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This review has been accessed times since July 6, 2005

Casanave, Christine Pearson. (2004). Controversies in Second Language Writing: Dilemmas and Decisions in Research and Instruction. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.

Pp. vii + 245
$20     ISBN 0-472-08979-X

Reviewed by Gill Teiman
York University, Toronto

July 6, 2005

Debates within the field of second language (L2) writing increasingly can be seen as informed by a central difference between those who accept that teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) is political and ideological and those who consider teaching ESL to be primarily an area where politics are a distraction or at least not the priority of teachers. According to the former, teachers can be relatively conscious of their position and make informed decisions or, in their assumption of neutrality – the latter perspective - take political and ideological positions in their practice without always fully realizing that they are doing so. This is an understanding of teaching to which I subscribe, although it is often easier to consider the theory than to apply it in practice. Christine Pearson Casanave’s Controversies leaves the detailed exploration of this central debate until the final chapter, but perhaps its arguments can be detected throughout.

Controversies reviews the major debates within the field of L2 writing: the validity and best application of contrastive rhetoric; the best ways of improving writing such as whether to focus on either fluency or accuracy and whether to emphasize the process of writing or the final product; the requirements for fair and accurate assessment; the ways student writers interact with their various audiences; appropriate responses to “plagiarism” by L2 writers; and, as noted above, the issue of whether the teaching of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) is, and should be, a pragmatic and/or political task. Following an introductory chapter, five main chapters focus on a specific area of controversy or group of related controversies. Each of the five chapters is divided into several sections. They open with a selection of quotations from the relevant literature and some “leading questions,” both of which are designed to highlight some of the differences of opinion and prompt the reader to begin to think about the issues. This section concludes with an introductory review of the main issues being debated. The second section reviews the range of scholarship on both, or all, sides of the debate, and explores influential scholars in greater depth. The third section comprises descriptions of classroom experience, in most cases that of the author’s own experience. “Ongoing Questions” summarizes unresolved issues, and the final section, “Beliefs and Practices,” lays out a series of questions to prompt readers to think through the issues with respect to their own pedagogy. At the end of each chapter is an extensive list of references and related scholarship.

Casanave acknowledges the real-life situation of teachers who need to make decisions about what and how to teach on a daily basis, when there is little agreement among the “experts” to provide guidance. Her intent is not to provide a practical guide to teaching, but to help teachers reflect on the theory and practice of their work, always taking account of the local conditions in which they are teaching. She explains that her focus is on the question of “how teachers in L2 writing can be helped to make reasoned decisions by understanding some of the key issues and conflicting opinions about L2 writing research and pedagogy” (p. 1). Her book is aimed at both experienced and novice teachers, and, as she points out, many of the controversies are also current in debates about first language (L1) writing. As someone fairly new to the field of L2 writing, I found the book extremely helpful. It provides an overview that is comprehensive but thoughtful and focused in each major area, and while I am not sufficiently well-read to speak to its overall reliability, I found the reviews of areas with which I am somewhat familiar in either L2 or L1 scholarship to be balanced and expertly informed.

Indeed, balance is a central tenet of Controversies. Casanave proposes that some of the debates in the field in fact set up false dichotomies, although the debate is still important (p. 2). One such false dichotomy, she asserts, is that between pragmatist and critical approaches to EAP, the opening focus of her final chapter, “Politics and Ideology.” Casanave sums up the debate as one “that pits teachers who believe their main job is to teach L2 students functional writing skills against those who hope to encourage students to develop critical awareness of the political and ideological aspects of their writing tasks and possibly contribute to social change” (p. 3). I see this distinction not as a false dichotomy but as a manifestation of the teaching is/is not always political and ideological debate with which I began. Casanave resolves these debates, or renders them false dichotomies, by taking the stance that teachers need to be aware of and to discuss the bases on which they make their daily teaching decisions; and she lists the decision-making criteria as: “philosophy of teaching and learning; knowledge of relevant issues; and the practical constraints of local teaching and learning settings” (p. 3). I would suggest that by requiring teachers to be conscious of their “decision-making criteria,” Casanave tacitly acknowledges that those decisions must take account of ideology and politics.

