Paradox and Dichotomy: Review of Expressive Pedagogy

Paradox and Dichotomy: Review of Expressive Pedagogy
Christopher Burnham’s overview of expressive pedagogy and application drives home the challenges of defining how one writes for the world at large (that is, the world as perceived by the writer: one’s community, one’s culture, one’s country, etc.). Inevitably generated from an individual “self,” one can argue that the theoretical approach behind any composition can only be clearly defined once the product is on the paper. To remove the concept of expressivism from the spectrum of approaches to writing is to remove the writer from the composition. Given that all writing starts from the core of oneself – the soul, the ethos -- all writing then starts out as expressive, just as all actions start out as personal.
The tipping point at which a composition becomes detached from expressivism (in occasions when this would occur) is determined by when the writer begins to invoke the requirements to achieving his ultimate goal. Burnham acknowledges the inevitability of expressivism as, at the very list, the starting point in any writing when he cites Murray and Elbow’s application of Britton’s developmental taxonomy, which “acknowledges this connection between expressivism and the end product regardless of its ultimate purpose: through which personal and private insights and sensations become coherent, publicly accessible writing.” (Burnham, 27).
A theme of the paradox of writing is appreciated in the Burnham chapter: a dichotomous tension, if you will, inevitably exists in the process of writing and in defining approaches to writing. This tension, for example, responds to the problem of making something public out of something personal, and vice versa. bell hooks speaks to this in terms of praxis – that is, of the point of collaboration between theory and practice: “Fundamentally, I learned that theory could be a healing place.” Healing – even when experienced publicly, culturally, or nationally, starts at the core of the self. Theory is a manifestation of shared or observed knowledge. Thus, hooks successfully binds the soul to the community.
Further substantiating the imperatives of (1) expressivism in all writing, and (2) the benefits of tension, Burnham cites Fishman’s observations of “promoting student voice while teaching disciplinary conventions.” Indeed, the paradoxical constructivist approach referred to by Fishman and McCarthy (“Is Expressivism Dead?”) can be defined as controlled chaos -- insofar as organization of some sort is necessary in order for students to share freely as they critique one another’s drafts. (Burnham, 31)
Likewise, the act of composing is a means of organizing thought; ironically, however, this can only be achieved through the continuous, alternating processes of creation and destruction – another dichotomous, seemingly paradoxical relationship. We make order out of chaos, but only when chaos (destruction) has been achieved, acknowledged, analyzed. And by merely analyzing that which is in order, we are yet again led to destroying it. The breaking down of the written word is a means of breaking away from one idea in order to gain clarity, and ultimately – if we are lucky -- to experience an epiphany.
Britton’s definition of expressionism as a vehicle which speaks to both the primary roles of participant and spectator, and his description of its dual capacities (functional “mode” and “form”) underscore the inevitability of expressivism in the process of writing, regardless of the theoretical basis for the end product.