“IS TEACHING STILL POSSIBLE?
WRITING, MEANING, AND HIGHER ORDER
REASONING”
-Anne E. Berthoff
A Presentation by Elizabeth Brownlow
THE 3 P’S
Berthoff utilizes several influential theories in
support of her arguments
 This presentation will take a look at some of the
main theories that she uses to support her own and
how she does so.

Philosophical
 Psychological
 Pedagogical

PHILOSOPHICAL INFLUENCES

IA Richards is cleary one
of Berthoff’s major
theoretical influences

Berthoff cites Richards 7
times in this article alone

She has published 3 other
pieces solely based upon
the works of Richards
These include:
PHILOSOPHICAL INFLUENCES

IA Richards “Speculative
Instruments” (1955)

Argues that Linguistic Scientists need to
stay out of the Humanities, for they do
not understand the language in the way
that those in the Humanities fields do :
“ He thinks of it as a code and has not
yet learned that it is an organ-the
supreme organ of the mind’s selfordering growth….that language is an
instrument for controlling our
becoming.”(9)
Argues that research serves no purpose
if it cannot be applied in the classroom.

Berthoff refers to his arguments
against linguistic scientists to
bolster her argument against the
use of empirical research in the
study of Writing.
PHILOSOPHICAL INFLUENCES



CK Ogden & IA Richards “The meaning of meaning; a study of the influence of language
upon thought and of the science of symbolism” (1938)
Language inevitably brings about ambiguity because meaning is not created by words but
by people
Focuses on the triadicity of communication
Berthoff utilizes this notion of
triadicity in reference to their
“Semiotic Triangle,” which she
calls the “curious triangle” (318) to
support the idea that teachers are
responsible for criticism of their
own pedagogical assumptions.
Wikipedia. n.d. [OgdenSemiotic Triangle] Retrieved from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ogden_semiotic_triangle.png
Berthoff also suggests that it is precisely this variance in meaning that
teachers need to narrow in an effort to “control language, so that there are not
too many meanings at a time.” (313)
PHILOSOPHICAL INFLUENCES
Susanne K. Langer
“Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling” (1972)




Langer minutely examines facts and
theories on the human mind from various
disciplines
Generalizations of the mind must not be
based on sciences that deal primarily with
the physicality, structure, or behavior of
organisms because the mind is not merely
logical, but emotive in nature.
Study of the mind must also focus on the
expressive and communicative arts, as
well as interactions with societies, as the
mind is emotive in nature.
The concepts of the Nature of Reality
need to be revised, with the focus shifting
from Life and Mind as things to events.
Berthoff cites this source in an
effort to illustrate her main
problem with psychologists; that
they commonly view cognition as
a series of motor skills.
PSYCHOLOGICAL INFLUENCES
Lev Vygotsky “Thought and Language” (1962) – “The Development of Scientific Concepts
in Childhood”
o
Vygotsky’s main arguments against Piaget appear in this work.
o
He believes that Piaget is on the right track with his separation of “spontaneous” and
“nonspontaneous” ideas and his admission that nonspontaneous ideas may deserve
independent investigation. However, Vygotsky feels that Piaget’s errors are in his
reasoning:



o
He fails to see the interaction between spontaneous and nonspontaneous ideas and the “bonds that unite them
into a total system of concepts” (84)
He treats children’s nature (egocentrism) as the enemy to be fought against through socialization
He separates child thought and the influence of instruction.
He also discusses metacognition in the following terms:

“becoming conscious of our operations and viewing each as a process of a certain kind—such as
remembering or imagining—leads to their mastery.” (91-2)
*Berthoff uses these ideas to undercut Piaget’s theories of development and
support her argument for the need for the promotion of student metacognition.*
PSYCHOLOGICAL INFLUENCES
Margaret Donaldson “Children’s Minds”
(1979)



Challenges theories about language and
thinking
Suggests, above all, that the notion of
egocentrism is limiting.
Problems with Piaget:



