Publication Does Not Equal Advocacy (1)

By Author: unknownmem
Total Articles: 40
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I was eager to read "The Five-Paragraph Essay and the Deficit Model of Education" in the November 2008 issue of English Journal (Brannon et al., 16--21). I have long appreciated Lil Brannon's work and have recently enjoyed Thinking Out Loud on Paper (Heinemann, 2008), recommended to me by Jeanie Marklin Reynolds and co-authored by several of the authors of this "EJ Extra" piece. As a teacher and scholar, I, too, resist Replica Cartier assumptions about the value of formulaic writing, so I wanted to see what the authors had to say. Brannon et al. have many objections to the "Speaking My Mind" essays by Kerri Smith (March 2006) and Byung-In Seo (November 2007). However, interspersed with their argument about writing pedagogy are misunderstandings about English Journal? As a former editor, I feel compelled to address those misunderstandings.

Brannon et al. question the decision to publish these two essays, asking why the "dominant school practice" of the five-paragraph theme "need[s] yearly voicing in the pages of this journal" English Journal ...
... should publish material that presents multiple viewpoints on topics of concern to English language arts teachers--and it always has. The five-paragraph essay is one of those topics, although it certainly did not dominate discussions of teaching writing. In September 2004, the writers for the themed issue "Re-forming Writing Instruction" challenged our thinking about form and formula; no author advocated teaching the five-paragraph essay, and I editorialized against formulaic writing. When we received the essays by Smith and Seo, we saw them as continuing a conversation about writing instruction that has been part of EJ since the first issue appeared in 1912.

Brannon et al. object to the publication of these essays, in part because the authors' opinions "are not scrutinized in ways that scholarship is scrutinized" and "are not intended to be engaged". These objections do not apply to any essays selected for the "Speaking My Mind" feature. Certainly these essays should be responsible and accurate, but they should also be expressions of the author's opinion (see the call for manuscripts to see what we asked for). When the Smith and Seo essays were submitted, the editorial staff discussed their fit for the "Speaking My Mind" call--to speak out on an issue of concern to the author--as well as the quality of the writing and potential audience appeal. We judged these essays to be well written in that they communicated clearly their authors' ideas and they offered a cogent argument, one that we hoped readers would take up and respond to. In fact, readers did contact these authors directly, although no one submitted a response to the journal for publication. Second, opinions expressed in this feature definitely are "intended to be engaged." Brannon et al. appear to be doing just that. Readers who want to see another example of how Cartier Santos Replica Watches opinions from "Speaking My Mind" can be engaged should read the discussion of rubrics, beginning with essays by Alfie Kohn (March 2006) and Vicki Spandel (September 2006), followed by articles by Maja Wilson (March 2007) and co-authors Eric D. Turley and Chris W. Gallagher (March 2008).

Finally, Brannon et al. seem to misunderstand the meaning of publication in English Journal when they question why Smith's and Seo's essays were published. Publication does not equal advocacy. EJ authors' opinions are their opinions, as it says on the copyright page of every issue. Publication contributes to the presentation of varied perspectives on topics central to teaching English language arts in secondary schools. While my beliefs were, I hope, clear in my editorials, I relied on advice from the editorial associates and the pool of 250 reviewers as well as my judgment to ensure that we did not use the journal to advocate for a particular approach or to validate particular methods.