College Composition and Communication Dec 2003

Composition As Experience: John Dewey on Creative Expression and the Origins of “Mind”

Nathan Crick

Abstract

Although the Bartholomae/Elbow debate is often framed as a modern conflict between the advocates of “academic” and “personal” writing, it is more appropriately viewed as the most recent manifestation of the historical clash between expressivism and constructivism. However, both sides of this conflict, which split over whether to see writing as a product of the mind or of an external discourse, rest upon a dualist assumption that the primary task of language is to provide linguistic representations of a transcendental ego. This essay first draws from the work of Richard Rorty and John Dewey in order to critique the dualist legacy of the expressivist/constructivist debate and then explicates Dewey’s views on mind, language, and experience in order to reconstruct a pragmatic philosophy of communication and a progressive composition pedagogy.

Journal
College Composition and Communication
Published
2003-12-01
DOI
10.58680/ccc20032744
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Topics
composition theory discourse analysis writing pedagogy argument
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