The study of different theories of composition is foreign terrain. Prior to reading this article, I had a very basic idea of what composition was and its purpose. I believed composition to simply be about the proper format for writing a sentence (verb goes here, noun goes there, etc.) and that its purpose was to standardize a structure that everyone could understand and expect.
After reading Competing Theories of Process, I acquired a better understanding of the position of composition within the scholastic setting. If its original purpose was to move certain individuals from a mode of composition ignorance to a mode of functioning written structure, it is now going beyond a basic ability. It is now in a place of answering not only how (with several different answers to how) but also why; how should composition be taught and why is it important to teach it that way?
Expressive views advocate spontaneity and originality, favoring creativity over strict rules. Cognitive views advocate a structure within which all writing can improve and be assessed based on criteria. Social views extol the idea that language is communal (not individual) and that all writing has a basis within a community setting (poststructural, sociological, ethnographical, and/or marxist).
As of yet, I am not convinced that any one view is the "right" view to take. In the same way that I think political parties are an over-simplification of human opinion, I think these views of composition are attempting to compartmentalize philosophies that would work much better in coordination with one another. I believe that the social view is present in every pedagogy (whether or not is designed specifically around the social view), and that both expressive and cognitive views have scenarios where one or the other is more applicable.
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