Post Process Theory
In 1994, John Trimbur first mentioned post-process in his review of three books responding to the dialogue surrounding a perceived literacy crisis happening in America. In his article, Trimbur stated that the books under review reflect the “social turn of the 1980s” where writers position themselves subjectively in relation to their writing, their classwork, and the larger institution (p.109). Five years after Trimbur’s “social turn”, Thomas Kent’s introduction to Post Process Theory: Beyond the Writing Process Paradigm (1999), established a new theory that positioned writing not as knowledge but a practice “that cannot be captured by a generalized process” (p.1). Kent established the three assumptions that surround post-process and its movement: writing is public, writing is interpretive, and writing is situated (p.1). Fast forward twenty years to 2019, and I am a professional writing coach at a community college writing center and a student in my first year of a PhD program. As I quite literally speed read the extremely divergent post-process scholarship, I frenetically cobble together the timeline where post-process makes its entree onto the composition scene. I can’t help but construct a visual image of process-oriented composition scholars viewing Kent’s words as something on par with him chucking an anti-foundationalist Molotov Cocktail into the mix and then stepping back to survey the effect. In fact, my first reaction to reading Kent was similar; I thought I was in many ways a process-based instructor both within the writing center and within my classroom contexts outside the center.
Gary A. Olson’s (1999) article contribution in Post Process Theory posits the theory as a critique of “the dangers of creating master narratives” and then following them like they are ‘Truth’ (p.8). Olson advocates for theory that subverts and questions what he sees as unproductive and entrenched understanding (p.8). A year later, in response to critiques by process oriented colleagues, Olson’s “The Death of Composition as an Intellectual Discipline” (2000) functioned as a reminder that that the field of composition has always engaged in hegemonic struggle, and “composition scholarship has developed as an interdisciplinary, ‘intellectual’ enterprise- and we are much the richer because of it” (p. 39). In reflecting upon my own writing center work, I personally have struggled against the language of process, particularly when my students have not found process work helpful to their own reading and writing. I personally utilize aspects of post-process in my work with students, and this post-process approach has important implications for my work with multilingual students as well.
In establishing the basic tenets of post-process theory, Kent (1999) argues that all writing is public, that writing acts as “a kind of communicative interaction, automatically includes other language users, as well as the writer” (p.1). This view establishes writing not as individual but social, and in some respects, communal. Pulling from his triangulation model, Davidson also extends this view of the public as “language in use” (Davidson cited in Katsman Breuch, 2000, p. 134) with the idea that people create meaning only by dialoging and interacting with others and the world in the hope that they will be understood. Couture (2011) examines the aspect of the public through an ontological approach where writing should connect students to their being and the way they are in the world. In this way, Couture views writing as an “ethical exchange” rooted in a motive of “doing good” (p. 27). Couture encapsulates the public tenet of post process writing through a philosophical and rhetorical approach she calls “charitable exchange” (p. 28). Couture views this as playing out in the notion of both “profession” (p. 29) where the writer prepares to put themselves out into the world and take on all that comes with it and “reflection” where meaning is constructed in relation to others in the public sphere (p. 29). Similarly, Katsman Breuch (2002) explains the public aspect as engaged dialogue where meaning making is a product of communicative interaction (p.133). In seeing all writing as public, post-process theory can engage writers in viewing writing as a rhetorical activity that requires active thought of and interaction with an audience, and the exchange with the audience is predicated on the idea that the two language users will enter into the dialogue with a sense of earnestness. Essentially, the notion that all writing is public reinforces the idea that writing must strive toward audience readability and accessibility. In my opinion, the nod Couture and other post-process scholars make towards earnestness makes post-process compelling, particularly in a divided and contentious world where I work to educate novice writers in creating ethical and sound texts. However, I also recognize Couture’s stance regarding the ethics and earnestness does not reflect the lived realities of today. In many respects, Couture’s idealism does not reflect the fact that writers, speakers, rhetors, politicians, people on Facebook, regularly construct arguments and persuasive stances that are neither ethical or earnest. However, I appreciate that Couture holds firmly onto the notion that relativism can be destructive with its many “truths” and that seeking the truth is an inherently social activity, and language is integral to working with others “to participate together in writing the truth of our shared world” (92). I appreciate that she sees writing as an activity that gives us value and truth to our own lived experiences.
The second tenet asserts writing is interpretive (Kent, 1999). Kent establishes a hermeneutical stance where writers enter into “a relation of understanding with other language users” (p.2). Kent posits writing creates cultural artifacts that are “doubly hermeneutical” (2011, xiv). In viewing writing as engaging in ongoing renditions of interpretation building off of previous interpretations, Kent pulls from the Bakhtinian notion of heteroglossia, where language is not neutral but “populated- overpopulated- with the intentions of others” (Bakhtin, 1981, p. 294). Thus, writing involves this relay of meaning that builds off of other texts and subsequently helps give meaning to culture and to make sense of the world. George Pullman describes the interpretive aspect of writing in terms of the product- the text is “an unstable entity, the diaphanous effect of multiple interpretive efforts by people who may or may not share context or interpretive practices” (p.28). In a more utilitarian turn of phrase, Rorty refers to this as “interpretation all the way down” where language users engage in a constant stream of knowledge as recontextualized over and over again (Rorty cited in Katsman Breuch, p. 136). Additionally, Katsman Breuch (2002) explains that when we relinquish a search for foundational knowledge, we see that knowledge is created through a series of interpretive acts (p.136). The constant recontextualizing of meaning explains Kent’s position that writing can’t be taught, nor is writing a body of knowledge to master, as writing is not a process that can be reduced to a system (p.147). In positioning writing as something that can’t be taught, Kent is not attempting to avoid pedagogy; rather, he and others are establishing that there is no unified or simple pedagogy to teach writing as an activity (Pullman, 1999, p. 27; Russell, 1999, p. 81; Ewald, 1999, p.122).