his focus on egocentrism
his claim that children are limited in their ability
to reason deductively
“he first makes sense of
situations and then uses
this kind of understanding
to help him to make sense
of what is said to him.”
(56)
She also disagrees with Chomsky’s
suggestion that language-learning skills
are isolated from mental growth,
enabling language through an inherent
“acquisition device”
*Berthoff references this work mainly to support her
arguments against Piaget’s theories of development*
PSYCHOLOGICAL INFLUENCES
Kenneth Burke “Permanence and Change” (1954)
o
cited 1545 times
o
While all organisms interpret the signs around them in order to react
and survive, humans utilize speech to take this interpretation further
into interpretation of interpretation.
o
Berthoff uses this work to set the tone for her article and the stage for
her arguments in support of metacognition.
PEDAGOGICAL INFLUENCES
Paulo Freire “The Politics of Education”
(1985)
o
o
“Conscientization” defined as “the
process in which men, not as recipients,
but as knowing subjects achieve a
deepening awareness both of the
sociocultural reality that shapes their
lives and of their capacity to transform
that reality” (93)
Believes that metacognition leads to
questioning of social morés and,
therefore, helps one to develop their
own response to their surroundings.
o
“Banking model” revolves around the
idea that education which expects
students to memorize information without
application results in lack of original
thought and inability to apply knowledge
o
Feels that a good educator “experiences
the act of knowing together with his
students” (55)
PEDAGOGICAL INFLUENCES
Ira Shor “Critical Teaching and Everyday
Life” (1980)
o
o
Heavily influenced by Freire
“Concept Method,”

o
“teaches people to invent generic concepts
appropriate for related specifics drawn from
experience.” (168)
His methods involve:


Socialization and Free Writing
A “Simplified” introduction to Prewriting



Self correction


Think-Itemize-Write method
Dictation Sequence method
Voicing
Composite Theme Development


Pre-Reading
Profiling
Columbia University. n.d. [Ira Shor with Paulo Freire] Retrieved from
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/tc/parker/adlearnville/transformativelear
ning/freire.html
“…it is common for our class dialogue
to remain more critical than our class
compositions through most of the
process. Both advance from where we
started, but at different speeds.” (145)
PEDAGOGICAL INFLUENCES
Jeanne Fahnestock “Semantic and Lexical
Coherence” (1983)
o
o
o
o
Focuses primarily on a need for students
to understand coherence in composition
in terms of lexical and semantic
relationships in sentence and clause
structures
Paragraph models and model sets put
forward by student texts cannot possibly
be comprehensible enough to produce
“satisfactory prose” (400)
Suggests focus on sentence structure in
terms of relationship become the focus
of compositional coherence.
o
emphasis should be placed on the
meaning of the relationships between
sentences and clauses
o
students should study sentences and
clauses individually
This supports Berthoff’s main
argument that students who
understand their own cognitive
processes while writing will
create more meaningful and,
therefore, coherent
compositions.
REFERENCES
Berthoff, A. E. (1982). I.A. Richards and the Audit of Meaning. New Literary History, 14(1), 63-79. Retrieved September 28, 2013, from the
JSTOR database.
Berthoff, A. E. (1990). The World, The Text, And The Reader: I. A. Richards's Hermeneutics:I. A. Richards: His Life And Work John Paul
Russo. Modern Philology, 88(2), 166. Retrieved October 5, 2013, from the JSTOR database.
Berthoff, A.E. (2011). Is teaching still possible? Writing, meaning, and higher order reasoning. In V.Villanueva & K. Arola (Eds.), Cross-talk
in comp theory: A reader ( 3rd ed., pp. 309-323). Urbana, Ill.: National Council of Teachers of English.
Burke, K. (1935). Permanence & change, an anatomy of purpose. New York, NY: New Republic Inc.
Donaldson, M. C. (1978). Children's minds. New York, NY: Norton.
Fahnestock, J. (1983). Semantic and lexical coherence. College Composition and Communication, 34(4), 400-416. Retrieved September 7, 2013,
from the JSTOR database.
Freire, P. (1985). The politics of education: culture, power, and liberation. South Hadley, MA: Bergin & Garvey.
Langer, S. K. (1967). Mind. An essay on human feeling. Baltimore, MA: Johns Hopkins P.
REFERENCES
Macleod, R. B. (1967). The Arts as Phenomena of the Life Process; Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling. Vol. 1 by Susanne K. Langer.
Science, 157(3796), 1543-1544. Retrieved September 22, 2013, from the JSTOR database.
Ogden, C. K., & Richards, I. A. (1938). The meaning of meaning; a study of the influence of language upon thought and of the science of
symbolism,. London: Harcourt, Brace, & Co.
Richards, I. A. (1955). Speculative instruments. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Richards, I. A., & Berthoff, A. E. (1991). Richards on rhetoric: I.A. Richards, selected essays (1929-1974). New York: Oxford University Press.
Shor, I. (1980). Critical teaching and everyday life. Boston, MA: South End Press.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1962). Thought and language. Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Vygotsky, L. S., & Cole, M. (1978). Mind in society: the development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge: Harvard University
Press.
Wirth, L. (1937). Book review: Permanence and change: An anatomy of purpose: Kenneth Burke. American Journal of Sociology, 43(3), 483.
Retrieved October 2, 2013, from the JSTOR database.