Emig, Janet "Writing as a Mode of Learning"
From RhetorClick
Contents |
Abstract
Janet Emig makes the argument that writing represents a unique mode of learning. It different from talking, listening, and reading, other forms of composing, and composing in other graphic symbol systems. She gives authority to writing over these other methods of learning because writing is the most available.[1]
Summary
Janet Emig makes the argument that writing represents a unique mode of learning. It different from talking, listening, and reading, other forms of composing, and composing in other graphic symbol systems. She gives authority to writing over these other methods of learning because writing is the most available. She further emphasizes writing’s importance by differentiating the nature of writing from listen, reading, and most importantly, talking while noting a problem in courses that primarily focus on reading and listening. Reading and listening are passive functions while writing and talking are active. She makes an important distinction between writing and talking, arguing that writing is a unique language function. Drawing on sources as varied as Jean Piaget, John-Paul Sartre and Robert Pirsig, Emig attempts to clarify her thesis by defining learning from different disciplines and by drawing on the relationship of writing to learning as an active, organic process that follows the pace of the writer and engages the whole person. Writing is a unique mode of learning for Emig because it is both process and product—it allows for constant feedback and reinforcement of process while continuously displaying the written product. This constant back-and-forth of process and product, work and reward, is what makes writing so central to learning. She writes, “If the most efficacious learning occurs when learning is re-enforced, then writing through its inherent re-inforcing cycle involving hand, eye, and brain marks a uniquely powerful multi-representational mode for learning.” [2]