Throughout, Casanave stresses the need for people to make conscious and informed decisions that are responsive to the social and political realities of the teaching situation of both the students and the teacher. In her introductory chapter, “Beliefs and Realities,” she asserts that “examined or unexamined, within awareness or not, teacher choices and behaviours in the classroom reflect underlying beliefs and assumptions” (p. 9). I could not agree more. However, Casanave’s examples of underlying beliefs and assumptions are more personal and individual such as “personality, cognitive style, [and] preferences in learning strategies . . .” (p. 11). She refers to the need to avoid imposing a personal learning style on one’s students, for example (pp. 11-12). Although there is also a reference to the “influences of upbringing,” this seems to denote psychological rather than ideological effects (p. 11). Nevertheless, the chapter is a fine outline of the work needed to develop a philosophy of teaching and learning by examining one’s own beliefs and practices. Setting the pattern for the rest of the book, there are suggestions for how to go about the task, and a description of some of Casanave’s own self-reflections as she became an experienced teacher. The chapter includes exhortations to keep up with the literature and an acknowledgement of the many practical constraints upon teachers, whether in North America or overseas. The later chapters all deal with a major debate. While I will outline each chapter briefly, I will focus on two areas where I have some knowledge: Chapter 2, “Contrastive Rhetoric,” and Chapter 6, “Politics and Ideology.”

Chapter 2 deals with the arguments over contrastive rhetoric (CR). Casanave explains that CR started as a field of study with an article by Robert Kaplan in 1966. Kaplan, she says, “ assumed a kind of linguistic relativity, specifically that the rhetorical aspects of each language are unique to each language and culture” (p. 27). She goes on to outline the main ideas in the debate and then to review the literature. It may be helpful to review Kaplan’s seminal 1966 article, “Cultural Thought Patterns in Inter-cultural Education,” in a little more detail, as it has been influential beyond the bounds of L2 teaching. Kaplan posits that different cultures have different rhetorical patterns and that these can be detected in paragraph forms. Further, a student’s first language will influence his or her writing in English. Thus, he suggests, Western writing, and thinking, is linear while others are circular or have other patterns. These notions are based on an examination of about 700 student essays (p. 6), although Kaplan only discusses a few specific examples and gives no general discussion of the findings. While the article has been critiqued extensively, its central idea has become part of the common sense of Western education. Everyone knows that Asian logic and essays are not linear, for example. Thus, he says, teachers must take this into account in planning how to help students achieve success in English medium institutions. Many still assume the truth in a general way of such a proposition – indeed I did myself - despite the amount of scholarship debunking Kaplan’s arguments.

In explaining and evaluating Kaplan, Casanave looks at various theories about the roots of his work, with most scholars now assuming the influence of “the so-called Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity or linguistic determinism” (p. 29). She also looks at the developments it spawned. She quickly outlines the history of scholarship since Kaplan (pp. 33-39), explaining that some of the main criticisms have had to do with the fact that it cannot be assumed that the problems in student papers are caused only by the effects of their first language’s rhetorical conventions but may in fact be due to their lack of general expertise or any of several other factors such as their socio-economic class, their dialect or language(s), their knowledge of the topic and so on (p. 42). In addition, several scholars have found that a specific L2 group is not homogeneous and there is great variety of rhetorical conventions within the writing of other cultures.

Following this exposition, Casanave proposes an approach for teachers that is sensitive to many of the issues raised by the scholars she has reviewed, but that is essentially pragmatist. Casanave has a long section on “Taking an Investigative Pedagogical Approach in the Classroom” (pp. 45-52) in which she suggests various ways that teachers can engage L2 students in investigating, more or less actively and more or less explicitly, the possibility and implications of different rhetorical conventions in their first language. While the suggestions are excellent, nowhere is there any consideration of the politics and ideology of comparing or contrasting rhetorical conventions, or of deciding not do so at all.