The last tenet establishes writing as situated. Kent (1999) posits that writing changes with the situation (p.5). I find this position particularly important for students to understand. The notion of a post-modern and post-process approach lies in the idea that writers can face each writing situation through their own subjectivity where they probe their own background and experiences and consider them in light of the rhetorical situation, audience, and the tone, style, and message writers wish to convey. Davidson describes situatedness as “language in use” (where communicative interaction is not relative to a specific community or to specific discourse conventions, it is instead a product of language use (p.435; p. 440). In a slightly different vein, Petraglia (1999) uses a framework of new social scientism as a way to unpack the tenet of situatedness. He sees the new social scientism as “rooted in an interest in situating writing in physical and metaphysical spaces of time, place, culture, and identity” (p.56). In viewing writing as situated, students, and can associate texts as complex artifacts of the world; texts that contain the politics, ideologies, social concerns, and ideas as they currently stand in time and space.
How does post-process relate to current work in the field of writing center studies and work with both native English and multilingual writers, considering post process theory has resisted informing a postprocess pedagogy? Not every writer engages in the same writing or reading process; I find that I don’t use the word process often in my student interaction, as I am more interested in situating student writers in the moment. So post-process offers a way to resist or subvert a codification of process, so students can retain autonomy and agency over their own work and ideas (Katsman Breuch, 2002, p.144). This proves particularly helpful to multilingual writers who come from non-Anglocentric backgrounds, and where non-linear forms of composing are the norm, and different genres beyond the essay are employed. Tutors also can harness subjectivity in various ways by asking writers how their own positions on topics will potentially interact with the positions their readers will hold. Couture suggests that “writers need to become subjective agents, making willful judgments effected in concrete actions that convey them successfully to others” (1999, p. 42). By positioning student writers as agents, writing center tutors can harness the moment of Kairos to engage in writing and connect to the public. Doing so will provide students an avenue to make discursive decisions in their writing with audience, their own writerly subjectivity, and purpose in mind. Even the most fundamental aspects of post-process including situatedness and interpretation occur when tutors ask student writers to explain their understanding of the writing assignment in the current moment and why they interpret the requests of their teachers based upon class discussions and peer interactions like online discussions. Furthermore, the heteroglossic aspects of interpreting prompt language, finding the language reflected from the prompt into the student writing, and even evaluating the writing once again through rubric application effectively works through a post-process notion of making writing decisions through interpretation and subsequently validating them through “guesswork” (Kent, p.145). Aspects of heteroglossia also comes into play when I work with students on word choice and register. Through dialogue, we usually work out together what tone and word choice works best for the rhetorical situation and their purpose in writing. In fact, Kent’s five presuppositions of paralogic rhetoric play out in most of my sessions with student writers. I myself engage in what Kent describes as communicative interaction and hermeneutic guesswork (p.146) in setting up most sessions; I ask the student writer a series of questions rooted in educated guess work and based upon aspects I see in their writing, the hints of context I draw from students, and my notions of the genre students are writing in. But I also steer reader/writers towards that same guesswork as they navigate the rhetorical situations inherent in writing in many different disciplines writing various genres and with distinctly different audiences. Gregory Shaffer (2012) describes how a post-process approach helps students see language is not neutral, nor is writing as a series of choices and not simply regimented rules and stages that must be followed. Like Shaffer, I also embrace the idea that language is not neutral; it is an idea that students often struggle with, and yet in talking with them about how language is imbued with ideology, politics, and positioning, so as global scholars, students must make careful choices about what they say in their texts.
While post-process has resisted the pedagogical turn, I believe I have adopted a position as a professional writing coach where I always enter into a session with a goal of helping the student engage in their own subjectivity and how that relates to their position as a writer in the wider world- a position that helps multilingual students who are often transnational and employing translanguaging skills across many contexts. Additionally, my writing coach identity resists the notion of mastery, so my students experience sessions where I often push them to keep thinking or considering their writing until the writing is due- until it goes public- as there is no one formula writers can apply to their text that will make the text itself ‘perfect’. I teach my students how writing a text involves doing the best you can in the moment; thinking back on what worked in those moments of composing and what that says about your identity as an author and as a learner is key- that state of being that Couture (1999, 2011) believes is at the root of a post-process writer. While Kent suggests that there should be no post-process pedagogy, I think teachers can construct a pedagogy around post-process. First, instructors can frame the class to have students writing from the personal, academic and public. Instructors can view the classroom as a public sphere where shared, rhetorical activities occur. For example, service learning at my institution can form the basis of a post-process pedagogy, where students write on behalf of social issues in which they feel connected. Wile critics of the classroom as a public space might argue that a classroom is not a real public space, there is not reason students can’t practice public discourse within the classroom. Second, a post-process pedagogy can focus on the situations that result in learning by asking students to regularly define their purpose, audience, and message. Critical pedagogy is another way to engage in a post-process pedagogy. Critical pedagogy essentially links academic and public discourses, as Bizzell does when she teaches utilizing shared cultural values to persuade students of greater social awareness (Bizzell, 2009). Finally, a post-process pedagogy will embrace the student- teacher as collaborator by facilitating learning by adopting a de-centered role, one that writing centers are naturally disposed to engage in, and one writing centers do particularly well.
References
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