Of pre- and post-process: Reviews and ruminations

Composition Studies, Fall 2001 by Fulkerson, Richard

TWO "POST-PROCESS" COLLECTIONS

If some in the profession believe it is time to "take stock" of the "process movement," others believe the movement itself is passe. So we now have two collections featuring the term "post-process": Post-Process Theory: Beyond the Writing-Process Paradigm edited by Thomas Kent, and Grading in the Post-Process Classroom edited by Libby Allison, Lizbeth Bryant, and Maureen Hourigan. The first is a strong collection; the second isn't. Kent's book includes thirteen articles by well-known scholars looking at "process" and "post process" from varied perspectives. The collection on grading includes eleven chapters obviously focused on the title issue, plus an "Afterword" by Victor Villanueva.

Thomas Kent's Argument: Teaching Writing Is Impossible

In his introduction to Post-Process Theory, Kent summarizes an argument he first advanced in "Paralogic Hermeneutics and the Possibilities of Rhetoric" in 1989 (and later developed in Paralogic Rhetoric). Borrowing from the theories of Donald Davidson, Kent argues that all communication involves guesswork on the part of both rhetor and reader. For a simple illustration, the rhetor must "guess" whether the auditor will understand and react positively to a given vocabulary choice (e.g., axiology), and in turn the auditor has to guess at just how the word should be interpreted in its context of deployment. This necessary guesswork makes writing a "thoroughly interpretative act" (Post-Process Theory 2), an act that Kent calls "paralogic hermeneutics." And because of this necessary yet atheoretical guesswork, "no codifiable or generalizable writing process exists nor could exist" (Post-Process Theory 1). Because communication is not "codifiable," "we are forced to acknowledge the impossibility of teaching writing and critical reading as an epistemologically centered body-of-knowledge" ("Paralogic Hermeneutics" 35). "No single course can teach a student how to produce or analyze discourse, for the hermeneutic guessing required in all discourse production and analysis can be only refined; it cannot be codified and then taught" ("Paralogic Hermeneutics" 39). Kent's is a radical position, one not shared by most of the contributors to his collection.

Presentations of Post-Process Theory

Kent's collection presents thirteen essays by authors who presumably agree that in some sense, at least, composition either is or must become "post process." The articles are not divided with headings, but in the introduction Kent explains the structure. The first four essays respond to the question of "What is a post-process theory?" Then come three that "investigate the impact of post-process theory on specific kinds of writing" in answering the question "How does post-process theory break with the process movement?" Three further articles consider the "pedagogical implications of post-process theory." While the final three "discuss some of the possibilities for institutional and critical reform broached by post-process theory" (5).