers have a letters
to the editor column--everything from M@g_to Newsweek to Seventeen

tO'Playboy to the New York Times); finally, the letter has been a

O I

§\
'I

on

I).

 

v!-

 

 

 

87

fictional technique from the birth of the novel (Richardson's
Eamglg) to the present (Bellow's flgrzgg), in popular and elite
fiction.

Letters, then, appeared to allow for a wide range of ex-
pression--from feelings to experiences to information to opinion
to theory to imaginative creation. A major purpose of the pilot
studies was to determine whether the letter could serve both as a
personal medium immediately engaging for students and at the same
time give them a range of topics to write about. Other questions
to be answered through the pilot study were: Were the format and
instructions clear and easy to understand? Would the use of a
rough draft be a help or a hindrance? Should the rough draft be
required, suggested, or eliminated? Would students become immedi-
ately involved and interested in the task, i.e., did they seem to
enjoy doing the writing? Was one class period sufficient to com-
plete the task?

Two pilot studies were done, using two different instruments
before the final collection of writings. College students taking
writing classes (one a writing workshop for a heterogeneous group
of non-English majors, and the other, a class of English majors pre-
paring to become English teachers) participated in the first pilot

study. The first group merely performed the writing task; the

 

second wrote and then discussed the instruments, providing ideas

for revision. Below is the first list of writing topics developed:

Write a letter to someone chosen from Column I about

something chosen from Column II.

Column I

Your alter-ego

Yourself

Someone very close to you
Your mother or father
Your brother or sister

Someone you haven't seen
for awhile

Grandparent or aunt or uncle
A teacher

A minister

A hero or heroine

Someone you admire

A movie star or rock star
President Ford

Governor Milliken

A scientist or an inventor

Your boss

Column II

an important childhood memory
a problem youfre having
something that makes you angry

something that scares you or
is worrying you

an important event that happened
to you recently

someone who is important to you

someone who has influenced your
life

something you've been thinking
about lately

something you'd like to accom-
plish

a book you've read or a movie
or event you've attended

what you think an ideal school
is like

something you've always wanted
to do

what you want out of life

what you will be like in 200l

 

 

89
something you'd like to see
created or changed
an important social or polit-
ical problem you're con-
cerned about
Students in the college writing classes were given twenty
minutes to write the letter, with the main intent, at this point,
learning the range of audiences and topics they would choose. In
the writing workshop, students wrote on a wide variety of topics
ranging from the personal to more abstract: Two students (a male
and a female) wrote letters to themselves describing feelings and
problems related to members of the opposite sex. Two other students
(a male and a female) wrote letters to friends describing how they
felt about being in love. Another student wrote to a friend telling
about attending a self-help session and learning to give herself a
cervical examination. A male student wrote to a friend describing a
play he had attended and the circumstances surrounding it. Still
another student wrote to a friend he had not seen in "a year or two"
describing how he felt their lives had diverged. Other students
chose more impersonal audiences: Two students wrote to Michigan
Governor Milliken, one to complain about the ineffectivenss of the
legislature and one to ask for revenue in support of Detroit; an-
other male student wrote to 'Mr. Einstine“ to state his opinion that

the world should be viewed in ways other than the traditional

90

scientific "empirical, material basis"; finally, a female wrote a
letter to John Denver apprising him of her superiority as a musical
performer and encouraging him to allow her to join him as a back-
ground vocalist. In short, students in the first pilot covered the
entire range of topics provided, using the letter format for differ-
ent purposes, but all emanating from the personal.

In the second college class, it was suggested that students
do a rough draft or rough notes, but it was not required. Again,
students selected a range of audiences--self, relatives, friends,
teachers, and politicians--and a range of topics--romantic problems,
career problems, concerns about friends, and concerns about educa—
tional, social, and poltical problems.

In addition to doing the writing, this group provided sugges-
tions for revising the audience/topics list. From their suggestions
and the performance of the first two pilot groups the following
changes were made. The first had to do with the audience categories
that had been provided. The main concerns were that the choices
move from concrete to abstract, that they represent a range from
personal to impersonal, and that they be about the same degree of
specificity. "Alter-ego" was dropped from the list because it
seemed too abstract and might cause confusion for some students.

An addition near the top of the list 'an archrival or an enemy"

91

was added as the converse of "someone very close to you." "Someone
you admire" was changed to “An adult you admire" and placed before
a "teacher“ or “boss.“ A social leader was added to a minister to
broaden that audience category. Rather than specify political
figures, Milliken and Ford, the category became "A political figure."
Four new audience categories were added to the second list
of audience categories. "A hero or heroine" were added near "A
movie star or rock star“ as serving as roughly the same kind of
audience, but adding another possibility. Also added were "An imag-
inary person or animal,“ “The child you may have someday,“ and "A
person who lived in the past.“ These audience categories were more
difficult to place in terms of a concrete/abstract, personal/imper-
sonal continuum. They are more removed from the lives of the stu-
dents, for the most part, but they are probably in many ways more
personal, or at least have the possibility of being psychologically
much more personal, because the can be projections of a person's
own needs, and the creation, in great part, of a person's imagina-
tion. They are placed at the end, then, not so much because.they
are “impersonal" (though they may very well be), but because they
are abstractions, creations, or recreations of someone removed from

the writer.

92

The topics were revised after the first pilot, too, mainly
changing the order and adding more abstract/imaginative topics at
the end. “Someone who has influenced your life" was removed be-
cause it is implicit in "someone who is important to you." "Some-
thing you'd like to accomplish" was dropped because that idea is
covered in “something you've always wanted to do" and "what you want
out of life.“ "A book you've read or a movie or event you've
attended“ was expanded into two activities: "A book you've read or
a TV show or movie you've seen“ and “a play, sporting event, or con-
cert you've attended.“ After "something you'd like to see changed,"
more imaginative, projective topics were added: "a new product or
invention,“ “a crazy idea you have,“ “what you will be like in ZOOl,"
"an ideal world,“ and “an imaginary world." The complete revised
list of topics is below:

Write a letter to someone chosen from Column I about some
thing chosen from Column II.

Column I Column II

Yourself an important childhood memory

Someone very close to you a problem you're having

An archrival or an enemy somgthing that you are angry
a ou

Your mother or father

something that scares you or
Your brother or sister is worrying you

93

A grandparent or aunt or uncle

Someone you haven't seen for
awhile

An adult you admire

A teacher

Your boss

A minister or social leader
A political figure

A scientist or inventor

A hero or heroine

A movie star or rock star

An imaginary person or animal

The child you may have
someday

A person who lived in the past

an important event that happened
to you recently

someone who is important to you

something you've been thinking
about lately

something you've always wanted
to do

what you want out of life
your home or school or community

a book you've read or a TV show
or movie you've seen

a play, sporting event, or con-
cert you've attended

something you'd like to see
changed

a new product or invention
a crazy idea you have

an important social or political
problem you're concerned about

what you will be like in 200l
an ideal world

an imaginary world

The revised list was used in the second pilot study at

MacDonald Middle School with three classes of sixth graders.

major areas of questions were important at this stage:

Four

l) What

effect would the rough draft have on the writing?’ Should students

94

be required to write a rough draft and a final draft? 2) Were the
directions clear? Would students easily understand what was ex-
pected of them? 3) What was the optimum and/or required amount of
time students needed to do the writing? 4) Did the writing possi-
bilities seem to be evocative ones, ones the students could get in-
volved in writing about? Would they reveal themselves in this kind
of writing? Would the writing stimulus encourage a range of audi-
ences and topics?

To see what difference the writing of a rough draft made to
the writing of the final paper, one class was assigned to write a
rough copy first, one class to write only a final copy, and one
class was given the choice of whether or not they would write a
rough draft. The range of choices students made and the length
of the papers were unaffected by whether or not students wrote
rough drafts first. For most students who wrote rough drafts,
there was some variation between the first paper and the second
which was, for the most part, inconsequential. There were a few
papers which changed in intent or purpose, topic, or audience from
the first draft to the second. In the group in which students had
a choice of whether to write a rough draft, seven of twenty-three
wrote them. Because a sizable number chose to use a rough draft,

the rough draft was maintained as an Optional activity. allowing

95

students to choose the process which felt most comfortable for
them.

For the most part, students understood the verbal direc-
tions very well. It was necessary to emphasize, however, that
they were to write gng_letter, with the person they were writing
to taken from column I and the subject they were writing about
taken from column 11. Nevertheless, an occasional student would
write two letters, something from column I and something from
column II.

The amount of time it took to complete the writing sample
varied greatly, depending on the student. Some students began im-
mediately, wrote a rough draft and a final draft in l5 or 20 min-
utes. Some youngsters began immediately and fussed over a final
draft for 40 minutes, barely finishing by the end of the period.
Some students sat and thought or sat and talked and finally rushed
to finish something in the last 10 minutes of class. Because of
those and other idiosyncracies observed about the writing process,
students were given the entire class period (from 45 to 55 minutes
depending on the school) to complete the writing in order to provide
as much flexibility as possible.

Would students become involved in the writing? Would it be

something that would engage them personally and yet give them several

96

directions that the “self“ could move from? The results of this
pilot also gave positive answers to those questions, meriting the
use of the instrument to discover the kinds of personal writing
students engage in. The largest number of audience choices fell
into the two ends of the continuum with the pilot group, with five
letters being to “yourself," and thirty—three being to friends and
relatives; twenty-six audiences fell into the imaginary, hero/
heroine range with nine letters addressed to "a movie star or rock
star" and nine being directed to “an imaginary person or animal."
Six letters were addressed to public figures--teacher, political
figure, scientist or inventor. The subjects or topics students
wrote on also represented a range, with expectedly, the largest
number of letters being written about what they had been doing and
thinking about lately. Several letters centered on more intense
personal feelings, problems the students were having, something

they were angry about, and something that frightens or worries them.
Several letters, too, were letters of appreciation, letters to hero-
types or friends (often of the opposite sex) in which they expressed
their feelings about the person to whom they were writing. Several
letters were imaginary, fictionalized accounts. Students also wrote

about concerts, TV shows, and new products and inventions.

97

As a result of this pilot, a few more changes were made.
First, in order to simplify categorization of the choices, students
in the final study were asked to indicate their choices of audience
and topic. Thus, on the final list of tOpics, choices in Column I
(audience) were numbered, and choices in Column II (topic) were
lettered.

In addition, because several students asked about writing
on something that was not on the list, two additional items were
added, one in each category; they could write to "anyone you choose‘I
about "anything you choose."

The importance of anonymity for the students was reinforced
during the pilot study. Several students asked if I were going to
show their writing to the teacher, and when I answered "no" that
affected their attitude toward their writing. Several students
asked for verification during the process of writing, underlining
the importance of anonymity. During the final collection of writing,
part of the description of the writing in the instructions included
the information that no one in their school would see their writing
and that they did not have to put their names on their papers.

A final recognition that resulted from the second pilot
study was the importance of my being there to give instructions,

answer questions, set the tone, and collect (and protect) the

98

writing. My presence helped alleviate the schoolishness of the at-

mosphere and assure students of the confidentiality of their writing.

Gathering the Data: Population/
Instructions/Observations

Writing was collected from students in middle schools, junior
highs, and high schools in the Lansing, Michigan and outlying areas.

The following chart shows the p0pulation of the writing sample:

 

School 7th 8th 9th 10th llth 12th
Harry Hill
Boys 30 36 ’ l8
Girls 23; g!) 13;
Total 58 86 36
St. Johns
Boys lo 39 lo 12
Girls 131 ggg 151 15L
Total 28 73 20 26
DeWitt
Boys l3 23 3 3
Girls 13 25 _l_5_ 5
Total 27 48 l8 7
Walter French
Boys 38 35 29
Girls _3_3 _3_l_ Q
Total 7l 66 72
Hannah
Boys 50 44
Girls 52 39

Total l52' 83

99

 

School (cont'd.) 7th 8th 9th lOth llth l2th
Hayes Middle
Boys l4
Girls 5g;
Total 49
Total
Boys l02 79 52 92 49 33 397
Girls 1.2.9. 29. 1.5. 2.3.2. '15. .3292:
Total 222 l49 l27 l79 l24 69 860

Procedures and Instructions

Ordinarily, students were told in advance that they would be

doing a special writing assignment for the day. Teachers introduced

me as Ms. Koch from Michigan State University who was doing research

in student writing.

The following oral instructions were given to the students:

I am doing a study of students' writing in grades
seven through twelve to find out the kinds of things
students are interested in writing about and the kinds
of audiences they wish to address themselves to. (At
this point, they would be given a list of the writing
possibilities.) I would like you to write one letter,
using this list of possibilities. The possibilities
for peOple you may write your letter to are: (I read
down the entire list of audience possibilities.) Or,
if there is no one on the list you would like to write
to, you may choose a person that you would like to
write to. The list of things you may write about are
in Column II. They are: (I read down the entire list
of possibilities for topics.) Or, if there's nothing
on that list that you wish to write about, choose
something you would like to write about.

100

I am giving you two sheets of paper. The white.
sheet is for writing a rough draft, jotting down ideas,
or making notes about your.letter. If you don't wish
to write out your ideas, you may write directly on the
green sheet. The green sheet is for your final draft,
your completed letter. You are not required to write
a rough draft, but if you do, I would like to have
both drafts.

No one in your school will see this letter. I
won't show it to your teacher or to any students.

You don't have to sign your name if you don't want
to, but you may if you wish.

You don't need to worry a great deal about spelling
and punctuation. If you have problems and want.help,_.
I will be glad to help you; otherwise, just do the best
you can.

When most students were nearly done with the writing task,
I gave additional instructions for purposes of coding. They were
asked to write their sex, their age, and their grade on their
final draft; in addition, they were to put the letter of the item
they chose from column I and the number of the item they chose from
column II. This part of the instructions was given later, so that
students would concentrate on their ideas for what they wanted to
write, rather than on the more or less arbitrary categories set

out in the list of audiences and tOpics.

Some observations:
During the process of writing, the class was allowed to in-
teract in whatever ways seemed natural. I allowed talk during the

writing, believing that though students may borrow ideas from one

lOl

another, in the process of writing they make them their own. In
addition, students often write better when they can think through
their ideas aloud, get some feedback and allow their ideas to ex-
pan d through verbalizing them. 'Finally, even when students do
pick up and use an idea introduced by someone else, it is important
to recognize that they would not do that unless the topic is of
interest to them--such choices must be seen as a reflection of
legitimate interest. Not all students talked, however. In some
classes teachers had trained their students that composing is a
private affair and that they should use only what is in their heads.
In that case, I did not tell students to interact, but let them use
whatever mode seemed natural to them.

Typically, there were several questions raised after the
writing task was described. Some of the usual ones were: How long
does it have to be? Does it have to be true? Does it have to be
letter form? There answers were that it could be any length ("Even
one sentence?" "Yes, even one sentence." Of course, the students
asking that question always wrote much more.) In addition, I
assured them that it did not have to be true and that they could
address it any way they wished, any way they felt was appropriate.

Occasionally, there were students who were trying to find

out just how far they could go, probably not believing anything was

102

legitimate. "Can I write to my dead hamster?" "Sure." "Can I
write to Mickey Mouse?“ "Yes.“ And the inevitable: "Can we use
swear words?" "If you wish.“

Many questions students asked were merely for reassurance:
"You're not going to show it to my teacher?" "I don't have to sign
my name?" "What if something's not on the list?" "Do I have to
write on one of the topics on the list?" “Do I have to write a
rough draft?“ Though all of these questions had already been
answered in the original instructions, they seemed tobe an indica-
tion of students who want to be sure of what's expected of them and
who want to do it right.

Another group of questions indicated even greater involve-
ment in the writing: “Can I write on more than one topic?“ "Can
I write another letter?“ And what seemed to be the surest sign of
engagement: “Can I keep my rough draft? I want to give it to the
person I wrote to.“

In addition to the variety of questions and reassurances
students sought before becoming involved in the writing process,
there was also a great deal of variety in the way they approached
the writing task. Some students would get an idea immediately and
begin writing right away. Some of those would spend the whole

period writing and some would finish in the first fifteen minutes.

lO3

Some students would sit for forty minutes, sometimes talking to
others in the class and sometimes seemingly doing nothing. Then,
in the first ten minutes of class they would get an idea and write
furiously. Occasionally, I would suspect students who just sat
there quietly of being uninterested or bored. Sometimes that was
true, but sometimes surprisingly involved writing (from what could
be seen with surreptitious glances and quick readings after they
handed writings in) came from those who looked bored. And again,
though some students talked while they wrote and some were completely
silent, both would turn in papers of equal length.

Students also handled the rough draft in different ways.
Some of them would concentrate on their rough drafts. If they made
a "mistake" on their rough draft or if they did not like the idea
they had been working on for fifteen minutes, they would tear up
the sheet and start over on a new sheet, even if they had space
left and would be copying their composition over anyway on the final
green sheet. Other students would start writing on the rough draft
sheet, get an idea of what they wanted to do, and then go immediately
to the final draft sheet with no further hesitancy. Still other
more confident types would start right out on the final draft sheet,
decide that they did not like what they were doing or that they

wanted to take another tack on the subject, and they would get

104

another green (final) paper and start again. Still others were
really taken with the pgge5_and would ask if I had any extra
sheets for them to use later.

Observing the way students (938 of them in six different
schools) handled this particular writing task in their own peculiar
ways reinforces the notion that the writing process is idiosyncratic,
and that different youngsters do "their best" under different cir-

cumstances.

CHAPTER IV

DESCRIPTIONS OF CATEGORIES AND
GENERAL FINDINGS

In this chapter, an overview of the kinds of writings done
by students--by grade and by sex--will be provided. Any description
of findings which looks at a large sample and organizes it into gen-
eral categories necessarily overlooks some of the more interesting
and important characteristics within that sample. Moffett's notion
of abstraction places the significance of the overview into perspec-
tive: To abstract is to trade a loss in reality for a gain in con-
trol. This chapter, then, provides abstractions and generalizations
to give an overall picture of the writings in the sample; Chapter V
will seek for a gain in reality by looking in greater detail at spe-
cific writings--both characteristic and uncharacteristic--done by
individual students.

Two sets of categories were developed from the writings of
the students, providing a two-dimensional view of each piece of
writing. The first set, audience, includes seven categories: _Self,
Family, Peers, Known Adults, Public Figures, Imaginary Being, and
Other, The second set,'subjec , includes eight categories: Personal

105

lO6

Feelings; Past Personal Experience; Recent Personal Experience;
future Personal Experience; Goals; Ideas, Opinions, Theories;
Imaginary Situations; and Other, The first part of this chapter
will describe the categories within the audience and subject
framework, and examples of typical letters in each of the subject
categories will be provided. The second part of the chapter will
show the distribution of writings among the categories. For the
interested reader, tables containing percentages may be found on
the following pages: Girls' Audience Categories, Grades 7-l2, p.
l28; Boys' Audience Categories, Grades 7-l2, p. l3l; Combined Per-
centages of Letters to Family and Peers--Boys and Girls, Grades 7-
l2, p. l35; Combined Percentages of Letters to Known Adults and
Public Figures--Boys and Girls, Grades 7-l2, p. l35; Girls' Subject
Categories, Grades 7-12, p. l37; Boys' Subject Categories, Grades 7-
l2, p. 139; Top Two Choices of Cross-Tabulated Audience and Subject

by Grade and by Sex, p. l43 .

Description of Audience Categories

 

In the first category, letters written to Self, students
variously began their letters Dear Yourself, Myself, Me or with their
own name. Also included in this category were Dear Diary letters

which shared the characteristic of letter to the Self in that they

TD7

were introspective, concentrating on thinking through and mulling
over ideas, experiences, and feelings.

Students wrote to a wide variety of family members. Letters
to Mom, Dad, or Mom and Dad were usually of two types: letters of
love and appreciation or letters of anger and frustration. Other
letters were written to parents who were at some distance from the
youngster. Students wrote to separated parents about things they
had been doing lately, plans for seeing the parent, or problems
they were having at home. One girl wrote a letter to a mother she
had never seen about her feelings of rejection and desertion; another
wrote to her father who had died telling him what life was like with-
out him. Letters were written to brothers and sisters living at
some distance and to those living at home. Letters to distant sib-
lings most often related recent experiences, as did letters to aunts
and uncles. Letters to brothers and sisters at home were most often
expressions of negative feelings. Letters were also written to
grandparents, both dead and alive, sharing experiences and feelings,
asking advice and opinions.

Students wrote letters both to Peer§_they saw every day and
to friends they had not seen for awhile. In addition, they wrote
to friends of the same sex and to members of the opposite sex. Most

of these letters were about personal feelings, concerns, and problems

lO8

(particularly the girls' letters), recent personal experiences, or
plans for the immediate future. Students (particularly boys) also
wrote to their enemies expressing anger or other negative feeling.
Occasional letters to peers shared long range goals, ideas and
opinions, and imaginative ideas or situations.

