A RhetNet SnapShot Reply:
THE MAIN PROBLEM

Fred seems to make a claim that is going on 20-years-old: that most writing teachers teach rules. I'm not sure whether that is so today. I've taught at three different colleges, public and private, and I've not seen that many teachers, perhaps a few old timers, who equate writing with rules. I'd like to see where Fred gets his numbers from; I'd like to know whether Fred is just pushing buttons. My impression, however, is that those rule-based buttons just don't work anymore. I don't think they are descriptive of how writing is being taught by the majority of writing teachers.

What is really interesting about Fred's snapshot is the way he connects writing with purpose. He says that the purpose, at least in the snapshot, is to handle his feelings. That might be one purpose, but there are certainly other purposes, and to me this seems to be where most debate about writing is now centered. In other words, Fred's product vs. process duality to me has long been settled. I think he gets to his real point where he begins talking about purpose.