Interestingly, the debate about CR is becoming informed by the dichotomy between pragmatists and those who see teaching as essentially political and ideological. The early history of CR scholarship is one of largely uncritical discussion, but more recently scholars such as Ulla Connor and Dwight Atkinson seem to have accepted to some degree the notion that teaching is ideological and political as does Casanave in other sections of her book; however, the field of CR has been problematized in this way only very recently. With the publication in 2004, presumably too late for inclusion in Controversies, of Kubota and Lehner’s “Toward Critical Contrastive Rhetoric” the field becomes a significant terrain for the politics/ideology vs. pragmatism debate.

It is worth briefly examining Kubota and Lehner’s work in order to contrast it with Casanave. In their densely argued paper, Kubota and Lehner argue that their paper unpacks the politics and ideologies implicit in CR scholarship, and proposes “alternative conceptual foundations for critical contrastive rhetoric (p. 9). In introducing the application of critical CR to practice, they explain that critical CR encourages students and teachers to critically reflect on usual practices such as comparing and contrasting L1 and L2 rhetorical patterns [as advocated by Casanave in Controversies, for example] and teaching/learning preferred patterns so as to consider how such practices “might reinforce cultural binaries and assimilation” (p. 9). Their final section goes beyond Casanave’s thoughtful but pragmatist suggestions in that it explicitly urges a shift from assimilationist teaching to “counter-hegemonic pedagogies.” Critical CR, they assert, “re-evaluates taken-for-granted cultural differences and instructional practices that legitimate these differences” (p. 20). It calls traditional assumptions into question and explores possibilities. Through self-reflexivity, it develops a vision to “enable counter-hegemonic appropriation of rhetoric as well as pluralization of rhetorical norms” (p. 20). More concretely, the authors list questions that students can be encouraged to explore in the classroom including, for example, the useful “who benefits” from the status quo with respect to the status of language, for example, and “who decides” what gets done and why, or “what is better English” (pp. 21-2). Such explorations would validate students’ first language and avoid the sense of the superiority of English. In this way, English is added to students’ repertoire but does not supplant their prior knowledge. It avoids “othering.” Power is examined rather than overlooked.

I believe that Casanave’s “investigative approach” could easily be expanded to incorporate some of these notions. Casanave explicitly warns against perpetuating stereotypes (p. 52), and it is not such a big step from there to look at the cause of stereotypes. Finally, the authors echo Casanave, and those who promote the notion that teaching is ideological, by insisting that critical CR be self-reflexive. Teachers should ask themselves what they are doing, where they are leading and so on in all their teaching, including their response to student writing. This is exactly what Casanave urges throughout her book. It is just that these authors explicitly include ideology as a subject for self-reflection.

In her third chapter, “Paths to Improvement,” Casanave looks at the fluency/accuracy and product/process debates, the issue of genre, and the many opinions about appropriate response (particularly error correction) to student writing.. The introductory section reflects on the difficulties of determining what is meant by “improvement” or, indeed, by “good” writing. Fluency and accuracy are both desirable, of course, but unfortunately they are “inversely related. As attention to one goes up, attention to the other goes down” (p. 68). In contrast, an either/or conceptualization of the process of writing and the finished product is invalid for both must receive some attention. A process-oriented approach assumes that the strategies of expert writers can be studied and learned from, while a product focus requires examination of the formal characteristics of sample texts (pp. 68-69). Genre scholars focus on the written product, but “with a social context thrown in, in that genres are produced for social purposes of communication within groups that share purposes, understandings, and ways of using language” (p. 82). The discussion of response looks at the issues and scholarship related to response to content and ideas as well as the common compulsion of teachers and the often equally strong desire of students for the correcting of language errors (pp. 86-92).