Letters to Known Adults were written to a rather limited
range of audiences-—primarily teachers. Letters to teachers were
generally of two sorts, appreciation or anger. Students did not
discuss ideas, opinions, or goals in their letters to their teachers.
Even letters of appreciation centered on kindness or fairness (with
angry letters commenting on the lack of those qualities), rather
than on what the student had learned or discovered as a result of
contact with that teacher. Letters to coaches, written almost ex—
clusively by boys, also fit that description. Also included in this
categorynwere letters to bosses, again written primarily by boys,
which were usually expressions of anger over working conditions or
salary. An occasional letter to a boss discussed changes in an ob-
jective way. A few letters were also written to adult friends or
adult friends of the family.

The letters written to Public Figures were probably the most
diverse.v Students wrote letters to rock singers, classical musicians,

television and movie stars, athletes, literary figures, political

109

figures and scientists. For the most part, letters to rock singers,
TV and movie stars, and athletes were hero-heroine—worship letters,
with students concentrating on the strengths of their feelings

about the person. But occasionally, students provided an analysis
of a performance, or asked advice in terms of their own goals.

The letters to literary figures and classical musicians were
somewhat more objective, though there was also an expression of
feeling in those letters. Letters to scientists, inventors, and
politicians included both whimsical writings and serious writings.
Letters to the Wright brothers, Edison, George Washington, and Gen-
eral Rommel, for example, were playful letters. Letters to Adolph
Hitler, Stuart Udall, George Wallace, President Ford, and Members of
Congress, among others, were serious, some emphasizing the students'
strong feelings on a subject, some more objective discussions of an
issue.

Several kinds of audiences made up the Imaginary Being cate—

 

gory. Students wrote to animals, cartoon characters, characters
from books, characters they had made up themselves, and to the
“child I may have someday.“ Letters written to pets--both dead and
alive--were both playful and serious. Some shared personal problems
With their pets while others asked their pets how they liked their

new dog house or food. Others wrote letters to imaginary characters

llO

from cartoons and books, participating in the world of the character
or creating their own imaginary world to share with the character;
others created characters and imaginary situations to write to them
about. Letters written to imaginary beings came the closes to being
verbal objects of any of the letters written. Many of these letters
played with language and situations for pleasure and enjoyment and
to achieve an effect. A final and important audience in the imaginary
being category was "the child I may have someday." Both boys and
girls wrote to this audience, sometimes giving the child a name,
sometimes writing “Dear Future Child," “Dear Son or Daughter,“ or
"Dear Child I May Have Someday." Students writing to this audience
expressed a variety of concerns about their present problems and
feelings and their future plans and goals. In addition, some writ-
ings in this category were projections of a dramatic ending--often
their own death or the demise of the world.

The final audience category, Other, contained writing of two
general sorts. The first type included writings addressed to a
general audience: Dear Society, World, Anyone. The second type
was not addressed to an audience and included writings of the general
public essay type, and writings that were reflective, implying but

not specifying self-as-audience.

111

Description of Subject Categories

The first subject category--Personal Feelings-—is distin-

 

guished from the three Personal Experience categories (Past, Recent,

 

 

-and fgtgre) by emphasis. Obviously, personal feelings grow out of
events and experiences; and personal experiences elicit and create
feelings. The distinction is made between the Feeling and Experif
egee_categories, then, according to whether the emphasis in the
writing is given to the expression of emotion or to the relating
or recreation of events.

Many kinds of personal feelings—~both positive and negative--
were expressed in the students' letters. Most of the students' per-
sonal feelings center around their relationships with other people.
For girls, the emphasis is on relationships with friends of the same
sex, boyfriends, and parents. Boys only occasionally write about
their feelings for other boys, but write somewhat more often about
their feelings about girls and parents. Many expressions 0f feeling,
particularly for boys, are negative--directed toward or written about
teachers, parents, and peers. Boys seem more likely to express posi-
tive feelings in terms of hero worship for stars and athletes, than
they are about people and situations close to them.

The following writings give a sense of the range of emotions

expressed in the letters. The grade and sex of the writer are

112

indicated at the end of each letter.1

Dear Mom & Dad

This has been a wonderful year for me: fast-moving
and exciting, but full of heartaches too. Through it
all you have tried to steer me in the right direction
(though sometimes I bucked you all the way). This
letter is to thank you in a small way for all the help
you have given me.

Thank you for you patience when I was being a bitch.
You humored me and got me through man an ungly mood.
Every time I started crying for no reason you were
there with a ready ear and a shoulder. I appreciate
that.

Thank you for all your enthusiasm. You gave me
the drive to do many of the things I have done this
year. You backed me for every audition, for every
performance. You have always urged me to do the
very best with what talents I have.

I think that I have only touched on a part of
what you have done for me. I only know that I when
I go away next year, , I will carry with me_the love.
you have given me for 18 years. Pray for me, I love
you. I want to make you proud of me.

(12th Grade Girl)

Dear Mr. Enemy,

I'm quite upset with your behavior recently.and
I'm afraid I have to say you've been acting like a
jerk and a total fool throughout the year and I'm
getting sick of it! You annoy me constantly and
you're very selfish and inconsiderate. You're
childish pranks make me sick.. You spit water on
people, act tough and are really a weak.fool. Next ,
year in High School I'm going to beat you to a pulp!
I'm gettin very angry and and about to blow up.
Furthermore you're makeing me very mad and annoyed.
So if you don't stop 1.!1LL.EELL.XQQ.(W1th a gun)

(8th Grade Boy)

113

Dear

 

I don't mean to sound cruel and I hope.you don't
take this the wrong way, but you bastard! Why.didn't
you tell me? All this time I thought you and Bonnie
were breaking up and that she.was definatly ggt_preg-
nant. Now I find out yesterday, that she 15 pregnant
for sure and that you two are getting married.on June
12th! After all those.lies! .Well bud, you might just
have another problem on your hands. What happens if
gig pregnant! I've heard so many rumors lately and
I've made myself believe they were not true. On the
other hand I heard that you never loved her and wanted
to break up with her to go with someone else.. Now I .
don't know why, but for a while I thoughtthat.someone
else was me. Now, don't get.me wrong,_but I'm.not as
worried about what might happen as.I am about whatyou
did. Why would you tell all your friends about Sunday
night? I honestly didn't think you would.stoop that
low. I don't want tthat kind" of a reputation. What's
even worst about this whole thing is that I didn't do
it willingly! That might have been different, then I
could take 50% of the blame at least. And it was like
you were "selling“ me to those other guys. I.am sure
$20. Who do you think I am! .That really hurt Rog, my
pride if not anything else. is so pissed
at me. He found out too! Not that I really care, be-
cause I've never really know him and he didn't know.
what he was doing Saturday night as none of us did
either. Well I've said all about I've got to say,
and I hope you didn't take the beginning the wrong
way. Just think everything.out slowly and promise
me you won't rush into anything, ok?

Luv always,
(10th Grade Girl)

Dear KISS, Ace, Gene, Paul, Peter

I like the music you play I wish I was as good as
you. I like all your alblums if you were to ask me
what my.favorite song was I couldnt tell you because
their all my favorites. As it seems you always get a

.IEIEAI Sincerely yours _
Ye'r Frind L -
(7th Grade Boy)

114

Letters about Personal Experiences-were broken down into

three different categories: Past Personal Experience, Recent Per-

 

sonal Experience, and Future Personal Experience.\ Most of the

 

 

letters students wrote were about Recent Personal Experience:

 

Letters in this category were usually about events or experiences
which had occurred within the last few months, and usually within
the last few days. There are two basic types of recent personal
experience writings: letters that focus on a single recent exper-
ience, and letters that describe in general what the student has
been doing lately. Students wrote about all kinds of experiences:
their involvement--accomplishments and failures--in athletic events;
their attendance or performance in school events, such as plays or
musical concerts; recent social events, such as proms, parties, and
dates with new people; their experiences with motorcyles and cars;
trips--visits to Cedar Point, parents' cottages, canoe and camping
trips; adventurous misdoings or illegal activities--getting drunk,
getting stoned, being called on or picked up by the police.

The next two examples of letters characterize the letters
written about Recent Personal Experience.~ The first one focuses
on a eiggle event:

Dear Grandparents,

I am writing this letter to tell you about one
of our music concerts. I went with the orchestra

115

to the State Capitol to preform. We played behind the
Capitol during lunch time, when the workers got out.
Some of the numbers we played were: Victory at Sea,
American Salute, March from Carmon,.Anduluchie suite,
and the Blues. At lunch time,.or noon, we had about
lO or so people listening. At l2:30 we had 60-70.
people, so we had a great turnout. I wish you could
have been there to see us. That's all for now.

Love,
(9th Grade Boy)

The following letter by an eleventh grade girl characterizes the
writings about Recent Personal Experience that are less specific
and focused. These letters also have a tendency to be chattier
and less formal in nature:

Dear Keyta,

Well, what ya been doin'? I've been so busy.
latly I haven‘t had a chance to write. I was in
our school play last week. It turned out really
well. All the practices before the actual play
were a real hassel though. .

Hows school goin'? How is everybody down there?
Karen had a really good time when we came down there
spring vacation. I'm glad I got to see some of my
old friends and some of the new kids too. Wow!. I
couldn't believe how cute Tim Butler had got. What
did everybody think of Karen?

Well I better be going now. Pleas write and
let me know whats happenin'. Bye now!

Love
(llth Grade Girl)

P.S.
I hope you can come up
sometime this summer.

116

A very small number of letters were written about personal
experiences in the past. These writings were characterized by an
implied or stated phrase--"Remember when . . . ." An experience
need not have occurred a long time ago in order to have the "Re-
member when" tone. The following letter by a seventh grader has
that quality related to an experience that happened apparently
less than a year previously:

Dear Kelley

I have been thinking about that raccoon lately
you know that raccoon that we saw in your barn when
I was visiting you. Is it dead or alive please write
me & tell me if it is dead or alive. I had a grate
time last summer.
Love,

(7th Grade Girl)
The final personal experience category contains letters
written about things planned for the near future. Like the Recent

Personal Experience category, the Future Personal Experience cate-

 

gory covers social, school, and atheletic events that the student
is looking forward to. In addition, since the writing sample was
gathered during spring term, students wrote a good deal about how
they would be spending their summers. The following letter is
characteristic of letters in which students planned for near-future

experiences:

117

Dear Dennis (step-brother)

I've been looking forward to living with dad.and.
the rest of you this summer. I think we'll have a
real fun time. We can pick berries at that farmers
place where you picked them last year and maybe make
a little money. .

I would like to help dad move into the upper part
of the house so you don't have to live in that wet .
bastment all summer long. By the way how is dad
comming on the house? Has he done anything to it
lately? I can't wait until he gets done with it.

Should I bring my bike when I come? .I know that
you dont have one but we can take turns riding on it.
You might even get one befor the summer is over.

i hope you don't decide to spend the summer with
your dad. There wont be much to do all alone except
work on the house by myself. I might get a job at
the golf course or else picking berries if I don't
have anything else to do.

Well I supose I'll let you go for now. Hope to
see you soon.

Love,

(10th Grade Boy)

The next category of writings, Goals, is distinguished from

the Future Personal Experience category in several ways. While the

 

Future Personal Experience~letters focus on short-term plans and
plans for the near future, e931; letters are concerned with long-
range plans or ideas about what the student would like to do when
he/she grows up. In addition, students write with more intensity
and seriousness when they are writing about their goals. Writings
in this category also reflect the self-image of the writer to a

,greater degree. Not all letters written about Goals discuss career

118

plans or represent a mapped-out future. Some of them relate achieve-
ments writers want to attain or aspects of themselves they want to
develop. Others relate fantasy-like goals, like this one by a

tenth grade girl to her boyfriend:

My sweetest Craig,

Someday I'm going to move up into the mountains,
someplace peaceful and beautiful. I will build my..
cabin near a trickling stream., I shall sit among .
the wildflowers and play with the animals that live
there. Or sometimes I will just sit at night and
look at the stars, and just be contented. At times
I will get very lonesome for you so I expect you to.
visit me. If, when visiting me, you find contentment
and pleasure in the mountains, I would be very happy
to have you move in with me.

Lots of love,

(10th Grade Girl)

Very few letters talked about specific professions or professional
plans, but in some letters, like the one below, specific future goals
were considered:

Dear Self:

I've been thinking about.this for a long.tfime.
I don't know wheter I want.to.become a cop anymore.
Because I hear so many.bad.things about them. About
how corrupt they are. .I.want.to be an honest copy,
where peOple will come to me for help. I want to
help get rid of people who push d0pe to little kids.
I want to clean-up the streets, help kids get their
minds. Do my part in.helping.the world become a
better place to live. ‘
Sincerely yours,
Me
(lOth Grade Boy)

119

A more common--and indirect-~expression of goals was found in letters
written to "the child I may have someday." These letters often ex-
press the writer's goals about the kind of parent he or she wants

to be, but equally important, they also describe the kinds of life-
styles students want to have and the kinds of people they want to be.
The following letter represents this kind of expression of goals:

To my Child,

I don't know what your going to be like. But I
just wanted you to know that I will take care of you
while you are going up. All through school, I make
sure that you will be one of the best dressed there
your hair will be neat all the time you'll alway have
food in your stomach.

I will try my best to be gently and kind. I make
sure your father is nice and will always be there when
ever you need him. And he will alway love you even if
he stops loving me he still take care of you.

I make sure you are dressed nice and your hair is-
always neat. If you do something wrong I won't hit
you I will sit down and talk to you tell what I dont
about what you did explain to you right and wrong.

I want you to come to me with your problems. I
want you to be able to trust me I want to be your.
freind as well as your mother and I want you to love
me like I love you. I want you to alway rembere that
I will be around when you need help when you need a
freind I will alway be there.

Love
Mother

(llth Grade Girl)

Letters in the IdeaetrOpinions, Theories category are writ-

ings in which students deal with issues and ideas. Students varied

120

in their abilities to fully develop and explain an opinion or theory,
and some of the letters in this category show students at early
stages of grappling with ideas or analyzing data or experience. The
letters in this category also may include allusions to experience

or the expression of strong feelings, but the focus of the letters

in this category is on the more abstract and more objective expres-
sion of an idea, opinion, or a theory. The following letter by a
seventh grader shows a youngster working with a new idea, and al-
though it includes allusions to personal experience and feelings,

the main intent of the letter is to consider various interpreta-

tions of death:

Dear Grandma,

I've been thinking about something lately that has
stuck in my mind. I'm not going to my mom to tell her
because I know you've been through it before and mom
has, too, but I think you can tell me what I want to
know and how I want to hear it a little bit better.

What do you do when someone very close to you dies?
Do you cry or do you smile and be happy since you know
it was God's will and they will be much happier in
heaven then on earth? I know everyone has to die some-
time, but I think all the.time what if my mom or dad
were in a serious auto accident and they were killed?
How would I take it? It would be such a shock to me!

I've heard about something that freezes people.
This is another thing I'd like to talk over with you.
I've heard if you're dieing from a disease before you
die they put.you into a box-like structure and freeze
you. Then in the next.200 or 300 years when they find
a cure for the disease that you have they unfreeze you

121

and give you the cure. How could anyone do this? Why
wouldn't anyone not want.to go to heaven? .Well, will
you please write me back and.tell me your answers to
these questions? Thanks for letting me talk to you
about these two little problems get off my back.
Write be back as soon as you get some time.

Love,

(7th Grade Girl)

The next letter could, perhaps, be categorized or described as a
writing which focuses on personal feelings. Though the student
does, for a moment, turn to his response to a specific event, the
overall intent of the letter is to be analytical about school.
The student is trying to understand and think about experiences
and what they mean in an objective and logical fashion.

Dear,

 

I am writing to you about school. This may sound
strange but I feel you would like to know my views on
it. Perhaps it may be benificial to you or others.

To start off lets talk about the office. This is
a place where hypocrits roam wild. A type of place
where secutaries are payed to be rude, and ignorant.

The counselers are trained in deciving young minds,
and are completly unorganized with the rules of the
school. . - -

Then there are the teachers. These are people who,
many of which, tend to play favorites with students.

Not nessarally grade wise, but by letting certain pupils
get away with murder.. They also have a tendency to ex-
pect more then the pupils are able to give. Eff(?)

and puncuallity are very important to them and.they

tend to put too much value on these.

Last but not least are the students. Many of which
you would need a ' pyscology degree in trying to under-
stand them. You might be able to arrange them into
categories. First.there are the ones who's ego need

122

a boost and would beat their own mother if it would
help them. Insted of descovering their own self
they tend to do what other will think of as_cool.-
Then there are people or should I say students.who-
are concited to the point were their ego has been
built to the point where they have to feel important
to both the students and the people who he would feel
could do him good. The thing that puzzles me is when.
friends you thought were your best.suddenly turn to.
be like complete strangers. For instant an best.
friend of mine ask my girlfriend,.to which I have.
been going with for 4 years, to go to bed with him.
He knew I would find out about it, but still con-
tinued to feel that we should still be friends.

Although school has taught me things on.English,
and Math, and other things. It at the same time.
taught me about life, responsibility, and how to
rationalize things out.

signed

(l2th Grade Boy)

Students also wrote opinions and theories on political prob-
lems and social problems. Some of these were about very specific
issues and current events; others were directed toward presidential
candidates and other political figures expressing more general con-
cerns about the country, its problems, and its needs. The following
letter, written to the Governor of Michigan, expresses an opinion
on a specific issue:

Governor Milliken,

I am concerned.about the recent problem you.are en-
countering at this moment. I relise that your position
requires an open mind and you.have to be very careful.
The P. B. B. question,.which is being tossed around at
this moment, seems rather strange to me. All animals

123

have a certain amount in them and always will have.
Up until the contamination of feed no one payed
any attention to the chemical, As soon as cattle-
men fed contaminated food to their animals, which
led to death, they claimed this was the cause of
all deaths. The many deaths caused farmers that
had a high concentration in their system were shot
and the manufactoring committe then had to cover
these losses. When farmers found they could get
money for their animals many farmers clained their
animals were sick from this and shot them before
they could be checked by a government official.
You know as well as I that not just one cow is
going to die out of a whole herd if there all fed
the same grain. I one was contaminated out'of a
herd it must have contacted it some here else.
This would mean that they couldn't receive money
from the manufactorer of the feed. Mr. Governor,
I think you ought to step down on all these farmers
that are claiming the loss of parts of their herds
if they are doing it for the money.

Sincerly

(10th Grade Boy)

The final category-~Imaginative Situations--included a wide

 

range of tOpics from crazy inventions and products to fantasies
about utopian worlds to fantasies about their own futures to letters
written to pets and characters from books and movies in which the
student participated in the created world of the person/being to
whom he was writing. Some of the fantasy letters or imaginative
situations were written to real people, and the writer was sharing
an imaginary situation with them; some wrote to imaginary characters

about imaginary problems or concerns, one boy writing to a flower

124

salesman about his geraniums going awry, and a girl writing to Hen-
rietta Hippo about her weight problem. Some of the letters are whim-
sical and humorous; others are serious and dramatic. The following
letter to Dr. Frankinstein is one of the light letters that describes
a new invention.

Dear Dr. Frankinstein,

I am a young inventor in the field of toys for
children. I have a very creative product which I.
would like to market. I received this brillant idea
when my younger borther.and sister were watching the.
munchkins in the movie, “The Wizard of Oz." They
were talking amoung themselves of how they would
like to meet the munchkins.

There are, of course, different characters of
the munchkins that could be manufactured, like_the
Lolly Pop Boys, the mayor of the town, and also the
sherriff. I have designed a sketching.of how they
would look, and how tall they would be.

I would like you assistance in setting up manu-
facturing, and selling of the product I have dis-_
cussed. I would like to get together with you on.
June l0,.l976 at the resteraunte, the "Page Boy,"
and discuss the makings of the munchkins. Please
bring your lawyer as mine will accompian me.

Sincerely yours,

(llth Grade Girl)

 

While a mock-serious tone is used in the letter to Dr. Frankinstein,
some fantasy letters have a tone which reflects a truly serious atti-
tude on the part of the writer. In addition, some of the letters
written about imaginary situations express strong emotion which

demonstrates a participation in the fantasy world about which the

125

writer is writing. The following letter is among the more serious
letters written about an imaginative situation:

Dearest Aslan,

I hope you don't mind me calling you that. Your
name is so strengthening when I am sad. Right now I
need all the strength and.courage I can_get..

I greatly fear that this world is falling into
greater tribulations and problems than they can. ,.
handle. I beg of you Aslan to deliver the beleivers
in you that are here. Please.. Please, Please.make
it soon. I have lived for you, living for you, and
always will do so. . .

