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in the comparison, and then the second large chunk would address the other component of the comparison. The point-by-point comparison would take comparable facets of each component and develop the discussion accordingly. Of course, many students find out, very early, that these patterns are not absolute: in other words, one could write a compare-contrast paper with sections of definition and process, two other types of modes.
Imitation has also been used at the sentence level, which may be more useable in the freshman classroom, although it does not seem to have been as widely used, disregarded at times, perhaps, due to the research done by those composition scholars who suggest that students do not transfer the lessons from grammar exercises into their own writing, but must instead be taught by having their grammar issues addressed within the context of their own essays. Still, some have argued for a comeback of sentence imitation, perhaps most notably in Corbett’s and Connors’ Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student, which first came out in 1965 and which was reprinted in 1971, 1990, and 1999. In this text the authors suggest that students copy, word-for-word, passages written by famous authors. The next step is for students to imitate a variety of sentence patterns. They also include testimonials on the value of imitation by such famous persons as Winston Churchill, Malcolm X, and Ben Franklin.
Although sentence imitation may have benefit in and of itself, the Medieval emphasis on small units of composition and the imitation of figures, just like the modern-day use of sentence-level imitation, are consistent with some of our more modern notions about writing pedagogy and potentially quite useful in the classroom. This is particularly clear in the case of Geoffrey of Vinsauf’s Poetria nova, a handbook that was extremely popular in the thirteenth century, having survived in more than 200 manuscripts. In this rhetorical handbook for verse composition, Vinsauf included specific exercises that students could use, and which medievalist Marjorie Curry Woods has used in her rhetoric classes at the University of Texas at Austin. In fact, she has adopted, directly, some of the Poetria nova’s exercises. According to Woods, one of the most rigid and unexpectedly popular writing assignments requires students to produce a piece of connected discourse using all of the 35 Figures of Words in their traditional order, beginning with repetitio, conversio, and complexio. This type of exercise may be so popular with her students because it
… focus[es] on small units of composition (set pieces illustrating a particular technique or approach) compiled by aggregation from even smaller units (lines or images separable from the work at hand and suitable for re-use in other compositions). (Woods, 2001, p. 13)
While this is not direct imitation of grammatical structure, it does fit in with the types of imitation I have already outlined, in that students are imitating linguistic patterns—in this case, in the figures discussed in the Poetria.
Significantly, Vinsauf’s other treatise, the Documentum de modo et arte dictandi et versificandi, focuses specifically on prose composition. The insights it offers into the nature of prose are clearly more pertinent to any discussion of freshman-level writing courses, where the focus is on prose composition. In fact, most manuscripts of the Documentum include sections on prosecutio (how to transition from the beginning of the work to the body), as well as on the methods of ending a work, neither of which appears in such extended discussions in the Poetria. This emphasis on transitions suggests that, for Vinsauf, at least, transitions were particularly important in prose composition.
Transitions, of course, are forged in a many ways in order to signal a variety of different conceptual connections between two ideas, whether those ideas occur at the sentence level, the paragraph level, or beyond. These connections can be spatial or chronological; they can signal similarity or opposition; they can signal causality, aggregation, exemplification and intensification. Moreover, they can occur through repetition of words or phrases, through brief summary, or through the insertion of transitional phrases.
Interestingly, though, while transitions hold an important place in a piece of writing as well as in the writing process itself, many people, students especially, seem to think of transitions as “only” a matter of style, relegated to surface appearances, which, as we’ve seen from the various definitions, is faulty: transitions involve diction, grammar, organization and content; style, as such, is really not mere ornamentation, but an important part of the organic whole message conveyed in any piece of writing. Indeed, any transition involves juxtaposition of concepts: in order to determine which transition to use in one’s writing, one must decide what the relationship between the two concepts actually is.
As such, cognitive psychology can shed some light on the significance of transitions; in fact, this notion of juxtaposition is at the heart of the research done by Gilles Fauconnier in his books Mappings in Thought and Language, and The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities, which he co-authored with Mark Turner. In his books, Fauconnier discusses analogy—more specifically, “analogical counterfactuals”—which involves juxtaposition of concepts, the “projection of structure from one domain to
Figure 1. Concept Map of “Concept”
another” (1997, p. 101). An example of an analogical counterfactual would be the sentence “If I were you, I would listen to me.” Clearly there are two categories, or domains, at play here: “I” and “you.” These are set up as analogous and therefore separate entities. The relationship is counterfactual, though, in that “I” is not the same being as “you”; in other words, this subjunctive construction indicates something that does not exist in fact. This kind of thinking, though, entails a very sophisticated cognitive move, as it creates a relationship between two separate categories—a relationship that does not exist in empirical reality.
At the same time, though, grammatical constructions like this, which create connections between conceptual categories, have additional potential for meaning: in Mappings in Thought and Language, Fauconnier cites Langacker to explain that “grammatical constructions and vocabulary items ‘call up’ meaning schemas” (1997, p. 11). In other words, concepts and relationships bring with them attached sets of other concepts and relationships. If this is true, then transitions may be of particular importance, as they not only call up specific schemas within sentences but also serve as the explicit linguistic link to conceptual frames, thereby contributing to the creative process. Furthermore, grammar and creativity, so important in the invention portion of the composing process, are linked: Fauconnier suggests that “[t]he mental operations that allow us to construct meanings for … simple-looking words and sentences … are the same ones at work in what we recognize more consciously as creative thought and expression” (1997, p. 99). Juxtaposition of concepts can clearly provide the potential for creative thought.
Juxtaposition also operates in the notion of concept maps, the use of which may provide clarity on the cognitive dynamic under discussion. Concept maps are graphical representations of the relationships between concepts. In other words, they illustrate knowledge. Writing about these tools for understanding conceptual relationships, Novak and Cañas define the word “concept” as a “perceived regularity in events or objects, or records of events or objects, designated by a label” (2008, p. 1). A concept map of this definition is shown in Figure 1.
Figures of Thought
“Figures of thought” are kinds of “building blocks”—strategies for conveying your ideas as effectively as possible. Although there are more figures of thought than the ones I’ve included here, and there are other kinds of figures catalogued in writing handbooks throughout the various historical periods, I’ve selected the following as those that would possibly be more useful to you in technical and business writing situations.
On your rough draft of paper 2, please select three consecutive sentences or paragraphs, and use two or three of the following figures of thought as you recast and revise those passages. Be sure to include transitions between the figures you use in your text. Once you have accomplished this task, we will discuss your experiences in class.
1) Distribution. Assigns specific roles to various things, people, or ideas: In this letter I provide information about the JAVA class, the project assignments for the class, and the format of the final exam.
2)