Writing in the Real

This chapter explores the meeting of the public and private questions in the New Literacy's efforts to ground the teaching of writing in the actual processes of writers. It seeks to take hold of the spirit and substance of writing classes that have fallen under the spell of the New Literacy. The chapter examines a good deal of interesting work in this busy area and pick up only five substantial but interwoven strands in the New Literacy. They are: writing at the center of literacy, the Writing Process movement, both the London and New Hampshire Schools of New Literacy Research and Advocacy, and the Writing Across the Curriculum movement. The New Literacy brings more than a fresh teaching strategy to writing; it has heavily endowed writing with a profound moral and psychological thrust. New Literacy advocates have found it necessary to move on to a post-process approach in pursuing this elusive model of writing in the real world.