If you can't take me to Narnia please! give me
an explantation. Remember I wish to go to Narnia
and live more than anything.

Please! Please! Please!

With my love for you

Aslan and Narnia the country
I love and live for I sign
this letter with the symbol

[symbol]
(9th Grade Girl)

Some letters in the Imaginary Situations category are more

 

whimsical, and describe silly situations and events, like the one
in which a student describes an attack on the Glicks by the Tree
People and another in which “Lamar“ attacks MacDonaldland. Letters
to animals and pets often fall in this category, like/the playful
letter below written to a bird:

Dear Bird

I wish you didn't.fly away. I hope you made it
threw the winter. Don't be foolish, come and visit

126

us we moved and got a dog. hope you are having fun
be careful and watch out for cats. If you come and
visit I sure to bring your mate and kids and plan
on staying as long as you please. You will have
to meet some of the other neighbor birds around the
house neiborhood, and watch out for the kids with
guns. _ _
(8th Grade Male)

Another*sort of fantasy letter is the writer's dramatization
of his or her future. The fantasy-future letters differ from the
future goals letters in that they use fictional form rather than a
logical description; in addition, they are usually much more far-
fetched and dramatic--or melodramatic--like the one below, written
to "the child I may have someday."

Dear Son,

You probably don't know that this is your father
writing to you. But I seized this chance because I'll
never see you again. I'm terribly ill and won't last
to see you. However I'd like you to know how much
loved you. You still have your older brothers and
sisters to take care of you.

You will know that we are on a deserted island,
if any fortune will come to you, I know not. But I've
gotten, some horrid disease.while searching for your.
mother. I've never found her, I suppose she didn't
survive the wreck. I trust you will remain.able.bodied
and well supplied. I'm not about to leave you at the
mercy of my mistakes.. Therefore you have seen the
strong fortress I've built for you.. You will have an
adequat supply of tools, weapons and.other usefuls.
Your eldest brother knows how to take care of every-
thing. .Remember.this letter and stick close to the
familly, never question.you're.brothersi judgements.
You'll be safe and sound, I know. My only wish would

127

be to see you when you can remember me. .But that
would be in vain. Take care son. 1,
Love Always,
Father

(8th Grade Boy)

Only one letter could not berclassified toany of the cate-
gories above; that was one in which the boy discussed that he did
not know what he was going to write about, but when he decided his
friend (to whom he was writing) would be the first to know.‘

The following descriptions of the data will provide more
information about the distribution of audiences and subjects selected
by students according to grade level and sex. Though percentages
will be given for audiences and subjects selected, the emphasis is
not on statistical significance of the percentages. Rather the per-
centages are included to provide an overview of the most important
people, feelings, ideas, and experiences for this particular group
of 860 students. Though an attempt has been made to collect writing
samples from a wide variety of students, no claim is made for the
universality of the results and conclusions. In short, the concern
is not with statistical purity and universality, but with an accurate
-and detailed description of this particular group of writings.2

The percentages will be reported in the following order:

audiences selected by girls, grades 7-l2; audiences selected by

128

boys, grades 7-12; subjects selected by girls, grades 7-12; subjects
selected by boys, grades 7-12. Finally, the interrelation of audi-
ences and subjects will be discussed. Comparisons between boys

and girls will be made throughout.

Audiences Selected by Girls

Table I shows the distribution of audiences as percentages

of the overall total of girls' letters at each grade level.

'Table I

Girls Audiences by Percentage

 

 

 

 

Grade Levels
Audience Categories

7 8 9 10 ll l2
Self 5.8 1.4 2.6 4.6 2.7 5.6
Family l7.5 8.6 20.0 l6.l 2l.3 25.0
Peers 45.0 52.9 50.7 55.3 49.3 44.4

Known Adult 5.0 11.4 10.7 2.3 4.0 0
Public Figure 11.7 10.0 1.3 3.6 4.0 5.6
Imaginary Being l0.8 l0.0 14.7 16.1 17.3 8.3
Other 3.3 5.7 0 2.3 1.3 ll.l

 

Note: Percentages have been rounded so that in this and some subse-
quent tables figures do not always add to exactly 100%.

129

Inspection of these figures shows the overall predominance in
every grade level of the peer categories. In every year, the percen-
tage of letters written to peers is near 50%, with the percentage in
twelfth grade the lowest at 44.4%, and the highest in tenth grade at
55.3%.

family audiences account for the second highest percentage
of audience categories in every grade level but eighth grade where
letters to family members account for only 8.6% of the total audi-
ences. In seventh grade, family members account for l7.5% of the
audience; in ninth, 20%: and in tenth, l6.l%. Eleventh and twelfth
grade girls wrote a larger percentage of their letters (2l.3% and
25%, respectively) to family members than any of the other grades.

The other audience categories do not reveal the same consis-
tency throughout the grade levels as to the Eeer_and family cate-
gories. Seventh grade girls, for example, show a much greater
preference for PublicAFigures (ll.7%) and Imaginary Beings (l0.8%)

as audiences than they do for the Known Adult (5.0%), whereas for

 

eighth graders, the three audience categories are evenly distributed
(Known Adult, ll.4;-Public.Figure-and Imaginary Being, 10.0%).

Of these three categories, the Imaginary Being is the most
popular for ninth grade girls with 14.7% of the letters being di-

rected toward that audience. The Public Figure (l.3%) is the least

13D

significant audience in ninth grade, with Known Adultt(lO.7%).consis-
tent with the eighth graders' use of that audience.

The Imaginary Being_becomes an even more important audience
in tenth and eleventh grades, which can be accounted for primarily
by girls writing to "the child I may have someday." Imaginary Beirgs
account for the same percentage of letters to femily_(l6.l%) in the
tenth grade, and l7.3% of eleventh grade girls wrote to Imaginary
geigge, Known Adults and Public Figures are relatively minor audi-
ences, under 5%, in tenth and eleventh grades.

In twelfth grade, with 69% of the letters written to femily_
and Eeere, Known Adult (0%), Public Figure (5.6%), and Imaginary
B_eip_g (8.3%).are unimportant, with the Imagigary Being showing the
greatest drop from the previous grades. The rise in the Qtrer_cate-
gory (ll.l%) can be accounted for by more general essays with no
audience in twelfth grade.

(The greatest diversity and widest distribution of audiences
occur in the earlier grades (seven through nine) with Public Figure
and Known Adult providing a larger number of audiences in those
grades. In all grades, however, it is fergly.and Eeere_that girls

show by far the greatest interest in for their audienCe.

131

Audiences Selected by Boys

The next table (Table II) shows the distribution of audi-

ences in boys' letters.

Table II

Boys' Audiences by Percentage

 

' Grade Levels

J—

 

 

Audience Categories , 7 8 9 10 ll 12
Self .98 5 l 9.6 7.6 2.0 0
Family 13.7 15.2 11.5 14.1 8.1 21.2
Peers 29.4 22.8 28.8 28.3, 22.4 33.3
Known Adult 10.0 6.3 13.5 15.2 10.2 15.6
Public Figure 22.5 24.1 15.4 18.5 26.3 18.2
Imaginary Being 13.7 20 3 5.8 6.5 22.4 6.1
Other 8.8 6 3 15.4 9.8 8.1 6.1

 

 

The boys' audiences are much more diverse and varied than the
girls' audiences. While boys wrote the largest percentages of their
letters to Eeer§_in four grades (seventh, ninth, tenth, and twelfth),
the dominance of Eeer_categories is not nearly as great with the boys
as it is with the girls. The highest percentage of letters to feere,
in fact, was 33.3% in the twelfth grade whereas for girls the per-
centages ranged between 44% and 55%. In grades seven throughreleven,

boys wrote between 22.4% to 29.4% of their letters to Peers.

T32

Whereas for girls, Families served as the second largest
audience (except in eighth grade), only for twelfth grade boys is
femily_the second largest audience category at 21.2%. In the
other grades, the percentages of letters written to ferily_members
ranged from 8.1% in eleventh grade to 15.2% in eighth grade. There
is no particular progression either in increasing or decreasing
percentages of letters written to ferily,

For boys, the Public Figure category is more significant
than the femily_category of audiences. In two grades, the largest
percentages of letters were written to Public Figures: 24.1% in
eighth grade and 26.3% in efleventh grade. Public Figures account
for the second largest audience in seventh (22.5%), ninth (15.4%),
and tenth (18.5%). In comparing the boys' use of the Public Figure
as audience with the girls' use of the same audience, a tremendous
discrepancy can be seen. Boys wrote two to six times as many let-
ters to Public Figures as girls did, with the differences especially
great in ninth, tenth, and eleventh grades in which the girls' and
boys' percentages were, respectively: ninth--l.3% to 15.4%; tenth--
3.6% to 18.5%; eleventh--4% to 26.3%. In the twelfth grade, a
slight move up for girls to 5.6% and downward for boys to 18.2%

does not do much to change the overall picture.

133

At every grade level, except eighth, boys showed a much

greater interest in Known Adult audiences than did girls, and the

 

differences become great in tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grades in

which 10% to 15% of the boys' letters are to Known Adults, and only

 

2% to 4% of the girls' letters were in the same category. In
twelfth grade no girls wrote to Known Adults, while 15.6% of the
boys did.

There is not as clear cut a pattern in the Imaginary Figure
category for boys as there is for girls. Boys' largest percentage
of letters to Imaginary Beings appear in eighthrand eleventh grades
(20.3% and 22.4%, respectively), and their smallest in ninth, tenth,
and twelfth (5.8%, 6.5%, and 6.1%, respectively). There is not the

steady increase in the Imaginative audience category for the boys

 

that there is for the girls, but both boys and girls show lower per-
centages in twelfth grade, probably reflecting a need to deal with
more immediate and concrete issues.‘

Boys and girls alike show a varied, and somewhat minimal,
interest in writing to themselves; but where girls show most inter-
est in seventh (5.8%) and twelfth (5.6%) grades, boys show little
interest then (.98% and 0%, respectively). The boys' interest in the
middle grades is higher than the girls' at any level, with 9.6% in

the ninth grade and 7.6% in the tenth grade.

'134

Boys wrote more genralized essays than did girls, accounting
for 6% to 15% of their writings falling within the Qtfler_category.

In the case of audiences selected by students at various
age and grade levels, these percentages do not support the notion
that there is a gradual move outward from self to more removed and
distant audiences or from limited to more diverse audiences. Rather,
they indicate choice of audience as being more related to sex than
age. In fact, the students' selections of audiences seems to sup-
port current theories about sex roles and sex stereotyping: girls'
choices of audiences indicate a preference for close, immediate, per-
sonal relationships. Boys, on the other hand, show an interest in
relating to family and friends, but their interest is not so exclu-
sive; they are much interested in people outside their immediate re-
lationships.

Another way of looking at the percentages makes the differ-
ences between girls and boys clearer. Table III presents the com-
bined percentages of letters written to Family and Peers by age and
by sex. Even with the boys' rise in percentage of letters to family_
and Beere in the twelfth grade, nearly fifteen percentage points
still separate the boys' and girls' combined ferily and Beer audi-

ences .

135

Table III

Combined Percentages of Letters to Family and Peers

 

 

Grade Level . Girls ... . Boys
7. 62.5 . 43.1
8 61.5 38.0
9 .- 70.7 40.3
10 71.4 42.4
11 70.6 30.5
12 69.4 54.5

 

Table IV sets out the combined percentages of letters to

Known Adults (usually teachers and coaches) and Public Figures,

 

 

showing boys' greater interest in writing to people more removed

from their immediate experiences and concerns.

Table IV

Combined Percentages of Letters to Known
Adults and Public Figures

 

 

Grade Level Girls Boys
7 16.7 32.5
8 21.4 30.4
9 12.0 28.9
10 5.9 33.7
11 8.0 36.5
12 5.6 33.8

 

136

As shown by the combined percentages of letters to Known Adults and

 

Public Figures, boys write from two times (in seventh grade) to six

 

times (in twelfth grade) the number of letters to more impersonal
audiences than the girls. In addition, there is a relative balance
of audiences in the boys' letters, and an imbalance in the girls'
audiences which becomes particularly evident when looking at the
combined percentages of the personal and immediate audiences, and

the combined percentages of the more impersonal and remote audiences.

Subjects Selected by Girls.

 

The following table, Table V, shows the distribution of
subjects chosen by girls as percentages of the total girls' letters
at each grade level.

By far the greatest percentage of girls' letters were

written about their Personal Feelings, ranging from 30% to 50%,

 

with the largest percentages being written about Personal Feelings

 

in the eighth (48.6%) and ninth (48.0%) grades. Although there is
a slight drop to the thirty percentile range in tenth and eleventh
grades, twelfth grade shows 44.4% of the letters written about

Personal Feelings.

 

137

Table V

Girls' Subjects by Percentage

 

 

 

- Grade Levels
Subject Categories
, 7 8 9 10 ll 12
Personal Feelings 30.8 48.6 48.0 33.3 32.0 44.4
Past Personal 1.7 1.4 0 1.1 1,3 5,5
Experience
Recent Per§ona1 28.3 21.4 26.7 27.6 21.3 22.2
Experience
FuturefPersonal 13.3 7.] 2.7 9.2 12.0 2.3
Experience
Goals .8 4.3 9.3 18.4 24.0 8.3
Ideas, 9P1n1°953 11.7 5.7 4.0 5.7 4.0 13.9
Theories
Im19'“at‘ve 12.5 11.4 9.3 4.6 5.3 2.8
Situations
Other 0 0 0 0 0 0

 

 

The second most important subject for girls was Recent Per-

sonal Experience, with percentages falling between 20% and 30%, and

the highest percentages of letters in this category being written in

 

seventh grade (28.3%). Letters about Past Personal Experience-are

relatively rare with the highest percentage being written by twelfth

graders (5.6%); this can be accounted for by the fact that twelfth

138

grade girls are in the process of reviewing their high school years,
and looking back at experiences that have occurred over a period of
three or four years. Future Personal Experience—-consisting of
plans for the very near future--appears somewhat more interesting;

seventh graders more letters about Future Personal Experience (13.3%)

 

than any other grade, and eleventh graders had the second highest
percentage of letters in this category (12%).

An interesting trend appears in the letters written about
figale or more long-range plans. There is an increase in the per-
centage of letters from seventh (.8%) through eleventh grades with
discussion of goals reaching a peak in the eleventh at 24%; the
trend does not continue into twelfth grade however. Rather, there
is a drop in twelfth grade of letters written about goals to 8.3%,
with a corresponding increase in letters written about Personal

Feelings, Past Personal Experieneey~andedea53quinions; and~

 

 

 

Theories. Again, it seems that twelfth grade girls are thinking
through what has been happening to them during their three or four
years in high school; in addition, their relationships with their
family and their friends seem particularly intense at the point of
leaving school and/or home at hand.

Letters about Imaginative Situations also show a pattern:

The highest percentage of letters written about imaginative situations

139

was written in seventh grade (12.5%); there is a decrease each year
with twelfth graders writing only 2.8% of their letters about

Imaginative Situations.

 

Subjects Selected by Boys

 

Table VI shows the distribution of boys' subjects.

Table VI

Boys' Subjects by Percentage

 

Grade Level

 

Subject Categories
7 8 9 10 ll 12

 

.Personal Feelings 41.2 35.4 30.8 33.7 24.5 30.3

Past Personal
Experience

Recent Personal

. 18.6 15.2 25.0 16.3 6.1 21.2
Experience

Future Personal 5.9 8.9 7.7 8.7 2.0 9,]

Experience
Goals 3.9 O 19.2 8.7 14.3 6.1

Ideas, Opinions,
Theories 9.8 10.1 9.6 16.3 32.7 30.3

Imaginative
Situations 20.6 30.4 5.7 15.2 16.3 3.3

Other 0 O 1.9 O O O

 

 

140

Although the percentages of boys' letters written about

Personal Feelinge are not as high as the girls', Personal Feeling_

 

 

letters still account for the largest portion of writings in grades
seven through twelve, with seventh graders writing 41.2% on that
subject. Letters focusing on the writer's feelings drop off some-
what toward the end of high school, with eleventh graders writing
more about Ideas, Opinions and Theories (32.7%), than about Feelings
(24.5%), and the two categories being equal in the twelfth grade
(30.3%).

Just as the boys' audiences are much more diverse and evenly
distributed than the girls', so are their choices of subjects. Be:

cent Personal Experience; Goals, Ideas, Opinions, and Theories; and

 

Imaginative Situations were all topics that boys showed interest in
writing about. For seventh and eighth grade boys, Imeginative Situa-
tions was the second most popular tOpic (20.6% and 30.4% of the

letters, respectively), with Recent Personal Experience being--

 

important, too (18.6% and 15.2%, respectivly). In ninth grade,

Recent Personal Experience (25%)-and Goals (19.2%) are more promin-

 

ent in the boys' writing than Imaginary Situations (5.7%). Tenth

 

grade boys show the greatest balance in writing topics with Recent

Personal Experience (16.3%); Ideas, Opinions, and Theories (16.3%);

 

and Imaginative Situations (15.2%) being nearly equal.

141

Eleventh and twelfth grade boys show the greatest emphasis

being placed on Ideas, Opinions, and Theories with eleventh graders

 

writing 32.7% of their letters on those topics, followed by 2425%“

of their writings about Personal Feelings. In twelfth grade,

 

Ideas, Opinions, and Theories, and Personal Feelings showed equal

 

 

strength as subjects with both at 30.3%. Recent Personal Experience

 

is the next most used subject at 21.2%.

In subject matter, as in audience, then, the boys show more
diversity of interest than girls do. Boys exhibit more of a tendency
to move outward to broader experiences and more abstract thinking
than girls do. This is most apparent in the Ideas, Qpinions,_and
Theories category where boys wrote from 10% to 33% of their letters
on this topic, with a progressive increase from early to late
secondary school; among girls, that category accounts for only 4%
to 14% of the writings, with 14% being written in twelfth grade

only.

Interrelation between-Audience
and Subject

 

One final way of looking at the data will add a further
dimension to understanding students' choices, and that is the rela-

tion between the audience and the subject. The complete cross

142

tabulations of audience and subject are in the appendix. Here, the
highest two cross-tabulated subject and audience choices by sex and
by grade will be given, providing a more particular picture of the
actual association of audience and subject.

Table VII shows the first and second highest percentages of
cross tabulations by grade and by sex; in addition, it shows the
combined percentage of the two highest cross-tabulated categories.

Several things are striking about the two highest percentageS‘
of the cross tabulations of audience and subject. The first is the
almost total dominance in the girls' selections of writing to Peere_
about either Personal Experience or Personal Feelings. The only
exception to that is in twelfth grade where girls write to Earthy
about Personal Feelings. A second thing about the girls' writings
that must be noted is the large percentage of the combined top two
choices. Except for seventh grade where the top two cross-tabulated
subject-audience categories account for about a quarter of all their
writings, the girls' top categories account for 32% to 45% of their
total writings, again indicating the dominance of those particular
categories.

As noted earlier, there is not a clear dominance of one cate-
_gory of audience or of subject matter in the boys' letters as there

is in the girls' letters. Though the expression of Personal Feelings

143

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mmFgomsF use .
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e on «.mF mmcFmem chomemm\mcmmm F mm «.mF mmcFmem chowcmm\zFFEmm NF
~.oF :oFumauFm zgmcmesF\mchm zgmcFumEF , ,. .
«m.o¢ N.oF mmcFmeu chomgmm\mcmma mF mucmFeoaxm Fmaomgoa pcmuwm\mcmmm
e.o~ maFeomeF,e=a mm .
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. m.oF wmcFmem chomcmm\uF:c< czocx . w.mF mmcFFouu.Fm=omema\mcmwa
m mm o.NF mucmFgmaxu chomcmm “cmuwm\mcmma m om o.m~ mucmFLmaxm chomgma pcmummxmsmwa oF
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m mm m.FF mmcFmem Fm:Omcw¢\mcwmm v me F.0N mmcFmem szomcma\mgmma m
. ¢.FF mmcFmem Facomcmm\mgamFu uFFnza . m.wF mocchmaxm chomcmm pcmumm\mgwwm
e om o.aF :oFumzuFm FgmcFmoEF\mcme agmcmeeF m we m.¢~ mmcFFomu chomcwm\mcmma m
.m m.FF. mucmFgmgxu chomcoa acoumm\mcmma . w.oF mmcFmeu chomgma\mcmma
m N F.mF. mmcFmeu Facomemm\mc=mFu uFFaaa 0 mm m.mF mucchmaxu chomcmm pcmuwm\mgmma F
n.2ou m Fumnnzm + muszv=< n.5ou & pumnasm + muccha< ._. ,
. mo<¢w
m>om mAme

 

 

 

xmm use mecca an uumnnzm new mucmFu=< umuszanummoLu mo mmoFocu 80F ozF

FF> anwH

144

is one of the top two choices at every grade level for boys, the
percentages are lower than the same topics for girls, and the audi-
ences that boys use to express personal feelings.are much wider,

including Public Figures and Known Adults as well as Peers. In

 

addition, the boys show a greater variety of kinds of writing, in-
cluding letters to Imaginary Beings about_Imaginary Situations, and
letters to Known Adults and Public Figures about Ideas; Opinions,

and Theories,-none of which appear in the girls' top choices.

