Moffet: I, You, and It

Must I say that being exposed to Moffett and Britton is like seeing in action for the first time American/British screen versions of the James Bonds of writing! I marvel at how Britton with his foundational writing theory of discourse and audience complements Moffett's classifications of writing. Moffett believes that writing must first be self-experienced and self-expressed on a continuum first being from the point of view of the writer with his/her immediate known audience to a more distant unknown audience but keeping in mind that meaning of the writing be understood by all audiences. It is obvious to me that these two scholarly educators were aware of each other's passion for influencing educators to move from the traditional way of teaching writing which tended to freeze students' writing skills to a more natural and realistic discourse of writing. How true.

I do appreciate how Moffett used the 'cafeteria experience' to explain his theory. How Moffett described, "My perceptual apparatus is recording these moments of 'raw experience', not in words but in some code of its own that leads to words" (pg. 19). Simple. WE all do this. When we experience an event, we are the first audience. The description of our 'raw experience' will change depending on our audience. But, what I hear Moffett saying here, is the experience is real and teachers need to allow students to draw from those real experiences to write about. True again.

Moffett stretches you even more by justifying why teachers should design natural, realistic writing assignments as he uses the 'nervous system' man-made conception to add the final punch to support his argument. Moffett's mastery with words is like eating the best peanut-butter sandwich ever! What I really respect about Moffett is that he gives me tools that I am able to use now in my classroom. I am sold on utilizing Moffet's tools of the four stages of effective writing for students. When Moffett says, "... abstracting moments of experience to higher and higher symbolic levels are precisely the limitations which should shape our writing assignments" (pg. 24), I want to do this for my students. True yet again.