Casanave briefly discusses the extension of the process/product debate to include attention to the more social and political concerns of recent scholarship, often labelled “post-process” (although inevitably it is not opposed to process so much as builds upon it). The post-process movement focuses on the social and political contexts of writing and their influence on both the process and product. If this approach is correct, Casanave acknowledges, teachers will need to look beyond the formalities of texts and the strategies for writing and will need to consider “how the social and political dimensions of writing influence their attempts to help students improve their writing” (p. 84). As students gain understanding of such contexts, she goes on to explain, they will gain greater control over their own decisions about writing and thus increased “agency and an ability to participate in, and possibly resist, the literacy practices of their academic and workplace communities” (p. 86).

Interestingly, Casanave includes a recent article of her own in the review of more socially oriented post-process scholarship, “Looking ahead to more sociopolitically-oriented case study research in L2 writing scholarship.” This article demonstrates strong support for a socio-political approach. She cites a wonderful anecdote from Villaneuva (1993) to demonstrate the “social and political realities of university level writing.” As a student, Villaneuva was upset at comments on his first papers. In response, he developed a strategy he termed “Professorial Discourse Analysis” in which he would review his professors’ rhetorical patterns in their published works, and then imitate them in his own papers (pp. 91-92).

Chapter 4, “Assessment,” explores all the difficult issues of assessment that teachers face. Starting with the acknowledgement that teachers are not often in a position to be able to opt out of assessment no matter their beliefs, which are often strongly held, the chapter reviews the many ways in which assessment may be considered in order for it to be as fair and accurate as possible. Assessment, testing, measurement, grading and evaluating are distinguished (p. 114-115). Formal and informal assessment for various purposes and the appropriate instruments are reviewed (pp. 116-117). The review of scholarship has sections on: assessment objectivity and subjectivity/reliability and validity, rater reliability, authenticity, and ethical dilemmas. In the chapter’s section on classroom perspectives, Casanave asserts that teachers may have little control over decisions made outside their classes about assessment within them but that they still “have a responsibility to be aware of the issues and, to the extent possible,/to participate in and encourage ethical assessment practices (pp. 134/5). Here, Casanave’s position could be expressed in political terms as easily as in the ethical framework that she chooses.

Chapter 5, “Interaction” moves more deliberately into the realm of the pragmatism/ideology and politics debate. This chapter is divided between the matter of interaction between writers and their various audiences, including electronic audiences, and the problem of plagiarism. Casanave explores the definition of plagiarism, pointing out that plagiarism can exist only when there are notions of intellectual property and copyright, both of which are “relatively modern in the West” (p. 172). Given the relatively short history of the concept of plagiarism in the West, and indeed the ambiguity of the concept, it is not surprising that Casanave devotes a significant section of the chapter to the further complicating role of cultural issues. Much of the scholarship focuses on Chinese writers and explores similarities and differences in the use of citations between Chinese scholars and students and their Western counterparts. These complexities, Casanave explains, have given rise to two “sides” in scholarship. One side fears “imposing an oversimplified Western notion of authorship on a complex cross-cultural phenomenon that is as ideological as it is textual.” The other sees the pragmatic need to protect students who must function in a Western academic context, indeed to ensure that they can “survive in settings where strong sanctions apply to writers who are perceived as plagiarizing” (p. 177). At the end of the review of the scholarship, Casanave is unequivocal. Before teachers ask students to do writing that requires use of sources, she says, they should consider “whether they hold pragmatist, accommodationist beliefs or ones that are more critical and questioning of the status quo” (p. 179). Precisely! But this sort of self-reflection is necessary for all our teaching.