 

Even when the boys and girls show some similarity in the top
choices as in ninth and tenth grade (where boys and girls both show
letters to Peere_about their Personal Feelings and to Peer§_about
Recent Personal~Experiences~as their first and second choices in
ninth grade, and letters to Peer§_about their Recent Personal Exper-
iereeas their first choice in tenth grade), the percentages vary a
great deal. The girls' reliance on those audiences and subjects is
much greater than the boys': In ninth grade, 26.7% of the girls'
letters are to fieere_about Personal Feelings, while only 11.5% of
the boys' letters are on the same audience and topic. Letters to
Eeer§_about Recent Personal Experienee~were~writtensby 18.7% of the
girls and only 11.5% of the boys. 'In tenth grade, both boys and
,girls wrote the most to £eere_about Recent Personal~Experienee, but

for girls thatmrepresented 23.0% of their letters, and for boys only

145

12.0%. The boys, then,-re1y much less on a particular topic and
audience than the girls, as can be seen throughout the table in
the first and second choices of boys and girls.

The most dominant audience-subject relationship throughout
the six years for girls occurs in ninth grade in letters written to
Eeere_about Personal Feelings (26.7%). For boys, the most dominant
category throughout the six years occurs in eleventh grade with

letters to Public Figures about Ideas3-Opinione, and Theories (20.4%).

 

The second most dominant category for girls occurs in tenth grade
with letters written to Peer§_ about Recent Personal Experience
(23.0%), and-for-boys in eighth grade with letters written to
Imaginary Beings about Imaginary Situations (19.0%).

The use of the letter with this particular group of 860
students did not, then, reveal the kind of developmental stages from
the personal and the concrete to the impersonal and the abstract as
Moffett suggests. Students do use writing in ways that Britton,
especially, emphasizes as important: to understand, define, and
explain their experiences, their feelings, their ideas--to themselves
as well as to others. Both boys and girls indicate a strong prefer-
ence for expressive writing, writing very close to the self which
reveals the writer's world. Though both write about their experi-

ences and their feelings, girls address themselves to a more limited

146

range of people and experiences than do boys. Both, however, deal
with a wide variety of feelings, experiences, ideas, and imaginings
in writing. A somewhat closer look at specific writings in Chapter
V will provide further insight into adolescents and the ways in

which they can and do use writing to deal with their world.

CHAPTER V

A PORTRAIT OF ADOLESCENCE

Writing--1ike talking-~provides a means of describing, ex-
ploring, and understanding experience. James Britton describes the
use of language as a way of representing the world:

the point is that we represent reality to ourselves.

What is happening, has happened and is gone; the

representation stays on. The representation has

duration in time in a way events do not. It is

from the representation, therefore, that man builds

up for himself a retrospect;.and the retrospect,

when you turn it the other way around and make it

a body of expectations for what the future may con-

tain, becomes a prospect.]
Language, then, is a way of organizing experience: “We talk and we
write about experience then, in order to shape it and incorporate
it into the body of our past experiences." But, "What is organized
is far more than words. What is organized is the fabric of experi-
ence as we represent it to ourselves in sight and sound, in emotional
colour, and so on."2

This chapter will look in somewhat more detail at the sights
and sounds and emotional color of the addlescent experience--their

feelings, their experiences, their ideas, their fantasies as expressed

147

148

in language. While Chapter IV presented a general notion of the
contours of experience, by necessity it overlooked the complexi-
ties of experience and expression. In this chapter, the complexi-
ties will be looked at in order to better understand how adoles-
cents see and represent the world to themselves.

The writings will be discussed in various ways, drawing on
the theories about the relationship of the writer to his subject and
audience (Moffett, Britton, and Gibson), Britton's notions about the
various functions language has for the writer, Moffett's ideas about
concrete and abstract language, and Creber and Carlsen's views about
student's interests and concerns, as they are appropriate to the

writing.

Adolescents and Feelings

Young peOple feel deeply about a wide range of matters from
their relationships to their family and friends to self doubts about
imagined or real inadequacies. Sometimes students appear almost
helpless in their ability to deal with their feelings or with par-
ticular situations, and their fear and anger about that helplessness
is revealed in their letters. An eighth grade girl's letter to her

dog shows an attempt of a young person to cope with some fears:

149

Dear Misty,

Hi how have.you been? I want to tell you some-
thing that scares.and.worries me. You know before
you we've had.a.couple-really nice-dogs named But-
tons and_Toby.. Buttons had.this:disease and was
getting up there so.we.put;him inzazdog-pound..

Toby only lived to be.l.year.and:22months old.
He was very hyper.;-But.a-reallyefriendly-and lbv-
ing dog. Because-he was.sczhyper one day he seen
these kids walking.out.by.thezraad (he lovedeeople)
and he jumped on.the.door.to look outzatzthe kids by
the road and the door came openzandzheztook out after
the kids. The kids tried to.stop heafrongoing in
the road but neither.the kids or-our family-were
quick enough and he got.ran over.= Misty;-thesreason
I'v told you.this is because—I love you and other“
dogs So much. So that I hopezthat you as well as
me and my family be.very cautious for your well
being as mine. Cause I.love you-so-much.that'l'
don't want anything to happenato.you. ,Thank you
for listening I feel better already.

Lots of love,

(8th Grade Girl)

Obviously, Misty cannot read this letter, and it is clear that the
reason for the letter is not to communicate with Misty, but to deal
with strong emotions--1ove and fear--that the child has for her
animal. The closing line of her letter, "Thank you for listening

I feel better already“ underlines the purpose of the letter--to
recognize and externalize her worries. The detail with which she
describes the circumstances of Toby's death-~in a complete retelling
of the event--indicates a desire to somehow re-experience that event,

perhaps as Britton suggests, as a means of dealing with what might

150

happen in the future as a result of understanding what has already
happened in the past.

Both males and females have difficulties with boy-girl rela-
tionships, and use writingras a means of sorting out the strength of
their feelings and the complexities of the relationships they are
involved in. In the following letter,a seventh grade girl has
written to herself attempting to sort Out some very difficult feel-
ings about her relationships with males:

Dear, Yourself

I have a problem about boys. The problem is some
of them are people that I hate and like. The ones I
don't like are people who like to touch things that
they shoud not touch. There are only two of them that
do that.. There names are .v who is the one
who really does it. .The seconet one is.
who is not the bad one.butghepdoes.the.same.to.. There
are a lot of boys that I like a lot but they are just.
friends to me.and some of.them.I.really do like. I
have not gone with anyone.but maybe I might. .The one
person that I won't to go with is. some-
thing like that. I know he would not go with me is
because I am over weight.and I am not that pritty.
I have a lot more problems about boys but I just
don't won't to say them all!

 

 

(7th Grade Girl)

Like the previous writing, in this letter, the girl is attempting
to explain her experience to herself to understand it better and
to come to terms with‘it.~ In this case, the writer is not as

able to focus 6n the specific problem or the specific experience

151

that most troubles her; she's dealing at once with feelings of inade-
quacy about her appearance, concerns about appropriate behavior
(touching), and ideas about friendship and more-than-friendship
relationships with members of the opposite sex. The feelings that
this girl is dealing with are much more complex than those in the
previous letter, and this girl seems to be at initial stages of
awareness, and is only beginning to work out the confusing feelings
about herself and her relations with others.

Other-~usually older--students have had more experience with
members of the Opposite sex, and new problems and new concerns emerge
in their writings. In the following letter, a twelfth grade girl,
about to leave high school,writes about a different kind of fear
and worry than the seventh grade girl who is just beginning to dis-
cover her feelings about males. The twelfth grader expresses her
feelings to her boyfriend:

Dear Aaron:

I've been thinking a long time about what will happen
to us next year. I've always been with you,.never away
from you and I don't know if.I can't.stand it. Something
about going to college scares.me. It's not the hugeness
of the school, new and different people, or the fact I
will be away from home, but.its that I won't see you
for a long, long time.. I know you love me and I love
you, but.being.away from for so long, I'm afraid, will
pull us apart. I know that you say our love is strong
and if we really love each other we can pull through,
but we'll both.be meeting new people and Iim afraid.you
will find somebody else and we can never be together

152

and live happily like we've been planning to do for
so long.

I know you don't worry about these stupid things
that girls worry about. _You only put one foot in
front of the other. .But.it.scares me. I wish you
could tell me everything would.be alright. I know
you say you love me but please tell me it will be
alright. I don't know what to do. I'm to small
and insecure to be away and not protected by you.
If you love me as much as.I love you you'd think
about this and help me not to be.afraid. I'll try
to be strong. I'm sorry I babble.along like a
stupid idodit about all this,-but like you say,
"Women reason with emotion while men reason with
logic". I donit agree with this all the way but
I'm glad I'm a girl & only sorry you can't show
your emotions to me. It would make you less of a
man you say? It would only make you more of one.

With love,

(12th Grade Girl)

The most Obvious concern in the letter, of course, is the fear and
uncertainty about the future of the relationship. As the letter
progresses, the girls insecurity about the relationship becomes more
apparent. Near the beginning shesays, "I know you love me and I
love you,“ but the confidence wavers later in the letter when she
says: "I know you say you love me but please tell me it will be
alright“ and “If you love me as much as I love you you'd think about
this and help me not to be afraid." The repetition of the word love
over and over in the letter is almost like an incantation and an

attempt to make something real by saying it over and over.

153

Though the feelings of insecurity and the need for love seem
real, one gets a sense that the girl's feelings of helplessness are
exaggerated to achieve an effect. She emphasizes being afraid and
small and needing protection and help; but those expressions are not
consistent with the tone Of the last two sentences which seem de-
fiant and almost angry: "I'm glad I'm a girl & only sorry you
can't show your emotions to me. It would make you less of a man
you say? It would only make you more of one." The strength and
straightforwardness do not reinforce her presentation of herself as
a helpless idiot. The letter seems to be both an attempt to deal
with fears and insecurities and an effort to elicit an emotional
response and some action on the part of the reader.

Though boys express feelings about girls and their relation-
ships with girls, they do not do it quite as directly, for the most
part. The following man-to-man letter by a seventh grade boy em-
ploys a television-hero voice--the strong silent type-~coping with
emotional crisis.

Hey Dude,

I figure you & I are good enough friends to be

talking about some personal stuff. We both know

that we have problems with the.gir1 friends. Yours.
being she's kind of getting tired of you & next year
wants to mess around with McDonald guys and I thought
that was serious.. But now I've got one, mdne was
supposed to have kissed that guy for about ten seconds.

That's not SQ bad but then she kind of.started.making-
out. I'm pretty-mad but still I like her--just like

154

you. I guess what we bothshould do is have a good
talk with them and find out if it's true. But if
they stall or seems like they aren't telling the
truth then we both should break-up. I figure since
we both like them still, we would be losing an equal
portion 'cause we can't let them use us! Think
about it boy, please. 1
(7th Grade Boy)

On the surface, the letter has a sophisticated, "hip" tone with the
use of "Hey Dude" as a salutation, the admonition to “think about

it boy, please,“ and the coolness with which he opens the discussion
of the problem, “I figure you & I are good enough freinds to be talk-
ing about some personal stuff." The combination of the adult tone
and approach in which he suggests a reasonable way of dealing with
the girlfriend problem and the very youthful concern about the ten-
second kiss shows the adolescent dilemma of being caught between
childhood and adulthood very well. The youngster in this letter
seems to be trying out adult roles and what he perceives to be

adult responses to a difficult situation.

Other kinds of problems with peers were revealed in the
letters students wrote. The problem of being liked and of maintain-
ing relationships is one that causes anxiety for adolescents. In
the following letter, a seventh grade boy describes his peers with-

out reference to his relationship with them; nonetheless one gets

the distinct impression that his relationship to his peers--or lack

155

of it--is the motivating force for the letter:

I can't belive all the creeps!!! that go to this

school. Last year was fun I went to school in

Virginia. Nobody cared if you wore some thing.

strange or did something differently. Here If

your pants are too short-~"look at his flood pants."

Everyone calls you gay if you do something strange.

People constantly bug you about all sorts of things.

Kids are destructive like what just happened on

stage. On the bus kids throw waterballons and.

spit out the window at other people they crackup

when they hit someone. Kids steal food from the

lunchline. I'm glad there is only two more days

of school otherwise I think I would go crazy.
One of the most striking things about this letter is the strong sense
of isolation and alienation that the boy is experiencing. He neither
addresses the letter to anyone, nor does he sign it. Even though he
views school in Virginia as a more positive experience, he does not
choose to write to anyone there. (Though the letter appears to be an
angry outburst, it is clear that his feelings are not a temporary
response, but run very deep.

A second striking point about the letter is that the boy
never refers directly to anything that has been done to him. Rather,
he shifts from first to second person, the general "you," to avoid
any reference to himself. At the beginning of the letter and at the
end of the letter he uses first person when he talks about missing

Virginia and wanting school to be over. But when he talks about the

criticism and ridicule from his fellow students, he uses second

156

person: "[In Virginia] nobody cared if your wore something strange
or did something differently. Here if your pants are too short--
'look at his flood pants.‘ Everyone calls you gay if you do some-
thing different.“ It seems clear that the boy has been the vic-
tim of ridicule and that he feels "strange." He does not, however,
acknowledge feelings of hurt, but only anger which he justifies
and supports with descriptions of the behavior of the students.
He makes generalizations and supports them with information, but
the true generalization-~the reality of his feelings--is avoided.
Another letter in which a student deals with difficulties
with his peers is by an eleventh grade boy, who like the seventh
grader, is angry and hurt. This boy, however, is able to acknowl-
edge his feelings somewhat more:

Dear, friends

A problem has been on my for a long time it has
come up a few times, and I just forget about it untill
next time it comes up.

I have found out that true friends are very hard
to come by and most of my friends are backstabbers who
could care less about me, they forget about me when I
can't get the car or I don't have something they want.
but when I can get the car, I'm there buddy! When
somebody else has a car or has something they forget
about me

Everytime they call (when they do call) I know
they want me to drive them somewhere or they want
something. ..

Yes true friends are hard to come by, I should

know. (llth Grade Boy)

157

In this case, the major issue or conflict is the boy's feeling that
his friends are exploiting him by being friendly to him only when
he has the use of the car. It is apparent that the student is hurt
in that he exaggerates and overgeneralizes in his interpretation
of the situation. From his hurt about being exploited, the boy
leaps to the conclusion that (1) they are backstabbers who do not
really care about him, and (2) true friends are hard to come by.
With the evidence given, neither case is supportable, neither gen-
eralization accurate. The student is, however, attempting to place
his feelings within a category of feelings and to deal with what he
is feeling in an analytical manner. Another interesting thing about
the letter is that he begins by addressing the letter to his friends,
but does not follow that through in the letter; rather, he refers to
them in third person. His move toward abstractions, both in terms
of audience and subject, seems to be a way of getting some distance
and control over the feelings.
The following letter by a twelfth grade boy provides another

example of a student working through negative feelings:

Dear brother,

As a result of your carelessness and lack of re-

sponsibility, I had to get up at 6:15 this morning to

chase cows that had gotten.into the wrong field. Since

you chased the cows out of the same field yesterday,

and knew that the hole was in the fence, I.am very
annoyed with your stupidity of not fixing it. If you

158

had taken five minutes to fix the fence, I-could
have had another hour of.sleep this morning.

It is not just this one incident that bothers
me, but your whole attitude towards your family and
me. You are going to have to stop thinking that the
world revolves around you. .When and.if you.do re-
alaze this, I think that you will find that-you.are
not the only person who has problems. Remember; it's
a rough life for everybody." , .
Your concerned brother,

(12th Grade Boy)

This letter shows sophistication both in the student's ability to
deal with his feelings directly and strongly, and in his ability

to analyze the feelings and know the source of them. (In addition,
he is able to describe the particular incident in detail, and he is
also able to place it into a larger context. (He begins by telling
the brother about the initial problem with the fence; from there he
moves to a general description about the brother, describing his
selfishness in believing that "the world revolves around you";
finally, he relates his brother's behavior to a general--and
cliched--philosophical notion about the world: "it's a rough life
for everybody." Though one cannot judge the fairness of the stu-
dent's accusations about his brother, it is clear that he is able
to focus on the meaning Of specific incidents and place them into

a larger perspective.

159

Relationships with parents provide another whole range of
emotional issues and concerns for young people. Students relation-
ships with their parents are very complex, with students expressing
both a need to be autonomous and independent and a need to be
approved of, respected, and understood by their parents. The
child/adult transition is apparent in the following letter by a
tenth grade boy:

Mom & Dad,

I am a little upset with a recent incident which
involves me being grounded. You are much to over
cautious. I am hardly ever late coming home, and
the one time I am I get a lecture and grounded. -You
guys give me little or no freedom, I dontt mind your
authority, but you use it to every extent. I would
like to be able to do things on my own sometimes,
instead of having to tell you who I'm with, where
we are at and when I will be home every time.

I don't think grounding accomplishes anything.
All I do is sit home, and you get grouchy. .Jenny
can cry her way out, than all she gets is a spank
or sent up to her room for a while., Why don't.you
spank me and send me upstairs.instead of grounding .
me. I think your punishment.is for a stupid reason,
and that grounding stinks.

I hope you don't take this wrong,.but I feel
but I feel like you guys would rather have me stay
in the house all my life.

Love

(10th Grade Boy)

The letter is interesting in its movement back and forth between
his attempt to approach his parents on an equal level and talk

reasonably about a problem, and an expression of hostility and

160

more childish name-calling. In the first paragraph, he begins with
a very reasonable opening in which he talks about being "a little
upset with a recent incident," acknowledging and accepting their
authority, but at the same time, emphasizing his desire to make
some decisions on his own. A hint of hostility appears in the
first paragraph when he states that his parents use their authority
"to every extent." This is reinforced by a much angrier and more
extreme expression in the second paragraph when he talks of being
punished for "a stupid reason" and says that grounding him "stinks."
His description of their behavior as "grouchy" is also contrary to
his initial placating remarks. His final paragraph combines the
two thrusts of his letter; he begins with the adult, reasoned
approach, "I hope you don't take this wrong but I feel like" and
ends with his frustration, "you guys would rather have me stay in
the house all my life.‘l
Some problems are more difficult than the one above, and

it is not an unusual young person who must cope with the divisions,
conflicts, and confusion of the split—up family. The following
letter was written by a ninth grade girl:

Mom,

I have to tell you something that I've had on my

mind for quite a long time.
-Mom, I'm going to dad's to live I have to get
away. Everytime we get into an argument I tell you

161

that, well were not arguing right now, and I'm tell-
ing you.

Mom, I love dad. I don't care about what
happened when I was younger. I'm thinking about
my future. .

Mom, you know how bad I've messed up this year,
well, maybe, if I go out there I can get my shit
together.

Can you look at it from my point of view? I
see your point of view. I mean if my daughter has
done the same thing I have this year and then turn
around and want to go out to her dad's I would re-
act the same way. So mom try to understand. ,Please!
Well I have to go let's talk about this okay

Love ya

(9th Grade Girl)

One of the most interesting thing about this letter is how much the
writer relies on the shared context of her relationship with her
mother. The daughter is highly aware of her audience--her mother--
and describes only what her mother would need to know. Apparently,
the conflict between the mother and daughter has existed for a while,
and the girl alludes to both sides in her letter: her mother's side
being her resentment of events that have happened in the past, and
the daughter's side being a threat to move to her father's. In this
letter, the daughter is trying to move beyond an apparent pattern in
the relationship and explains that her desire to move to her father's
no longer grows out of anger, but out of a desire to improve her life.
In addition, though her own needs and concerns come first to her, she

is aware of the possibility of hurting her mother and seeks to

162

empathize with her. She seems to have taken the adult or parent role
at this point, recognizing the need to end the pattern of conflict,
establishing her own views about her father which differ from her
mother's, and making independent decisions about what would be best
for her. This adult role is reinforced by her attempt to put her-
self in her mother's position and her initiative in working it
through: “lets talk about this okay.“ Though on the surface, the
letter seems vague, the girl seems highly aware of the issues in-
volved and communicates only what sheneeds to to this audience.

Students at all grade levels expressed a variety of feelings
of inadequacy, anxiety, and inferiority. The following letters--
written by students to themselveseéare typical expressions of the
silent struggle with the problem of not being good enough.

