More Thoughts on Expressive and Collaborative Writing In First-Year Composition Classes

 The private vision of the writer, as James A. Berlin called it in his article "Contemporary Composition: The Major Pedagogical Theories", should at least be encouraged more in first-year writing because of its overall importance in any field of writing. There still must be some subjective opinion hid into even the most objective literature reviews, which makes the composition itself seem less like vomited jargon on a page and more like a cohesive text that the composition writer can in fact write for himself or herself. Vomited jargon on a piece of paper, as I have colorfully put it, looks intellectual but does not really read that well with the teacher or any peer reviewers. Vomited jargon on a piece of paper, as I have colorfully put it, looks intellectual but does not really read that well with the teacher or any peer reviewers. The vomited jargon will be written semi-consciously to make the analysis of text sound at least important, with words grabbed from a thesaurus, while limiting any outer collaboration with a teacher, fellow students, or any form of audience who will read that given material. Meanwhile, a more cohesive text becomes more readable to teachers and peers alike, giving the thesis or argument more room for evaluation.
    So when the writer in question can learn to have an expressive writing voice, collaborative expressive writing at its best possible form can give him or her a better understanding of how their audience can be their fellow students as well as their teachers. Even though a writer’s piece is his or her own work, he or she must become aware of the audience who will read the text that he or she has prepared. The individual audience for a first draft will be the ones who will ultimately tell the writer what the paper’s strengths and weaknesses are so far, and how the writer can amend the weaknesses. In this way and many other ways, the audience (being, of course, fellow students and the teacher) can help the writer generate and evaluate a critical or creative paper. Secondly, considering individual audience members are also essential for a writer to know how his or her paper must be written. In a way, the writers who undergo this practice can be seen to collaborate themselves with the audience by “diving into” their classroom peers’ critiques as well as the teacher’s critiques. If a writer is writing a journal article for scholars, the paper must be in a professional and formal tone to appeal to and collaborate with the scholars and readers of that journal. If the article is for a newspaper or general audiences, the paper can have an informal tone to figuratively collaborate the more casual reader in producing a voice that can make sense to about anyone. However, the writer cannot develop an expressive voice for a general article and a completely different expressive voice for a scholarly journal article. As far as expressive writing is concerned, a writer’s voice is unique to the writer and should not be divided into two half-voices (one professional and the other casual). Dividing a writer’s voice into two different voices would make each voice sound half as effective. Only a strong and unique writing voice can be able to effectively carry an argument, which could be further established by a specially collaborative-expressive type of composition class.