The following letter by a tenth grade boy typifies the vague
dissatisfaction expressed by many students. Much of the letter
sounds like a repetition of opinion and advice that adults charac-
teristically give young people:

Dear Me

Some times you talk to much.- If you would.take,

some of the mouth power and put it to brain power
you would be verry smart.

If I were you I would practice writting. This

is not so bad but look how long it takessyou. Writ-
ting is the most important.thing next to reading and

‘math you willilearn. . .
(10th Grade Boy)

163

Though the boy has some negative feelings about himself, he is
neither angry nor desperate in discussing his problems. He does
not seem to have a very clear sense of what is wrong, but insofar
as he can identify problems-~talking too much, being unable to
write efficiently--he faces them frankly and nondefensively .
Though he does not identify the problem or a solution very speci-
fically, he shows a willingness to change or improve: "If I were
you I would practice writting. This is not so bad but look how
long it takes you." Many writings, like this one, show a willing-
ness to grow and change if, in fact, the student knew how to go
about it.

Another student, Harriett, also shows a willingness to change,
but her focus on her problem and its solution are much clearer:

Hi Harriett,

It looks like your finally going back on your diet
again. Hope I can lose as much this time as.I did be-
fore and more. This time when I get stuck on the ,
scales I won't quit. I've got to keep with it! Just
hope I don't end up cheating.during the week-ends.
I'll set my sights.for l70.for starters.

Maybe if I lose some weight.Iill catch me.a.hande
some QUY. Now that would.certainly make me happy &
get me out of this rut Im slowly sinking into again!

Ive really got to stick with it this time,.but
I don't think Im going to tell anyone. Then.no-one
will be asking how.I'm doing &.such. .Those kind of
things hurt a little on my pride.

Well guess that about closes it up!
See ya around,
Harriett .
(10th Grade Girl)

164

Like the previous letter, Harriett's letter is an honest and direct
acknowledgement of something she is concerned about. Using herself
as an audience she is able to commit herself to something without
having to share it with other people, which presents problems for
her when she is questioned about her weight-loss progress. Writing
for Harriett, then, seems to function as a means of objectifying

and making concrete her desire to change; she sets down her plan in
great detail, setting a goal and preparing herself for the difficul-
ties in meeting that goal. fshe also allows herself the pleasures

of fantasy; again, she is very Open and direct about her feelings:
"Maybe If I lose some weight I'll catch me a handsome guy. Now that
would certainly make me happy & get me out of this rut Im slowly
sinking into again!" Even though she alludes to the rut and other
difficulties she has encountered in the past, there is a note of
determination and good spirit about all her plans. Her enthusiasm
is emphasized at the very beginning of the letter. She begins by
addressing herself in the second person, "It looks like your finally
going back on your diet again," but she moves immediately to the
first person, "Hope I can lose as much this time as I did before

& more.“ She continues to write in first person throughout the
letter until the closing in which she picks up the second person

with “See ya around.i

165

A letter by an eleventh grade boy to himself uses the second
person throughout the letter. The self-awareness that he demon-
strates and the control with which he writes belie the inadequacy
that his letter expresses:

Dear Schmuck:

Boy, are you an idiot! I've been watching your
life for a long time, and it simply amazes me the way
you continue to screw things up. You're such a loser,
you make Charlie Brown look like an Irish Sweepstakes
winner by comparison! .

That Student Council Election! You got up and
made a speech, made posters, and just generally cam-
paigned your little butt off!- And what for?, So you
could lose for the third year in a.row? Ihe_Third
122E.ifl.2.32!? You are an extreme masochist in every
sense of the word. , .

And the Prom! You were going to ask her, weren't
you? But then you found out that she didn't like you
that well, so you thought about asking someone else,
only you've put it off and procrastinated till.now,.
two days beforehand! It's too late now, idiot!
Better luck next year!.

And that chick! You know you love her, but you
haven't got the guts to tell her! Don't expect her
to do all the dirty work! . .

In short, you are one prize schmuck. You run.
your life about as efficiently as a Volkswagen engine
in a Tiger tank. You had better shape up, kiddo.

I'm depending on you. ,
Yours truly,
Yourself

(llth Grade Boy)‘

The boy shows sophistication and maturity in his recognition of the
issues that are troubling him and in his ability to express his

feelings. Even in apparent anger and frustration, the student

166

shows an awareness of what his problems are and an ability to verbal-
ize them with forcefulness and even humor. His use of metaphors at
the beginning and at the end of the letter--the comparison of himself
and Charlie Brown as losers, and the comparison of his efficiency
with a VW engine in a "Tiger tank"--are vivid and humorous and, at
the same time, have a strong emotional impact.and-are highly approp-
riate to the experiences he is describing. The use of sentence
fragments at the beginning of each new paragraph to introduce a new
subject--"That Student Council Election!3" "And the Prom!," "And
that chick!“--is effective in unifying the letter and in maintaining
the intensity he establishes. The control over second person is
flawless, yet the strong emotional force is not lost in the objecti-
fication of himself. The use of "Schmuck“ as a unifying factor--
addressing the letter to Schmuck and picking it up again in the last
paragraph--adds to the sense of control he maintains throughout the
letter. The writing is, at once, a strong emotional expression and

a controlled and artful objectification of experience.

Students feel strongly about many different things, and they
demonstrate a wide range of abilities in their expression of their
feelings. Some students have a sense of unhappiness but cannot pin-
point the reasons Or causes; others are able to focus on particular

events and experiences in explaining and understanding their feelings;

 

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167

still others focus on solutions or strategies for coping with their
feelings. While the range in ability to express feelings varies,
the impulse, need, and desire to write about feelings as a way of
understanding them or sharing them is a common one among adolescents
who are given that opportunity. Students ger_and gg_use writing

to deal with personal problems, concerns, and feelings.

Adolescence and Experiences

Adolescents write with expertise and involvement about a wide
range of experiences and interests. They write about everything from
gossip in the lunchroom to social events, from motor cycles to musi-
cal concerts. They write about bad experiences, humorous experiences,
exciting experiences, and mundane experiences. They write about ex-
periences in order to share the pleasure of them with others, to
dramatize and relive their more interesting experiences for their
own enjoyment, or merely to keep in contact with others.

The following letter by an eighth grade boy seems on the sur-
face a bit of adolescent bravado, in which he writes about all the
wild and rebellious activities of his weekend:

Dear yourself

I have something to tell you. I had a really fun
time this weekend. I went to a party friday night and
' got drunk I was drunk when the police came to tell us

168

to turn down the music. I ask them if they wanted,
a beer and they wern't very happy with me. then
saturday night I went to onther party and drank,
about ten beers and after that I was feeling good.
then me & about five of my friends went to the

park at about one in the morning. And then on my”
way home I fell in the Bushes and tour my shirt
and hurt my side. And to top all that When I got
hom I was trying to make a pizza and droped it on
the floor. then after it was done I gave it to my
mom and dad. And the just thougt I was.being2nice.fl
buy this time it was sunday night and I went and
saw the exorsest. And buy that thime the weekend.
was over. And I wasent very happy with myself.

The End
(8th Grade Boy)

The letter is basically a catalog of experience, He begins at the
beginning of the weekend listing each act of misbehavior, connect—
ing them with “then," "to top it all," and "buy this time." The
sense of bravado Of the letter is set up in the second and third
sentences, in particular: "I had a really fun time this weekend.

I went to a party friday night and got drunk I was drunk when the
police came to tell us to turn down the music." For the most part,
the letter is the kind one would expect a boy to write to another
boy who could share the prove-you-are-cool escapades this boy
describes. Two features of the letter suggest that the letter might
be serving another function for this student. First, he does not
write this letter to another student; he writes it to himself. The

letter, then, is prOViding him with an opportunity to focus on what

169

he did during the weekend. Second, the last line changes the focus
of the letter somewhat: “And I wasent very happy with myself."

The letter appears to be ingpart, then, a way for him to think
about and review his activities critically--not just to revel in
them.

Like the previous writing, this letter by a tenth grade girl
relates an experience which had some impact on her. The ways in
which this writing functions for the writer are quite diffeent,
however.

Hi Kris,

This weekend I have to babysit all weekend., From
Thursday until Saturday. My mom.is going to babysit
while I'm in school. I was wondering if you would
like to come Friday and stay til Saturday? I did this
last year about the same time. But I stayed all by
myself and it gets kind of scary sometimes. Like last
year when I babysat it was about 5:30 in the morning,

I was sleeping when I woke up because I heard a car
drive in the driveway. But I thought it was just.turn-
ing around. After a few minutes.I heard the.door down-
stairs open. Boy, did I get scared! I got up to check
the kids and I could hear footsteps downstairs. .As I
looked down the stairs I could see the figure of a.man
and as he started coming up the stairs I saw who it was.
It was the guy I was babysitting for. They had forgot-
ten their swimming suits and.he.had.come.back for them.
He said he was sorry he scared me and he should have
called. That's kind of why I would like someone to
come with me. ,Besides we could have a riot. Hope you
can come!

Friends Always,

(10th Grade Girl)

170

While the previous letter is, for the most part, a cataloging of a
series of events without providing much emphasis, this writer spins

a tale. The beginning and ending of her letter have a chatty, per-
sonalized tone, and is addressing her friend much as she would if

she were speaking to her. But as she begins to tell her about the
babysitting experience she had, the writing style becomes somewhat
more formal and she uses language to create an effect. One of the
things she does is use introductory phrases and subordinate clauses
to build suspense--”1ast year when I was babysitting," " After a few
minutes,“ "As I looked down the stairs," and "as he started coming

up the stairs.“ She also builds suspense by repeating words-~heard/
hear, see/saw--and by holding off the identity of the person until
the very end of the story. The sentence before she reveals his iden-
tity shows her use of storytelling techniques to recreate the scari-
ness of the event: "As I looked down the stairs I could see the
figure Of a man and as he started coming up the stairs I saw who it
was. It was the guy I was babysitting for." The pleasure of the
story itself is evident in the girl's retelling Of it. This letter,
then, functions both as a communication to get things done (come and
spend the night) and as a sharing of a story-as-story for the pleasure

of both the writer and the reader.

171

The following few letters show another kind of contrast that
is evident in the letters students write. The first letter shows a
student providing a superficial batch of information with a friend
about what he has been doing lately. Other letters provide in-depth
information and a description of experience by students who are deeply
involved in their activities. The following student talks very gen-
erally about his interests and non-interests:

Dear Todd,

How are you? I'm fine. I wish you were here because
everyone here likes baseball and tell about players. I
don't know anything about them and I stink! .I can't.
catch or hit good. By the way I live in Michagen now
and don't know if you got my letter or not. How Max?
Did you get your moter cycle yet? I can't get mine
because there is no hills to go up. I'm going.to get
a ten spead. I caught a turtle his name is Todd after
you. He's a painted turtle. SO your going in High
school next year. When do you get out of school anyway?
We get out in just two more days. Well got to go.

Your friend

(7th Grade Bby)
P.S. Right soon!!!!!
The function of this letter is not to demonstrate expertise or to a
specific experience, but to maintain contact and to share some com-
mon interests. The two of them, apparently, share a common interest
in motor cycles and a common dislike of baseball. Those are men-
tioned, however, more as a way Of reestablishing the basis of the

relationship, not as a way of exchanging information. The writer's

172

telling about the turtle that he named after his friend reinforces
the primary function of the letter as a way of maintaining the
friendship.

In the following letter, the student focuses much more on
a specific area of interest--baseba1l--though the relationship with
the reader is important as well.

Dear Randy

Hows things over in Grand Ledge, Everything is pretty
good over here in Harry Hill country, How is your team
doing only once and a while do I see your scores in the.
paper and I only see your name in it once and a while
come on star your slowing down althow I did.see you got
2 hits in one game and a suicide squeez in another.
Everything was great for me untill we played East Lan-
sing last week. In the first inning there was a high
bounder coming at me at first, I charged it and
’ charged it and we collided and I fell to the
ground. I had a giant charley horse and it hurt like
Hell, but I played on in the fifth inning I told Hummel
that when I hit if I got on I wanted a pinch-runner
cause it hurt so much, well I hit it about the same
place that I hit it against you so when I went for 2
I sled into second and really tottaled my leg so much
for that week of practice Well friday we played Waverly
at Municapil and my leg still hurt so he didn't start
me, But he did say "Hey 16 (my number) can you swing a
bat if I need a pinch hitter“ I said ya I can swing
great I just cant run, Raubot (whos got a bad back)
said I run but I cant hit Hummel reply "If I put you
guys together I'd have a real person. Well he didn't
use me and we lost 5 to 3. By the way superstar can
you beat my stats. AVG.290, 12 RBIS, 2HR, 2RBS,

Your friend,

(12th Grade Boy)

 

173

The relationship that the writer establishes with his audience in
this letter is based on the shared expertise and involvement in
baseball. The relationship involves both competition and apprecia-
tion. At the beginning and the end of the letter, the writer makes
statements which show the nature of the competition as friendly:
"come on star your slowing down" and "By the way superstar can you
beat my stats." At the same time, he expresses appreciation of his
competitor's abilities: “I did see you got 2 hits in one game and
a suicide squeeze in another.“ These comments, however, surround
the major part of the letter which focuses on the writer's injury.
Like the girl describing her babysitting experience, this boy
describes the events surrounding his injury as a way of dramatizing
and reliving the experience. This story does not show the same con-
trol and verbal facility that the girl's story does. There does not
seem to be an attempt to structure sentences to achieve an effect;
the structure is looser: this happened, and then this, and then
this. In addition, the writing seems to be directed more toward
this specific audience. This can be seen by the way he describes
where he hit the ball in relationship to where he hit the ball in

a game in which this particular reader was involved. The letter
does use detail and dialog as a means of building tOward the punch-

line of the story in which the coach says to the two injured players:

 

174

"If I put you guys together I'd have a real person."

Girls, too, share expertise with interested readers, and in the
following letter a seventh grade girl describes in detail a gymnas-
tics routine:

Dear Sarah,

I've got a new routine on parrallel bars. I'll
try to explain it to you the best I can.

For my mount I do a glide- -kip forward  hipcircle
stratle on, soul circle to high, draw-back, penny-
drop half turn catch high, lets over, kip to the high,
stratle on, soul circle half turn bounce.on low bar,
double leg squat up. For my dismount I do.a jump to.
a handstand on high, half turn,.cast wrap hecked..

I'll show it to you when I see you, if you don't
understand.

Sincerely,

(7th Grade Girl)

P.S. Write back soon and

tell me your routine on bars°
While the previous letter showed some sense of the value of the rela-
tionship between the writer and the reader, as well as a shared ex-
pertise, this letter focuses entirely on the shared expertise of a
particular activity. Even when there is a reference to the reader
it is always in terms of routines on parallel bars; there is no men-
tion made of other aspects of the relationship. The letter is almost
entirely objective in its description. The writer's involvement in

her topic is evident not through her expression or feelings about

the subject, but through the detail she uses in describing the

175

subject. Moreover, there is an assumption on the part Of the writer
that the reader is both interested and knowledgeable about gymnastics.
This is apparent by the use of the jargon of parallel bar routines
which is unrelieved by any lay language or description or terminology.
One final letter which demonstrates expertise on a certain

subject shows how involved a student may become in a specific area
of interest:

Dear Honda I think your new CR 125 eslonore is a real

winner, but I'm still a suzuki man. I think I'll rather

stick with a suzuki's RM 125, but I still don't think

they have as much power as the CR does, but in the

other hand I think Yamaha YZC has it all with there

monoshock suspension and air forks, they got it. But

now in 250 Honda has it even though Yamaha still has

the monoshock and air forks, they just don't have the

power as CR 250 does, Suzuki in 250 class I don't think

they have nothing for it. They have also the RM 250.

But what I've seen when I race they just don't have it.

Because I have a stock TM 250 that I race and I got 5

times as much power as RM's 250, but the CR's and YZ's
go by me like I'm standing still.

In this letter, there is no desire or interest in sharing an area of
expertise with anyone: The letter is written to a mechanical object
--a Honda--rather than a person. Unlike the previous letter this
letter shows no concern about whether or not the information is clear
or understandable. Nor does the writer show any concern about being

convincing, even though his opinions about the best motor cycles are

definite and strong. The letter, in short, seems to be written for

 

176

the pure pleasure of talking about what he knows and what he thinks
about something he cares about: motorcycles.

Students also write about experiences that are unlike their
day-to-day experiences and that are in some way unique. When stu-
dents are involved in something new, they sometimes have trouble
focusing on what is significant about the experience. In the fol-
lowing letter, a seventh grade boy begins by talking about a con-
cert he went to and ends up talking about another aspect of the ex-
perience:

Dear best friend, Seth,

A few weeks ago on a Tuesday night I went to see and
hear a famous pianist play at Michigan State University.
His name was Van Cliburn. And he had started playing
at the age of six. I really didn't want to go but after
hearing his first song, I was glad I went.

Mr. Cliburn was twenty minutes late for his perform~
ance. The funny part was that the minute he walked.en-
tered he didn't wait for applause. But sat down and
played the National Anthem.

Near the end of the show a lady in front of me blew
her cool. Because I had been banging her chair for at
least an hour. When she finally stoped complaining my
parents started talking to me about what I did and by
the time they finished, the show was over and it was
time to go home.

Your best friend,

(7th Grade Boy)

The youngster's ambivalence toward the experience is apparent immed-
iately. He had not wanted to go, but finally "I was glad I went."

There is an irony in the letter that the student seems to sense, but

177

he does not exploit. In the beginning, he is not anxious to go to
the concert, but he is impressed with Van Cliburn: He is impressed
with his entry--"the minute he walked entered he didn't wait for
applause. But sat down and played the National Anthem?; he is im-
pressed with his background--“And he started playing at the age of
six“; in short, he enjoyed the performance—-"after hearing his first
song, I was glad I went." Ironically, he causes trouble at the con-
cert, not because he is bored and disinterested, but because he be-
comes so caughtlup in the music, he unconsciously kicks the seat of
the woman in front of him. He does not explicitly focus on the
irony Of the situation, but the progression of the letter from dis-
interest to involvement and subsequent trouble certainly expresses
that viewpoint. The last sentence underscores this notion: “When
she finally stOped complaining my parents started talking to me
about what I did and by the time they finished, the show was over
and it was time to go home.“

Some letters about experience are transitional stages be-
tween describing involvement and interest in an experience and de-
veloping an analytical and/or theoretical stance toward experiences.
The following letter by a seventh grade girl relates an experience
she had, but it also shows the beginnings of an interest in cri-

tiquing and analyzing experience:

178

Ellen,

You should have seen it last night! We went to
my sister's ballet recital. The children ranged from
about four to seventeen. .In.the first act mostly
little kids performed. They went out on stage and
tried to dance. There always seemed to be one kid
leading all the rest. One who knew what was going
on. All together there were about forty.acts.

Even the teacher danced. I can't say I love ba11et
but I took for three years. My teacher taught us to
dance unlike this lady. All she did was teach the.
steps. Most of the time they were Off the beat.

She had them in these retarded little costumes.

It was a pitiful sight. I have to admit a couple
of the dances were good but most of them were bad.

(7th Grade Girl)

The letter is written to a friend, and is therefore informal in that
the student does not organize and support her specific arguments and
evaluations of the concert. Even so, she does show insight and is
able to pinpoint what she thinks is wrong with the recital. The main
focus of the criticism centers on the dancing itself; she notes that
the students do not always know the dance steps and have to mimic
those who do; even when the dancers do know the steps, she states,
they are not able to keep in rhythm. She implies, but does not
state directly, the reason for the problem--the fact that there are
forty acts. The student is able to relate the problem to her own
experience, demonstrating her expertise on the subject. Though she

also gives personal reactions, as one does for friends (for example,

 

179

commenting on the “retarded little costumes" as a "pitiful sight"),
she shows an ability to focus on and describe experience in an ana-

lytical way.

Adolescents and Ideas

Adolescents have ideas, Opinions, and theories about a
variety of matters and their ideas reflect various levels of sophis-
tication in thinking. Some students are in initial stages of exam-
ining a new idea or a new concept; other students have thought
through an idea and have a definite opinion or theory; still others
are working through issues and concerns and are trying to under-
stand them atla more abstract and theoretical level. Many sources
of experience stimulate a youngster's thinking. The following
letter by a seventh grade boy shows him thinking about a new idea
that he picked up from a book:

Dear Allen,

You've got to read the book “Alive." It's really
sick in some parts. (the way you like it) but,.it's
allso sad. I want to.ask.a question. ,If you were in
an airplane crash up in the.Andes And there was nothing
but snow for hundreds of miles. .50 there was no food.
Would you eat one of your friends? Yes 1_/ No [_j

Well, bye for now . .

your friend

(7th Grade Boy)

180

The boy has not moved beyond the book in thinking about the notion
of what it would be like to eat your friends. In posing the letter
to his friend about whether or not he would do it, he places the
possibility within the context of the book--a plane crash in the
snow in the Andes. He is still dealing, then, with the very con-
crete circumstance, rather than raising questions about whether
there are circumstances under which someone might eat a friend,

and considering what those circumstances might be. He is at the
very beginning stages of dealing with a philosophical issue.

The next letter by a ninth grade girl shows a rather limited
and youthful analysis of death; at the same time, her theorizing is
not tied to a particular incident or experience, but is done in the
abstract.

Dear Self,

Latley I've really been thinking about death. It
seems so unreal to me. I can't picture myself dieing,
it's like I'll just be around forever.

I can't imagine what it's like to be dead. .It's
like trying to think Of the size of the universe it
never ends. .

I always wonder whether there's a haven or a hell,
or if your spirit comes back as a ghost, or if you,
get reincarnated, or if it's any.of these at all. I
guess what really bugs me the most is.that I'll find
out until I die.. Well like they say, "You haven't'
lived until you die!“

Yours truly,
Me

(9th Grade Girl)

 

181

The girl considers different alternatives in trying to imagine what
death means, and use a metaphor to demonstrate the difficulty of
thinking about death: “It's like trying to think of the size of the
universe it never ends.“ Though she considers many of the descrip-
tions provided by culture for life after death--heaven and hell,
reincarnation, and ghosts--and is frustrated because they do not
seem satisfactory: “I guess what really bugs me the most is that
I'll find out until I die.“ Finally she falls back on an inapprop-
riate cliche-like pronouncement to provide some sort Of endpoint to
her thinking--"You haven't lived until you die!"--showing her desire
to dispense with thinking about the subject.

Students' attitudes and opinions on books show them using
books in very personal ways, using them to think more abOut their
own experiences and in ways that involve abstract thinking and theor-
izing. The following two letters show different relationships to
books, the first by a seventh grade girl whose response to the book
she read is egocentric and personal, and the second a philosophical
discussion with Walt Whitman by an eleventh grade boy.

The letter by the seventh grade girl includes a mix of per-
sonal interests and concerns, interest in experience beyond her own,
and initial literary analysis. She writes to the author of a popular

children's series:

 

182

Dear Mrs. Wilder

I just love your books, I have everyone of them, .
even "West From Home“! In 6th grade I even wrote a.
report about you, I received an A on it. Sometimes
I wish I had lived in your time, no polution, no.
dirty rivers & streets, nice clean fresh air. But
so much for wishing!

You had a very interesting childhood, the only
thing I'd miss is riding my skate board. When.I grow.
up I want to be an author & many other things, and
see the world.

Did you know, I have seen only one encyclOpedia
with information about you in it? Really!

I don't see how you could.remember.so.many
details. Your books seem so reel, it's just like I'm
standing there seeing it happen.

I can't wait untill another one Of_your books are
published! Well I have to go, bye for now!

An Admirer,

(7th Grade Female)

 

One of the most appealing things about this letter is the chatty,
familiar tone the girl uses in addressing an author. Rather than
viewing the author as a remote and unreachable person whose concerns
are beyond her own, the girl views her as a friend who would be in-
terested in her experiences and her opinions. The girl shares all
manner of experiences with Wilder: her grades on a book report,
what she wants to be and do when she grows up; she also shares her
opinions on social problems, Wilder's writing, anci encyclOpedias.
Though the girl does share opinions and ideas on things,

she does it informally as one would with a friend. There is no

 

183

attempt to prove, develop, or defend her ideas; she expects accept-
ance. The style of the letter reinforces the informal organization
with the use of such phrases as “So much fOr wishing!"; her indig-
nant “Really!" at the fact only one encyclopedia.contained informa-
tion about the writer; and her cheery closing, “Well I have to go,

Bye for now!“

 

An eleventh grade boy's letter to Walt Whitman shows a very
different relationship to a literary work and its author. Though
both letters express appreciation to the author about something that
is meaningful to them, the boy's approach is much more impersonal,
formal, and abstract:

Dear Walt Whitman,

I enjoyed your wonderful poem "EIDOLONS." It conveys
to me something I have known all my life but never found
the words to express my thoughts. I especially like the
stanza concerning wealth being.nothing except an.eidolon,
a ghost. I assert this myself to be true, since where is
the value of money except in the precious, coveted idea?
I feel the entire poem expands and unites.the universe
under the though of it all being one huge spirit, one
idea of things. The poem also impresses upon me the
guise of a wanderer, searching not for beauty but all
the truths of beauty.

Thank you for a most meaningful and very beautiful
piece of art.

Sincerely,

(llth Grade Boy)

184

In his attempt to relate to Walt Whitman as a peer, sharing his
philosophical position, this student becomes a bit pretentious
and verbose and uses words inappropriately. He is also, in an

attempt to sound sophisticated, somewhat vague. For example, his

Bf
question--“where is the value of money except in the precious, I!
coveted idea?"--has the ring of an abstract, philosophical ques- L
tion, but the meaning is unclear. Somehow money becomes only an .

idea. His sentences often contain more verbiage than substance,

as I'I feel the entire poem expands and unites the universe under
the though Of it all being one huge spirit, one idea of things"--

a statement which ends up begging the question. He also misuses
words which sound sophisticated, but which do not fit the context:
"The poem also impresses upon me the guise of a wanderer, searching
not for beauty but all the truths of beauty." The word “guise" is
confusingly used; "impresses upon me" seems pretentious; and the
distinction between beauty and the truths of beauty wants explana-
tion. In short, the letter, in an attempt to be sophisticated and
philosophical comes out hollow and inflated. Nonetheless, the
letter serves an important function for the writer. The writer is
demonstrating a desire to try out abstract thinking and formal lan-
_guage; the writer is practicing what he probably perceives as adult

ways of dealing with art and ideas.

185

Students also show a variety of Opinions and approaches to
social and political issues. Writing in an election year and during
the primaries, students addressed every major presidential candidate
in their letters. In addition, students wrote both about problems
that immediately affect them and those of a more general nature.

The following several letters show some of the different stances
students develop on social and political concerns.

The following letter by a seventh grade boy is written to
his local school board:

Dear East Lansing School Board,

I think you are treating us kids pretty unfairly
by cutting our budget. By what I've been hearing our
school system is one of the most well-toedo-district.
Why do we have to cut so intensly this coming year?
Hannah has had a no. 1, class C bands for.six years..
Now we'll be meeting three times for 45 minutes, that
cutting about half the time in class. In doing this
you have presuaded our band teacher Mr. Peppel to look
for another job and I think he's the best in the line.
From this cut you, the board have influenst alot of
teacher and students about our school system.

(7th Grade Boy)
The concerns expressed in this letter are immediate, personal, and
emotionally involving. Though the student is concerned about a par-
ticular issue--a budget cut for schools and its apparent effect on
the school's band program--he does not develop a logical argument
or relationship between the money and the quality of the band. He

begins with a couple of general statements about supposed wealth of

 

186

the school district and the unfairness to the students of a budget
.cut. From there he moves to a description of the past reputation L
of the band and the limiting of class time for band and the subse-
quent loss of the band teacher. The implied connection between
money, time, and quality is implied throughout the letter; he never
makes the connection directly or with supporting facts or informa-
tion. Because of his close involvement with the subject, the con-
nections probably seem Obvious to the boy. Though he does not pre-
sent a formal argument, he does make general statements which he
makes an attempt to support with specific information: The school
is treating students unfairly; the budget cut affects the band in
that it will meet less and it will lose its director; the band will
not be as good.

A letter to a more distant political leader, Ronald Reagan,
written by a twelfth grader provides a different sort of relation-
ship to a political issue:

Dear Mr. Reagan,

I find your stand.and.remarks.concerning.our foreign
policy childous outbursts appealing only.to the ignorance
and fear of the hard.core.fascists of this country. Your
exposionistic rhetoric.concerning detente and the Panama
Canal resembles that.of.thosewar-mongers who were so
prevalent in.the.Vietnam.era.. Your fascist tendencies,
disguised as.super.patriotism,.reveal your militaristic
attitudes which threaten this world's existence. With
this in mind, I can only hope for the sake of the United

 

187

States, and for the sake.of the world, that your presi-
dential aspirations will end in an utterly, resounding
defeat.

(12th Grade Boy)
There is a great deal of heat in this letter. Many words and
phrases--“childous outbursts appealing only to the ignorance and
fear Of the hard core fascists,“ "Your fascist tendencies, dis-
guised as super patriotism,“--the comparison of Reagan with the
"war mongers“ of the Vietnam era, and his hope that Reagan experi-
ences an “utterly, resounding defeat" show the strong emotion the
student has on the subject. In addition, there is a sense that the
student has some knowledge of the issues: He talks about detente
and the Panama Canal as if he had some knowledge about them, and he
makes a common reference to Reagan as militaristic. 0n the other
hand, there is not a sense of personal involvement in this letter,
even though there is heated rhetoric. And, in fact, the rhetoric
sounds like much of the common political rhetoric, and reveals not
the views of the particular student on an issue, but the stereotypic
views of one particular stance toward another opposing stance. The
letter does contain generalizations and abstractions, but they are
the generalizations of political debate. Unlike the previous letter,

which presents an admittedly unsophisticated argument, this letter

 

188

does not show concretely how the issues are of importance. And though
this letter contains more sophisticated language--more subordinate
clauses, more sentence variety, a larger vocabulary--in some ways it
is less mature than a piece of writing which can pinpoint a problem
real to the writer rather than a stereotypic political/social concern.
Another letter by an eighth grade boy shows his involvement
in an issue that is quite removed from his immediate experience, but
the concern seems real indeed:

Dear Monsieur Cousteau,

I have a problem that has been bothering me for a
long time. I think about it a lot and I think that you
would be the person who could solve this grave problem.
The problem is overpopulation and specifically where
we are going to get its food.and housing to supply
our ever increasing.population.

I realize that it is important to make our discov-
eries about the sea but I also realize that sea conser-
vation is important too. .But.I think that we should
cease doing until .we're sure that ye_are going to
make it. 1 '

I propose that you temporarily slow down biological
research, conservation and exploration to devote most
of your energy, resources, skill and time to developing
ways to liye and term underwater. I'm sure that if you
give your all, you can do it. I have faith in you.
Please try, for all of us.

Sincerely,

(8th Grade Boy)

While many letters on political concerns were directed toward, or
Perhaps more accurately'against, political figures, this is a very

Personal and respectful letter directed to a public figure to ask

189

for--almost beseechingly--help. The first and last lines of the
letter demonstrate the personal concern--"I have a problem that has
been bothering me for a long time" and "Please try, for all of us.“
The middle section of the letter shows an awareness of the problems
of overpopulation and why Jacques Cousteau might be effective at

solving the problem; Though his supporting information is minimal,

 

the boy does set up a problem in abstract terms and uses reason and
information to support his solution.

A letter to the general public by a twelfth grade boy is not
directed toward a specific social, cultural, or political problem,
but is somewhat more philosophical in its view of the problems of
the world.

To the General Public,

People, of the nation.. I have this crazy idea I
want to tell you about. I was.just thinking (have been
thinking) of the word:. peace. Oh! don't misunderstand
me. I don't mean peace as in no wars. .1 mean inner
peace and world peace...Everyone.(Sane?) in the U.S. is
having a riot in their.headis. And why? Because they
are worried about a mass.of insane, idiotic, and unim-
portant so-called problems.. Don't worry what someone
else will think.of you act out Of your own conscience!
Just be happy. And I'm not talking about all of those
idiot philosophies like TM and Existentialism, or any
other waste of time. This crazy idea is for everyone
to just stop competing and hating. And.quit picking
on the little guy (or girl). If we could just get all
of our heads together we'd be fine. And.I'm not a dumb
Commie.. This idea is-probab1y crazy. But I'd give an
even guess that most of the people that hink.it's crazy
are idiot morons. Listen, all you morons that are'

19O

reading this. I don't mean stop all competeing. Just
the competition that.is unhealthy. Sports are great,
for some folks. (I prefer to think morons) and capit-
alism is also competition but healthy. But everyone
is so damn greedy. Maybe a combo of socialism and
capitalism. But that's crazy, too. Too many greedy,
fat cat, monopolists running around. It'll never work
in my life. This letter will die and no one will hear
my olea. This nation, this world is a corrupt insane
asylum. People like me end up in sanatariums. Too
Bad! I feel like I'm the only sane person. Anyone
out there like me?! Crummy.rotten human beings. Ani-
mals are more humane than humans. Nobody's listening
to me anyway. I'm crazy, did ya know?

(12th Grade Boy)

One of the most interesting things about this letter is the use of
the oratorical tone and conventions. The beginning, "People of the
nation" sounds like the beginning of a television address by a
President. As the letter progresses, there is a combination of
strong, assertive statements in the oratorical style (“Oh! don't
misunderstand me.“ l'Don't worry what someone else will think of
you act out of your own conscience! Just be happy.") and a less
formal style seemingly reflecting his uncertainty with the use of
parenthetical remarks--"I was just thinking (have been thinking)

of . . . “ and “everyone (Sane?) in the U.S. is having a riot inside
their head's." The letter demonstrates the boy's strong ambivalent
feelings. While theletter is a plea for peace-~"This crazy idea

is for everyone to just stop competing and hating. And quit picking

 

191

on the little guy (or girl)"--there is a great deal of hostility and
intolerance expressed in the letter. Anyone who disagrees with the
boy's philosophy is considered an "idiot moron“ and even when he
tries to be tolerant, he cannot really follow through: “Sports are
great, for some folks. (I prefer to think morons) . . . ." The
confident, positive and elevated prose of the first section of the
letter degenerates into almost a madman's interior monologue at the
end of the letter: "People like me end up in sanatariums. Too Bad!
I feel like I'm the only sane person. Anyone out there like me?!
Crummy rotten human beings. Animals are more humane than humans.
Nobody's listening to me anyway. I'm crazy, did ya know?“ It's
difficult to tell if the writer is writing to achieve an effect, or
if he has a real conviction he wants to share. Is the letter an ex-
pression of difficulty in dealing with the issues he raises, or is
he, in fact, just having fun dramatizing the whole set Of contradic-
tions he sets up? Though it is clear that there is conscious drama-
tization, without knowing the boy, it is difficult to know from the

letter itself how much he is struggling with ideas.

Adolescents and Imagination

Imaginative writings range from the creation of silly stories

and situations to students' projections of themselves as both

 

192

ordinary adults to Walter Middy-type fantasies of themselves as
great inventors, musical performers, superstars. All sorts of
things--television, books, records, movies--provide stimuli for
students' imaginings.

Two seventh graders' letters grow out of their contact with

the media. The first letter is written by a girl to Willy Wonka

 

of Chocolate Factory fame in the movies:

Dear Mr. Wonka,

I thought you factory was.just beautiful. Even
though it was just fake. When I get older I'm going
to have a factory some what like yours. I'll invent
many new kinds of tastey and delicious items. My
factory will be more like Cedar Point or Disney World,
then a actual air pollution, water waste factory.
Right now I'm 13 years of age but I have many Ideas,
like how about bubble gum flavored tooth paste, or
a record made out of black licorice, play it a few
times then take a bit. You might doubt my inventions
to work but they do. ,Just wait and see! The real
think I wrote you for, was to know if I may use the
term everlasting Gobstopper on one of my inventions.
May I? Please write back to tell me.

Sincerely,

(7th Grade Girl)

Except for the second sentence of the letter ("Even though it was
I just fake.“), this girl participates wholly in the make-believe world
of Willy Wonka. The girl is, in fact, so taken with the world of
Willy Wonka that she uses it for her fantasies, comparing what he

had in his factory with what she wants her factory to be like--

193

“more like Cedar Point or Disney World." Maintaining her belief in
his identity to the end of the letter, she asks if she |'may use the
term everlasting Gobstopper on one of my inventions. May I? Please
write back to tell me."

A seventh grade boy fantasizes about his success in the
world in another way. He writes a letter to a rock group:

Dear: Bachmin Turner Overdrive

I except the offer to join the group. I always
wanted to join your group and now I have a chance.
Of course I will play lead part since you want me
to. My friend is joining l'KISS."

I recieved many offers about joining groups.
Such as Led Zepplin, Kiss, Arolsmith, Bad Company,
and even Rush, and Edger Winter! But I decided to
join up with you dudes since your the best. I like
your music because it's good singing, especially
when Randy B. sings. Plus it's good guitar playing
and drums are super!

So pick me up when schools out Wendsday, I'll
have my guitar and I'll be ready.

from

(7th Grade Male)

This letter, like the previous one, shows the writer presenting him-
self as an outstanding succesS--this one a teenage rock star. Both
students move back and forth between talking confidently of their
abilities, and a kind of childlike reality. In the previous letter,
the girl admits “Right now I'm 13 years of age but I have many Ideas"
and when she is trying to convince Willy Wonka of the success of her

inventions, she excliams "Just wait and see!" Likewise, the boy

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condescends to join the rock group ("Of course I will play lead part
since you want me to.“) and then brags about offers from other
groups. He loses the cool tone he has established in expressing
enthusiasm for the group. In talking to the group as peers he says
“I decided to join up with you dudes since your the best“ but he
moves into more of a hero-worship relationship: "I like your music
because it's good singing, expecially when Randy B. sings. Plus
it's good guitar playing and drums are super!" Finally, he moves
back to a peer relationship with his audience: "So pick me up
when schools out Wendsday, I'll have my guitar and I'll be ready.“
The following letter by an eighth grade boy is written in
the form Of a short story rather than a letter. While the two
students in the previous letters are unabashedly presenting them—
selves as great successes, the same thing seems to happen uncon-
sciously in this student's writing:
This story is about a super star in his own time
his name is Fearless Fred who flies over the fearless
cities and spreads justice everywhere.
One day he was flying somewhere and he looked down
and saw about a dozen alligetors a guy.in his small
fishing boat and the guy was yelling for help so it
was my job to save him so I took a big dive and I came
up right under the.boat.and took it to safety and went
back to deal with the alligators he started swinging
and knocked 3 of them out then.he.knocked five more
Of them out then.kicked 2.of them then cut one of
there throats and chop the other in half.

the end
(8th Grade Boy)

 

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The boy begins by telling his story of a superhero and his exploits
in the third person. After he describes his superhero and sets
the scene for one of the exploits, he tells about an adventure.
At the moment he begins to describe the adventure, he moves into
first person, and he becomes the superhero: "One day he was flying
somewhere and he looked down and saw about a dozen alligetors a guy
in his small fishing boat and the guy was yelling for help so it
was my job to save him so I took a big dive . . . ." As he is wind-
ing up the adventure, he shifts back into third person. There is
a transition section between the first and third person which is
ambiguous in that the verb forms could be used with either "he" or
"I": "I came up right under the boat and took it to safety and went
back to deal with the alligators he started swinging . . . ." Some-
where between rescuing the boat and fighting the alligators, the boy
disengaged himself. Unlike the two previous letters, this child does
not seem to be intentionally creating a fantasy for his own life,
but the excitement of the world he created drew him in and he momen-
tarily became the superhero he created.

Three more letters show how fantasy functions for young
people. The first letter is by a girl“telling a fantasy character
from a book how she feels about him; the second is by a boy who is

having fun creating a silly set of circumstances; the final letter

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is by a boy who is imaginatively projecting his own future life.
The following letter by a tenth grade girl is addressed to

Bilbo, a fantasy character from Lord of the Rings:

 

My dear Bilbo:

You and I have been secret friends for a long
time, and yet we have never.seen.each other.. I feel
I know you like a book or the days of the week. I
know your world; your habits; your friends; your
hobbies, your faults your likes and dislikes--and
then our friendship is so different--but I'm not sure
why. I think it's because, well: I've seen you in
pictures--you're famous, my friend--I've read all
about you and I feel I know you so well. But you
don't know me. We're so alike--if you only knew.
You've never seen me--not even in pictures. I'm not
famous, not even a little. I live in my own world--
and you live in yours. How happy and peaceful and
beautiful, it sounds._ I write to you--as often as
I can. but you donit write back. I understand how
busy you must be. I do think you like me, though I'm
just one of your millions of friends. You're important
to me and I just thought I'd let you know, so if you
want to write--or even stop by if you're ever in the
neighborhood--don't be shy! You know I'll always be
here. Please think about it, OK? Remember: I really
hope to see you someday.

Your most faithful friend,

(10th Grade Girl)

There is a longing quality in this letter that does not appear in
the previous fantasy letters. The girl writing this letter is not
playfully presenting possibilities of existing in the fantasy of
this character or creating a fantasy world of her own. Rather,

though she addresses Bilbo as if she were a real person, she is

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struggling with the fact that they are not of the same world: “I
live in my own world--and you live in yours." Even in this recog-
nition, she longs for a closeness with Bilbo: "I feel I know you
so well. But you don't know me." Her sense of Bilbo as a real
person is emphasized by her desire to be friends with him. Ini-
tially, she seems confident about that ("You and I have been secret
friends for a long time."); later, she seems less sure ("I do think
you like me, though I'm just one of your millions of friends.")
There is no sense in this letter, as there is in the others, that
this is something of a game. Her feelings seem real throughout--
down to the last line of the letter: "I really hope to see you
someday.“

The next letter by an eighth grade boy seems to function
mainly as play and fun for the writer. He creates a company--
Consolidated Soap, Shampoo, and Soup--and writes to them about
their products:

Dear Consolidated Soap, Shampoo and Soup,

I am writing because I have some negative feelings
about your products. They have caused havoc in our
household, and I want a full.refund.

After my sister.tried your shampoo, her hair turned
white and two days later it fell out. She says that
when she grows up she will be a stuntman for Telly
Savalas. ..

When my mother tried your soap, a week later she
had a full grown beard.

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When I opened a can of your soup, I saw little
thing swimming in it that looked like a worm, so I
fed it to my dog. She immediately ran outside and
climbed into the crotch of a tree. She is still up
their.

So, I think I should have my money refunded, and
along with that, I would like a razor for my mother,
a axe to chop down the tree my dog is in, and.$lO
for the mental anguish you have caused my sister.

Sincerely,

(8th Grade Boy),

There seems to be no rhyme or reason for the combination of the
three products and the kinds of disasters they cause. They boy
is allowing his imagination full range, though the situations he
sets up--the sister losing all her hair, the mother growing a
beard, and the dog eating a worm that makes her go berserk--are
reminiscent of cartoon disasters. The boy, however, has certainly
created a unique situation with the combination of products; the use
of his sister, mother, and dog: and the series of crazy situations
he places them in. His solution to the problems--an axe to chop
down the tree, a razor for his mother, and the tenrdollars for.his
sister's mental anguish-~pick up the businesslike beginning of the
letter and maintain the joke as well.

The final imaginative letter is different from the others in
that it seems to be a more serious attempt to create an imaginative

Projection of the future. An eleventh grade boy uses the voice of

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a grown man who is writing to an old friend about his life:

Dear Tom:

How have you been? Me, I'm doing something en-
tirely different than you would expect. Im an in-
surance salesman. I'm now living in Okla. City and
enjoying every minute of it. I have two kids, Bob
and Mary, and they look like me if you can imagine
that! I'm in the old 9 to 5 grind now trying to
save enough money to put the kids through school.
Quite different from High-school. I wish I could
see you, probably wiegh l80 and all fat. Im the
splitting image of my father.

If you get the chance to come this way, drop by
and see me. You know its been 23 years since we
have seen each other. The memorys make me miss the
old times. Well, I promised to take the children
to the rodeo and I had better get ready. So you
write soon and if you come this way be sure and
stay a feew days with us.

Your Friend,

(llth Grade Boy)

The letter contains many stereotypic images and cliches about grow-
ing older and taking responsibility-~the kids "look like me if you
can imagine that!“ and he is "in the old 9 to 5 grind now trying to
save enough money to put the kids through school." Some of the
views he presents of middle age--the nine to five grind, gaining
weight, the life of an insurance man, and missing the old times--
are often presented negatively (the mundane life of the middle-
class, middle—aged businessman), but this student does not seem to
view life that way. Though even the names of the children-~Bob and

Mary--and the trip to the rodeo reflect the conventionality of the

200

lifestyle he projects, he does not present his future life as un-
happy and there is no hint of a desire to change in the letter.

The boy does not have a very strong awareness of time: His letter
is written to a friend whom he has not seen for twenty-three years.
The information he provides is sketchy, his interest in his friend
is limited, and his invitation seems to come out of the blue.
Whether or not the student.sees this as a real possibility for his
future, it is interesting that his description of a conventional--

to some tastes, mundane--lifestyle is done so positively.

Adolescents and "The Child
I May Have Someda "

 

An important group of letters--letters written to "the child
I may have someday"--proved to be among the most complex of all the
letters. The relationship between the writer and the audience is a
complex one. The unborn child is an imaginative creation--a projec-
tion of the writer. Sometimes the future child is a very specific
character to whom the writer has given a name and designated problems,
situations, and concerns. Other "future children" are nebulous
characters--someone to talk to or children in general. Sometimes
it is obvious that the writer is emotionally involved with the

children they will parent and the relationship they will have;

201

other times, the child seems to be a vehicle for the writer to
express concerns that are more present and immediate. In addition,
the subjects and concerns that students express to the child they
may have someday are varied and complex. Sometimes students ex-
press concern about immediate problems; other letters are more
generally about their problems in growing up in which they vow to
rear their own children differently. The letters often describe
what the student thinks his adult life will be like, both in terms
of how he/she will treat a child and in terms of what the material/
physical life will be like. Some letters seem to be grappling with
real problems of adulthood; some seem to be idealized fantasies of
adulthood. Some students present dramatic--sometimes melodramatic--
view of their futures in writing to their unborn child; still others
are philosophical in their thoughts about their futures. Often
students are dealing with their pasts, presents, and futures all
at once. In short, these letters are rich in scenarios in which
students define, describe, and make an attempt to understand who
they are and what they will become.

The first letter is by a ninth grade girl. The writing of
this letter was prompted by her reading of Sunshine, a popular book
among adolescents about a young girl who dies when her baby is still

.Young. This girl contemplates the possibility that she, too, may

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die before her child grows up, and she writes the letter to her
child with that in mind:

Dear child,

I have just read a book called Sunshine about a
girl who wants more than anything to be.a mother.

She got married at l6.to a nice but straight guy.
Their marriage didn't work out so.when she found out
that she was pregnant, she left.him.

She found a nice guy and fell in love immediately.
The lived together very happily.

Then, after the baby was born, she found out that
she had cancer. .She knows she will.never see her
child growing up, she leaves.tape.recordings of her
feelings and tells what.she.is like to her child.

I got to thinking that someday that may happen
to me. Then how will you know What your mother is
like?

I hope that this will never, happen, but if it
does, you Will have this to remember me by.

Ever.since I can remember,.I.have wanted a child.
It didn't matter whether it was a girl or a boy: I
would love either one.

I hope that if you are a girl you will be pretty
and never have to worry about getting a date. Please
don't just go to bed with_any guy, you are above that.
If you really love.the guy and.ane.responsible enough
to handle whatever might happen.

If you are a boy, you.wont miss me quite as much
because you will have a man to help you.

Please remember me for I always remember and love
you. Be good for your father.

Love,
Mom

(9th Grade Girl)

It is clear that the story of the girl in Sunshine has really cap-
tured this girlisimagination: It not only brings her to consider-

ing the possibility ofthe same thing happening to her, but she also

203

adopts the idea from the book of leaving a record so that her child
may remember her. Though she cares very much about having a child
--"Ever since I can remember,.l have wanted a child."--she is in
very early stages of formulating ideas about what her relationship
to a child might be. The advice she leaves her children is based
on very stereotypic views of males and females. She assumes, for
example, that the most important thing for a girl to know is how to
deal with sexual encounters and that a boy does not really have as
strong feelings for his mother or need her as much as a girl does.
This girl, in short, seems to be in initial stages of thinking of
herself as grown up, and as a mother.

A letter by a ninth grade girl focuses on her own experience
as a child in writing to her future child:

Dear future child,

Sometimes in life things happen you can't understand
or that don't go right. I know that life is fun and sur-
prising but I've had one event happen to me that hasn't
ended and probably never will.

Having my mom and dad split up was scary and I didn't
know what to do or think about so I didn't do much of
anything. When things like this happen you don‘t expect
it to and you feel awful but as things go along you learn
to except them and someday they.don‘t hurt as much.

I don't feel bad about this anymore (I've learned to
except it) but.one thing that really bothers me is my dad
and I don‘t know each.other.that well and I want to know
him better. .Weive talked alot about this and.we're both
aware of-the.problem.. I just need a father lots of times
and when he isn't around I feel pretty rotten. I just

204

want you to know that if anything ever happens to you
in this way, speak up and say Something.
Sincerely yours,

(9th Grade Girl)

The focus in this letter is not so much on the child and what she
wants for the child, but on her painful childhood experience.
Despite her statement to the contrary, her parents' divorce
still seems to be the source of sadness. Though she says she has
learned to accept the split, her emphasis on the continuation of
the problems--“I've had one event happen to me that hasn't ended
and probably never will"--is tied up with her parents' divorce.
Her repetitions about things happening that one cannot understand
or change and her insistence that she has accepted the changes
seem to be as much to herself as to her child, and in fact, the
only place where she relates what she is feeling to her child is
in the‘last sentence of the letter: "I just want you to know that
if anything ever happens to you in this way, speak up and say
something." The use of the child as audience provides her with
the opportunity to take on an adult role, and the language and
perspective of adults-~probably her parents' advice--is echoed

in her words to her child: "Sometimes in life things happen you
can't understand or that don't go right?; "When things like this

happen you don't expect it to and you feel awful but as things go

205

along you learn to except them"; 'We've talked a lot about this and
we're both aware of the problem." Though she works hard to main-
tain the adult voice, her child perspective comes through in her
expression of feelings about her experiences: "Having my mom and
dad split up was scary and I didn't know what to do or think about";
"I just need a father lots of times and when he isn't around I feel
pretty rotten.“ Though there is an indication she has put some
thought into what she wants for a child, the greater sense of this
letter is the pain and confusion that the girl has had to deal with
and continues to work through with the writing of this letter.

A twelfth grade girl also writes about immediate concerns
in her letter to her unborn child, but the concern is somewhat
different:

To My Unborn Child:

I'm not only writing this letter because.I was
asked to, but to let you know how I feel towards
you. Also to let you know what it will be like when
you do enter this world.

I don't want you to feel.that.your father and I
had to get married although we aren't, yet. We hope
to get married the.end of next.monthe-the.beginning
of July. It all depends on weather Father will
marry us, and if so when...Also when we can get.a
hall, the invatations out, and when the dresses will
be in.

I'm not sure how your father feels aboutyou,
but I can't wait.to.have.you. .I do know he wants a
boy, all I want is a healthy baby. Don't get me
wrong, I'll love you the way you are. In fact even

206

if didn't marry me, I still would of kept you. I
must be he does care about you and me, or he
wouldn't be marring, us.
You father and I won't be able to give you
much, but we will give you all the love you need.
Your mother,

(12th Grade Girl)

This letter, like the previous one, is a mixture of the girl's
voice and the adult's voice, the child voice describing the wed-
ding arrangements, the invitations, and the dresses, the adult
voice assuring the child of its parents' love. Though she moves
momentarily into a description of the wedding plans, the focus

of the letter is on her feelings toward the child. She is writing
the letter to her unborn baby "to let you know how I fell towards
you“ and the expression of her feeling is strong. She seems to see
her relationship with the baby, in fact, as primary: They are a
unit. She seems to be assuring both herself and the baby about

his love when she says: “It must be he does care about you and
me, or he wouldn't be marring us." And she assures the baby of

the strength of her feelings: "In fact even if didn't marry me,

I still would of kept you." The last line shows some attempt to
present the parents as a unit--“Your father and I won't be able

to give you much, but we will giVe you all the love you need"--but
for the most part, the focus of the girl's feelings is on her rela-

_tionship with her child.:“—

207

In many of the letters to unborn children, students described
qualities they wanted to have as parents, projecting a helpful and
nurturing relationship with the children to whom they wrote. The
following letter by a tenth grade girl presents the qualities she
values in a very dramatic fashion:

Dear future child,

Never let me engulf you in my world. Help me not to
center my world around you as my mother has done. Help
me to let you go when.the time comes with no regrets but
with sorrow, yet a proudness.deep in my heart in knowing
you can stand on your own. .Give-me.the courage to let
you make your own mistakes knowing I could have made the
right one for you, stiffle me when I show displeasure
at your choice of friends, give me the strength to say
no to you even through youlll hate me, but, most of all
allow me to pick you back up without hearting your pride
and let you cry after you have fallen.

If I have acomplished all of these.things to the
letter then I have been true to you and to myself--If .
not I have been your real mother who is human and has
uncrontorolable feelings. and.emotions.

Try to understand.

Love,
Mom
(lOth Grade Girl)

Only at the very beginning of the letter does the student relate her
notions of how she wants to treat the child to her own experience:
"Help me not to center my world around you as my mother has done."
Although filled with dramatic and emotional words, the rest of the

letter is abStract and removed from the studentfis own experience and

feelings. The form is almost biblical and contains a series of

208

formal and prayerful entreaties to the child: “Help me," "give me
the courage,""stiffle me," "give me the strength," and "allow me."
In addition to the rather dramatic form, she uses elevated diction.
Word choices such as “engulf," "regrets," "sorrow," "courage,“ and
"proudness" emphasize the girl's attempt to heighten and dramatize
the message. In addition, the letter is filled with cliches associ-
ated with parenthood: I'let you go when the time comes," “knowing
that you can stand on your own," "allow me to pick you back up,"
"I have been true to you and to myself." The letter, in short,
seems to be not so much an expression of personal feelings about
her unborn child or about herself as a mother but a repetition and
reflection of expected feelings and stereotypic roles of motherhood.
In contrast, a letter by an eleventh grade boy indicates
strong feelings about his own childhood and a consequent desire to
provide for his unborn child what he did not have:

To my Future Child:

I know I am writing this letter to.you.about l0
years early but itis one burden I will have to get
off my back. I would like to caution you about the
life you will be leading when you are out in the
world. . . ._

A lot of people told me that life is full of ups
and downs and when you get knocked.down.you have to
bounce back up. That is what I had to do. I would
like to tell.you.that.if.you ever need.a helping hand
I would like to help.. I want you to try.and under-
stand that the reason-I.am saying this is because I
never could find anyone who could understand me.

 

   

 

209

Don't get me wrong I always got _along with people

great, but when.something.personal.got me down I

just couldn't find anyone who I thought would under-

stand. So please child, come to me I've been there.
Your fatherIL!

(llth Grade Boy)

Though this letter is like the previous one in that it focuses on
the kind of parent he would liketo be, this boy does not rely on
stereotypes and abstractions. He introduces the abstract state-
ment about the world "that life is full of ups and downs and when
you get knocked down you have to bounce back up," and he acknowl-
edges the truth of that statement on the basis of his own exper-
ience. He does not stop there, but provides an alternative for his
child: "I would like to tell you that if you ever need a helping
hand I would like to help." The boy does not list and describe a
series of ideal behaviors, but makes a very simple commitment to

. his child on the basis of his own experience and his own feelings:
.“So please child, come to me I've been there."

A letter by a twelfth grade girl deals somewhat differently
with the idea of potential parenthood and her future. While the
previous letters viewed parenthood from a more personal, psycho-
logical point of view, this girl deals with the birth of a child

from a sociological and philosophical perspective:

210

Dear baby,

Although you do not yet exist in the world, you
exist in my thoughts, in my spirit and in my soul.
My love and I have often wondered if we should give
you life in this. world where uglyness exists along-
side beauty, where love exists alongside hatred, and
where violence exists alongside calm. Your life
exists in the hands of my love and I. Will you be
born to burn.in hell for eternity or will you live
in perfect happiness forever? Will you rejoice in
living or will you hate me.for bearing you? And do
we have the right to give you life, where thousands
starve daily and.wherebabies cry without mothers?
Perhaps we should help those who need help now,
those that have already.been born and rejected before
we consider burdening an already overpopulated earth
with another._ These things we have considered when
thinking of you baby. .If only you could answer us
and tell-us what you want...If only we could know
what your future holds. .If only your life was not
in our hands.

(l2th Grade Girl)

Like the letter by the girl describing the ideal mother, this
letter employs formal rhetoric and is almost melodramatic in parts,
both in terms of syntax and diction. The description of the world
in the second sentence, for example, sets up a dramatic parallel
structure: "this world where uglyness exists alongside beauty,
where love exists alongside hate, and where violence exists along-
side calm." The same form is picked up with "where thousands
starve daily and where babies cry without mothers." The repetition

of the question, and three sentences beginning with "If only" con-

tinue the use of the dramatic rhetoric to the end of the letter.

211

The rhetoric of the letter supports the girl's notion of her de-
cision about whether or not to have a child as a significant de-
cision. Her considerations about parenthood center not on herself
as a parent but on larger quality-of-life issues--for the child and
for the world. Though one senses this girl employing a studied
formality, it does not seem to be without feeling. There seems
to be warmth in the words--even when overdramatized--as in the
first and last sentences: “Although you do not yet exist in the
world, you exist in my thoughts, in my Spirit, and in my soul."
and “If only your life was not in our hands." Though the letter
is addressed to “baby" the tone and the concerns of the letter
imply a larger public as audience.

Another letter written by a ninth grade male considers some
of the same issues as the previous letter:

Dear Future Child

I doubt I will have you. Because the future of the
Earth is not as promising as you are.. Do you.know that
the population is doubling so.fast .we canit keep track
of it. You see if I.had you, you would probably be
killed in a war. The .future does not hold for you
what it held for me. .For me it was.a.wide.path. For
you, a narrow. one.with.Hell.at the..end...So you see
I will make sure my.wife.doesn't have you. For your
sake, not mine.

Yours
your unfortunately.non-future father

(9th Grade Boy)

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Though both letters dramatize the future of the world, this letter
is much more informal, and his language seems appropriate for the
audience he has chosen. Both letters refer to Hell as a possible
life for the unborn child; both refer to overpopulation as the
reason for not having a child; both show concern that the child
would suffer as the result of being born; neither indicates lack
of confidence about ability to deal with a child, but both focus
on the quality of the child's life. This boy, however, focuses
much more on the child itself and his language continually brings
the child into his considerations: "Do you know," "You see if I
had you,“ "For you," "So you see,“ and For your sake." He also
considers a more specific possibility: "You see if I had you you
would probably be killed in a war." There are dramatic elements
and aesthetic elements in his letter, like his use of the path
image: "The future does not hold for you what it held for me.
For me it was a wide path. For you, a narrow one with Hell at the
end." The strength of his feelingeis expressed by the line: "Be-
cause the future of the Earth is not as promising as you are."
The letters to “the child I may have someday“ best demon-
strate the adolescent experience: the child struggling to become
an adult. They write with adult.voices--sometimes just trying them

«out to see how they feel and other times making them their own,

213

demonstrating conviction and strength about something they know.
Other times, when workingrout something new or difficult, their
voices are less strong and less sure. Sometimes the voice of

the adolescent is the child, the adult, and the parent speaking
all at once, trying to become whole. In all of their letters--
about their feelings, their ideas, their experiences, and their
fantasies--there is evidence of young people working on learning
what their experience means, knowing what they think and what they

believe, and understanding their feelings.

CHAPTER VI

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

On the basis of this particular study of students' writing
interests in relation to both tOpic and audience, several broad
conclusions are clear: 1

First, it is apparent that boys' writing for this study were
more diverse and flexible than girls. The format of the writing
task was such that one could choose to direct him or herself to
public audiences or private audiences, and one could choose to
write about very personal concerns or more impersonal matters.

The boys showed much more diversity in their choice of topic and
especially audience, addressing a wide variety of public audiences.
They were, at the same time, able to write about feelings and per-
sonal experiences of some import to more immediate audiences. The
girls, on the other hand, wrote the greater part of their letters
to immediate audiences about immediate concerns.

Second, an audience of peers is central to student writers.
Though peers are a much more dominant audience for girls than for

boys, the peer group audience is strong for both. The fact that

214

215

when given the choice of many audiences, students chose to write
to their peers supports the notion of Moffett (and others) that

student audiences are important to young writers and that stu-

dents are willing to write to and for one another.

Third, and related, is that students have experiences and
feelings that they wish to express in writing, and in fact, writ-
ing provides outlets for expression that cannot be accomplished
orally. Britton's notion of the.importance of expressive language
as a means of describing and understanding experience is strongly
supported by these writings. Though many writings were well-
designed theoretical or poetic pieces, the greater number of
writings demonstrated students working through, thinking through
ideas, recent experiences, feelings. Part of this, of course, had
to do with the fact that students had only an hour to write.
Nonetheless, the number of writings which dealt with serious
thoughts and feelings indicates an important function that writing
can serve--as a means of externalizing, analyzing, and exploring
the self.

An important corollary to this conclusion is that students
at all grade levels wrote to a variety of audiences, on a variety
of subjects, using a variety of voices. So, although it is true

that peer audiences and perSOnal concerns are of great interest to

216

adolescent writers, they are by no means the only interests.
Though this study indicates a need to pay more attention to the
expressive functions of language, it is clear that students use
language in many_ways and that all_of these warrant attention in
schools.
Perhaps most important, an initial hypothesis of this
study was that there would be a pattern of changing interests and
concerns consistent with the theories of developmentalists. The
results of this study do not strongly indicate a move from personal
concerns to more abstract, theoretical and issue-oriented interests.
To a certain extent, that sort of move appears in the boys' writings,
but it is not a part of a strong pattern. Though, certainly, this
study does not disprove the theories of the developmentalists, it
does indicate that educators should be careful in assuming that
their students will be at a particular stage of development, with
an interest in particular issues and ideas, and with an ability to
operate at a certain level of abstraction. Such mindsets disallow
seventh graders to develop a theory of literature or an idea of life
after death and twelfth graders to take fanciful flights or work
through an emotional crisis. To emphasize: With both_sexes and at
"ggg§y_grade level, students' writing represented a range of interests

from very personal concerns‘and concrete experiences to issue

217

oriented concerns and abstract ideas; with both_sexes and at all
grade levels, students showed an interest in addressing themselves
to a variety of audiences from immediate and known audiences to
distant and unknown audiences.

Through the presentation of individual students' letters,
I have tried to demonstrate something else about student writing:
It cannot be reduced to a simple description of what students at
various age levels and different sexes are interested in, what
they think about or what they care about, nor can one give a simple
description of how language functions for students at various stages
of development. Though one can make generalizations on the basis
of the data, generalizations--by their very nature--overlook the
complexities and variations not only among a group of students, but
within one writing of one student. For example, one writing may
be classified as a letter to a Public Figure about a Recent Personal
Experience, but within that letter the writer may shift from address-
ing the public figure as a peer, as someone whom he can address on an
equal basis in sharing his experience; but something about the ex-
perience may cause feelings of helplessness, or something about the
audience might be intimidating, and the writer may move into a child-
-like~veiee;.er perhaps the writer feels very confident about his sub-

Ject, and he shifts from a peer relationship with his audience to a

218

expert-to-laymen relation to his audience. Or perhaps the complexi-
ties are related to the relationship he establishes with his subject:
A writing that is classified as being dominantly the telling of a
recent personal experience may shift from the recreation 0f the
experience to the writer's expression of his feelings on the
subject--from the poetic to the expressive, in Britton's terms.

Or, perhaps the writer moves from telling his feelings on the sub-
ject to theorizing about the subject in general--from the expressive
to the transactional function of writing. The point is that writing
is a very complex process and students are at a very complex stage
in which they are establiShing identity and discovering who they are
and what they believe. To rely on generalizations about student
writing is to overlook its most characteristic and significant
aspect: its complexity.

Implications for both teaching students to write and re-
searching student writing grow out of this study. The first sugges-
tions apply to the teaching of writing in the schools:

l. Teachers should devise techniques and approaches for
.broadening the audiences for which.§tudents write. ~The-exelusive,
or near exclusive, use of the teacher as audience limits the sub-
jects students will write about, the adaptations in voice and tone

according to the audience, the need or desire to communicate, and

219

the variety of roles (expert, confidante, peer, etc.) the student
may try out. Teachers can help students set up correspondence
with public figures of all kinds--from baseball stars to politi-
cians, with local officials and newspaper editors, with students
in other classes and schools (from third grade through college),
and with students in other countries. In addition, they can pro-
vide publication outlets for writing for peers and parents or a
larger public--everything from a dittoed class magazine to hand-
made books for the school library to submissions to local news-
papers and literary contests.

2. While the communication aspect of writing needs to be
more emphasized in the schools, so too does-the;personal function

of writing, Many opportunities need to be provided for students

 

to do expressive writing--writing which is very close to the self
and allows them to work through ideas and feelings. Daniel Dyer's
free-Writing Friday provides an excellent example of students being
given an opportunity to write whatever they wish to write and the
positive results of such an approach. The teacher need not read
everything the students write, and that, in fact there should be
Opportunity for students to write things that they may have the
Option of showing or not showing to the teacher. If, in fact, stu-

dents are to be able to use writing for their own purposes, they must

220

absolutely free in what they write. Often, students will choose to
share this private writing, but it should be their choice.

3. A wide variety of writing possibilities-should be pro-
vided for students at all gradealevels.- Both personal and abstract
topics and functions of writings should be not only available, but
encouraged--at all_grade levels. Though there may be a general
pattern of psychological, emotional, social and intellectual de-
velopment of children that suggests a general sequence of activities
for school, the pattern is not absolute or universal.

The following suggestions are related to research in.
composition:

1. To discover more about the~intellectual, emotional,
psychological, and social development of children, and-the-relation-
ship of such-development~to~the-writing;process,~longitudinal-.‘
studies of student writing ~needsto~be~carried~out.-~Both free~~>
writing and assignment writing-of individual students from grade
four through grade twelve would be extremely valuable to our under-
standing of language growth as well as intellectual and emotional
growth.

2. Studies in student writing need~to~focus~more~onlmeaning-‘
"gnd‘function. Knowing the average number of words or T-units in a

sentence, discovering at what page students begin to use figurative

 

221

language, and determining at what stages students are best able
to learn punctuation rules are not important or helpful unless
that information is somehow related to what it means for the stu-
dent. Long sentences pg:_§e_seem far less crucial than how language
and writing function for the user and exploring the ways in which
the speaker/writer can use language to meet his own needs, to ful-
fill his own purposes. The study of syntactic and rhetorical aspects
of writing, then, should be related to their importance in fulfill-
ing the needs and purposes of the writer. A psycholinguistic
approach to research in writing—-an approach that connects the
marks on the page with the student's thinking--needs to be pursued.
3. It would be very helpful in understanding the process
of writing and thepgenesis~of an idea~to discover the-kinds of
changes students make~in~writing (of-various kinds-~poetic, trans -------
actional, and-expressive)efrom draft to—draft. The fact~that over
one half of the students participating in this study chose-to write
rough drafts suggests this line of inquiry. Peter Elbow (Writing
Without Teachers, Oxford University Press, l974) suggests a succes-
sion of four drafts for writers wishing to fully develop their
thoughts and/or feelings in writing. A research project analyzing
changes made on successive drafts may provide a good deal of insight

on the notion of writing as a thinking process and a discovery process.

222

4. Another interestingstudypsuggested‘bypthis- one is an

investigation of how-audience~affects~voice:~~In~this~study, it is

 

clear that students use many different voices;--it does not show,
however, the ways in which an individual student adjusts his voice
--his tone, his style, his approach--for different audiences. A
study having individual students address themselves to a variety
of audiences may indicate how different language structures are
employed for different purposes and may provide implications for
teaching which center on developing adaptability and flexibility
for a variety of language tasks.

For both teachers and researchers, I would like to make one
final point--perhaps a plea: The effort to help students grow in
their writing ability should never overemphasize the importance of
correctness to the detriment of students' desire and need to express
themselves. Writing has the potential for serving a crucial func-
tion in young people's growth. To insist that all the writing
students do meet certain expectations--be they in terms of task,
style, usage, or whatever--is to cut off an avenue of growth, de-
velopment, and self-realization. The following letters illustrate
the potential that writing has when students are given the oppor-
tunity to use it for their own purposes. The first letter is by

an eighth grade girl in an urban junior high school; the second

223

is by a tenth grade boy in a small town high school:
(Deliver 5 years from now, and every 5 years after that.)

Lisa--

By the time you receive this, you may have forgot-
ten about it, but it is to help your future by bring-
ing up your past.

I really hope that ,you won‘t forget what your
life was like when this was written: if you need
a reminder: it was free, yet you were able to face
responsibility with a smile. You gave time to others,
and yet always had some for yourself. Now, I hope
that you have not left this feeling behind, and that
you do the same now, but .with more maturity, and
more of each--freedom and responsibility.

I hOpe that you have not put too much of a burden
on yourself, and if you have, that you realize that
it was you that put it there, and that you gan_remove
it.

I hope that by the time. you receive this letter,
you will be almost a.whole.new.person; changed and
still growing; yet the same in your knowledge of
yourself.

I guess that's all I can say, the rest is up to
you.

Hope for the Future
Lisa

sent—-May 26, 1976
received--May 26, l98l

J.B.-- .

By the time you read this,.five years have gone by.
This letter is.very important .and.essential.. Please
read it carefully and try to understand it. (Actually,
you must understand it).

Five years ago, you were sixteen. Now, you are
twenty-one. .For.five .years, you have had many ideas
about many things, Now is the time to put these ideas
into serious practice. You must forget your friends

224

and relatives. And, you must fight off the new ideas
that you are presently thinking...In fact, these new
ideas will forever be your greatest enemy, so beware
of them.

After you have put these ideas into being, think
about what is happening, what.these ideas really
mean to you and only to you.

For five years, keep your ideas and use them.

Then review and begin again.
--J.B.

Thinking about who and what one is, what one wants, and

 

where one is going is not an easy task at any age. For adolescents,
the task is particularly hard, because they are changing so much.
But the impulse to discover is strong, and writing can provide
a means.

One more letter to illustrate my point will be presented
without comment. I think it provides a forceful last word:

I hate to do thing that I dont like but one thing.
I have to do is some people off I five boy's in my na—
borhood there only one boy. I like in my naborhood
which is me. I have very few friends. No one under-
stand's it's just like living with your enemys and
trying to kill your self.

I dont have a way with words and if I did I still
wouldln't have anyone to talk to. but my self and I try
to under stand my feeling and change but it's to hard.

I had to let my feeling out this is way I rote about
my self

the end

Please right back as soon
as posable

ENDNOTES

ENDNOTES

Introduction

1See, for example Gene Lyons, "The Higher Illiteracy," Harpers.
(September l976), pp. 33- 40 and Merrill Sheils, "Why Johnny Can t
Write," Newsweek (December 8, l975), pp. 58- 65.

2The recurring nature of the back-thbasi s outcry provides
one form of evidence. Programs come and go, but concern about the
"deplorable" state of children's language has surfaced once a genera-—
tion for centUries. See Harvey Daniels, "Forum: Is There a Decline
in Literacy?" English J0urnal (September, l976), pp. l7, l9- 20.

Chapter I

1James H. Harris, "An Inquiry into the Compositional Interests
of Pupils in the Seventh and Eighth Grades," English Journal (January,
1913). p 34.
2Harris, P. 38.

3

4J. H. Coleman, Written Composition Interests of Junior_and
Senior Hi h School Pu ils, Contributions to EdUcation, No. 494 *
(Teachers College,  Columbia Univ. , l93l), pp. l -2.

5Coleman, p. l.

6Richard Braddock, Richard Lloyd- Jones, and Lowell Schoer,.
Research in Written Composition (NCTE, 1963), p. 3l.

7Harold L. Herber, A Com arison of the Com osition Interests of
Six Hundred Sixty Students infipgaes Eight through Twelve, Unpublished,

. 7 . . ,

theSis (Boston Univ.,11957), p

Harris, pp. 39-40.

 

225

226

8Herber, pp. 23-24.

9Herber, p. 69.
10Herber, Appendix.

HCatherine McDonald, 3. J., "Student Preferences in Written-
Composition Assi nments in the Junior High School," English Journal
(September, l946g, p. 391.

12

lBJames Baird Bell,_A Study of the Written Composition Interests

of §gnior High School Students, Unpublished’thesis (Uhiv. of-Oregon,
1971), Dissertation Abstracts (l972), p. l257-A.

McDonald, p. 392.

14Ibid.
, Ibid.

16Marnie E. Miller, "What Creative Writin Can Tell a Teacher
about Children," Elementany English_(March, l967), p. 273.

‘7M111er, p. 274..
13

 

Ibid.

19Ibid.

20Richard D. Biberstine ”Fourth Graders Do Write about Their
Problems," Elementary English (October, l968), p. 732.

 

21Biberstine, p. 734.

22Ruth Laura Varon, Examination of the Content of Unsolicited
Compositions Written by Upper Elementary‘SChool Children‘for lfielr ‘
Teacher's.Eygs Alone, UnpUBlished thesis (Columbia Univ.,.l97l),‘
Dissertatioanbstracts (l972), p. lZO3-A.‘ '

231bid.

24Daniel Dyer, "When Kids Are Free to Write," nglish Journal
(May, 1976). ' ' ‘

25Dyer, p. 36.

26Ibid..

27
28

Dyer. pp. 37-38.
Dyer, pp. 38-39.

 

227

29
30
31
32

Dyer, p. 39.

Dyer, p. 39.

Dyer, pp. 29-40._

Dyer. p. 37..

33James Britton, Tony Burgess, Nancy Martin, Alex McLeod, Harold

Rosen, The Develo ent of Writin Abilities (ll-18), (Schools Council
Publications, Macmillan Education, l975), p. 51.

 

Bilhlgre

35Britton, et al., Appendix.
3612194

37121g:

3Bl2193

391bid

40Britton, et al, p. 5l.
4lBritton, et al, p. l35-l37.-
42Britton, et al, p. l64.
438ritton, et al, pp. 164-165.
44Britton, et al, p. 173.
45Britton, et al, p. 190.
46Britton, et al, pp. l96-197.
47Britton, et al, p. l97.
4§l2193

491219:

50

Britton, et al, p. l98.

228

Chapter II

1James Britton, Tony Burgess, Nancy Martin, Alex McLeod, Harold
Rosen, The Deveippment of Writing Abilities (ll-l8), (Schools Council
Publications, Macmillan EduCation,l975), p. 5.

2

121g,

3Britton, p. 4.
4Britton, pp. 52-53.
5Britton, p. 60.
6Britton, p. 6l.
7Britton, p. 62.
8Britton, p. 66.
9Britton, p. 64.
loBritton, p. 64.
IlBritton, p. 68.
lzBritton, p. 69.
l3

Britton, Appendix.
l4

15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22

Britton, pp. 7l-72.
Britton, p. 72.
Britton, pp. 79-80.
Britton, p. 8l.
Britton, p.-8l.
Britton, p. 82.
Britton, pp. 82-83.
Britton, p. 84.
Britton, p. 86.
23Britton, p. 94.

 

229

24Britton, pp. 94-98.

25James Moffett, Teaching tha_Universe of Discourse (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, l968), p. 18.

26
27

Moffett. pp. 22-23.
Moffett, p. 25.
28Moffett, p. l8.

29Moffett, p. 33.

 

3°Ib1d.

31Moffett, p. 47.
32

Ibid.
33

34

Moffett, p. 40.
MOffEtt: ppo 40'42.
35Moffett. p. 42.

361bid.

37Moffett, p. 43.
38Moffett, pp. 45-46.
39

Moffett, pp. 33534.
40Moffett, p. 35.
4l121g:

42Britton, p.-l49.
43

44

Moffett, p. 35.
Moffett, p. 46.
45J. W. Patrick Creber, Sense and Sensitivity (University of.

London Press, l965), pp. 12-13.

46Creber, p. 23.

47Ibid.

48Creber, p. 24.

230

49
50

Creber, p. 13.

Creber, p. l5.
51

52

Creber, p. 47.

Ibid.

53Creber, p. 48.

54
55

Creber, pp. 48-49.

Creber, p. 57.
56

57

Creber, pp. 73-74.

Creber, p. 74.

58Creber, p. 75.

59Creber, p. 79.

60G. Robert Carlsen, "Literature 15," English Journal (February,
1974), pp. 24-26. "

61Carlsen, pp. 26-27.

62Walker Gibson, Persona: A Style Study for Readers and Writers
(Random House, l969). ‘ r . - .

63Gibson, pxi.

64Ibid.-

65Gibson, p. 51.

66Gibson, p. 53.

67Gibson, p. 57.

68

69Janet Emig, The Composing_Process of Twelfth Graders (Urbana:
NCTE, 1971). p. 37. * " i ' ‘

7OIbid.

Gibson, pp. 68-69.

 

49
50
51
52

54
55
56
57

58

59

Creber,

Creber, p

Creber, p

Ibid.

53

Creber, p

Creber, p

Creber, p
Creber,

Creber, p

Creber,

Creber, p

p.

230

13.
. 15.
. 47.

. 48.,
p. 48-49.
0 57.

pp. 73-74.

. 74.

p. 75.

. 79.

60G. Robert Carlsen, "Literature Is," English Journal (February,

1974), pp

61
62

(Random House, 1969).

63
64

. 24-26.
Carlsen,

Walker 61

Gibson, p
Ibid..

65
66
67

68

69

NCTE, 1971). p. 37.

Gibson, p
Gibson, p
Gibson, p
Gibson, p

Janet Emi

H
D.

 

Emig, p.

pp. 26-27.

bson, Persona: A Style StudyforVReadersand Writers

xi.

. 51.
. 53.
. 57.
p. 68-69.

g, The Composing Process of Twelfth Graders (Urbana:

38.

231

Chapter III

1Richard Braddock, Richard Lloyd- Jones, and Lowell Schoer,
Research in Written Composition (Urbana: NCTE, 1963).

2Braddock, p. 8.

3Braddock, p. 9.

4Braddock, pp. 9-10.

5John C. Maxwell, "National Assessment of Writing: Useless and
Uninteresting?, " English Journal (December 1973), p. 1256_

6Topics modified from The Creative Word series, Stephen N. Judy,
senior editor, New York: Random House, 197.

Chapterelv

llhe punctuation and spelling in the letters have been reproduced
exactly as the student wrote them. The form of the letter has been
standardized in terms of Spacing between words, between paragraphs, and
between salutation and closing and the main body of the letter. Signa-
tures have been eliminated to maintain the anonymity of the students.

2For discussions of recent concerns about research projects and
research design in English, see, for example, Dwight L. Burton,
"Research in the Teachin of English: The Troubled Dream, " Research in .
the Teaching of English iFall 1973) pp. 160-189; and Michael F. *Graves ,
and’Stephen M. KOZiol, Jr. "The 1973 Conference on Research in English'
Education and Reading: Notes on the Training of Future Researchers,"
Research in the Teaching of English (Summer 1974), pp. 265- 278. Graves
and KOzibl report group consensus at the 1973 conference on the follow-
ing point: "There was a feeling of uneasiness regarding the place of
the scientific values and methods of the researcher in the essentially
humani stic discipline of English. This feeling was related to a gen-
eral questioning of the relevance of statistics and the empirical method-
of the profession. Empiricism was generally narrowly defined here, and ‘
statistics seemed to be viewed as dealing only with rather uninteresting
members. It was further argued that graduate students in the field are
often introduced to only one type of research, traditional experimental
research narrowly defined. The recommendation here was that students
be introduced to various types of research.including: typical large-
group experimental and descriptive research approaches, the case-study

232

approach, participant-observation approaches, and other approaches being
utilized in related disciplines. Moreover, it was strongly argued that
research does not include only empirical research but refers to phil-.
osophical analysis, theory building, and other sorts of conceptual inves-
tigation." (p. 272)

Chapter V

1James Britton, "Language and Experience," Ex lorati ns in
Children's Writing, edited by Eldonna Evertts (Urbana: NCIE, 1970),
p. 51.

2Britton, Explorations, p. 56.

APPENDIX

AUDIENCES AND SUBJECTS SELECTED
BY STUDENTS BY AGE AND BY SEX

233

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37 .

 

 

 

SELF

FAMILY

PEERS

KNOWN
ADULT

PUBLIC
FIGURE

IMAGINARY
BEING

OTHER

TOTAL

PERCENTAGE 30.8l

7TH GRADE GIRLS

234

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S F P A PF 13 0 T P

7TH GRADE BOYS

234

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F T. Du .L LU GN E A C.
F. A E MD UT. E T 0 F.
S F P A PF. 13 0 _| P

7TH GRADE BOYS

235

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R A
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F I R ”L LU GN E A C
S F P A PF 13 0 T D...

8TH GRADE GIRLS

236

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8TH GRADE BOYS'

237

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238

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9TH GRADE BOYS

239

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10TH GRADE GIRLS

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10TH GRADE BOYS

240

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10TH GRADE BOYS

241

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242

 

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11TH GRADE BOYS

243

 

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12TH GRADE GIRLS

244

mmmucmugmm

_mpop

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12TH GRADE BOYS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Biberstine, Richard D. ”Fourth Graders Do Write About Their Problems,"
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Britton, James. Language and Learnigg, Baltimore: Penguin Books,
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246

Creber, J. W. Patrick. Lost for Words: Language and Educational
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Dixon, John. Growth through English. .Urbana: NCTE, 1967.

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Holbrook, David. English for the Rejected: Training Literacy in the
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*1

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Meckel, Henry. ”Research on Teaching Composition and Literature," L.
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Miller, Marnie E. "What Creative Writing Can Tell a Teacher about
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Summerfield, Geoffrey, Ed. Creativity in English. Champaign: NCTE,
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