Finally, Casanave turns to what I see as the central debate in L2 writing in Chapter 6, “Politics and Ideology.” Here, she looks at the pragmatist/critical pedagogy debate within EAP, critical thinking and its politics, and the politics of using the Internet in teaching. She ably summarizes the central tenets of each side: For those who see life as political, all education is political and ideological whether conscious or not; in particular English language education is political given the world dominance of English and its association with economic and political power; and the predominance of English in scholarship, including that on the Internet, is a barrier for non-English speaking researchers. Such teachers believe that students need to be aware of the implications of the English language in issues of power and “recognize that they have the right, or perhaps the obligation, to question, resist and challenge the status quo” (p. 197). For these teachers, all decisions about teaching will have an ideological and political dimension. On the other side are those who think teachers should focus on the pragmatic goal of teaching students what they need to survive and succeed. While they do not necessarily deny ideological and political implications, they believe that teachers should not impose a political agenda but “must work to maintain/neutrality and objectivity to the extent possible in how and what they teach” (pp. 198/9). Similarly, the teaching of critical thinking is seen as essential by one side, for it enables questioning of the status quo, while it is seen as risky by the other, in that it might lead to the imposition of Western cultural norms. The discussion about internet technology also involves considerations of power. It can be seen either as a means of promoting greater equality or of increasing the disparities between dominant groups and minority voices.

In her review of the scholarship, Casanave seems to shift between an acceptance of what I will refer to as “the critical school” of thought and the pragmatists. She presents the main proponents of the debate, at least within EAP, as Sarah Benesch and Terry Santos (p. 200). Her discussion of Benesch shows some resistance to a full acceptance of the “critical school” position in that she raises the question of whether Benesch’s approach is, and should be, tied to her particular situation of teaching in an inner-city institution (p. 204). This raises the question of whether critical EAP is legitimate only in certain contexts. Casanave gives an example from another scholar, Swales, whose L2 students are learning English within their own countries and who are not oppressed in the way she assumes Benesch’s students are (p. 204). Is it appropriate to promote social change in such circumstances, she asks (p. 205). Benesch would surely answer that the specifics of their situation with respect to their learning and its context should indeed be explored explicitly with such students. A lack of perceived student oppression in Western terms would not necessarily remove an obligation to explore local conditions for inequality and injustice. If the students were in positions of comparative power, it would be equally important to raise such issues so that they would be able to consider whether and how they might mitigate the negative effects of their privilege. This is precisely the situation of many teachers, in fact, particularly those who are native English speakers teaching overseas. It might, at least, be worth exploring with such students the comparative power of native speakers of the dominant world language. Perhaps in attempting to be balanced in presenting the varying views of scholars on critical pedagogy, Casanave allows Benesch’s approach to be seen, wrongly, as limited by circumstances rather than one that requires being made specific to circumstances. She concludes the section with the questions of whether teachers should teach students to resist the dominance of English and challenge the status quo, or if it is sufficient to be a critical pragmatist and simply encourage awareness of the political and ideological matters; or if, “in the interest of time, efficiency and cultural appropriateness,” teachers should eschew politics and ideology and focus, pragmatically, simply on teaching the language (p. 205).

Following this section, Casanave goes well beyond considerations of time and efficiency and thus seems to veer slightly to the side of the “critical school” in her review of the literature on critical thinking, the use of the Internet, and in her section on classroom perspectives. On critical thinking, she gives less time to the arguments against the teaching of critical thinking than to the responses to those arguments, and her concluding comments about the remaining questions strongly imply support for its teaching: “Is it patronizing, stereotyping, or disempowering to portray L2 writers as single group whose members are not “ready” to think critically in either L1 or L2 . . .? Are they really so different from millions of U.S. students who also need to learn to ‘think critically’” (p. 211). Similarly, the concluding comments in the review of scholarship related to use of the Internet reveal a strong sense of the politics necessarily involved in teachers’ decision making: “Issues of identity and power, once thought to be neutralized by electronic communication and text production, have become increasingly complex and subject to investigation by writing scholars and educators” (p. 218). And she asserts, no matter whether a teacher believes the Internet is an equalizing force or not, that they have an “obligation to reflect deeply” on its implications for their own pedagogy (p. 218). That is, they must make decisions that take account of politics and ideology. Finally, Casanave concludes a fascinating story of her experience with a deaf student in Japan with a reflection on the power issues involved in a period of three-way email communication between the student, herself and another faculty member: “But in the early 1990s,” she says, “we were not wrestling with issues of power and identity in L2 writing classes the way we are today” (p. 223).

Clearly, Casanave accepts that we are today wrestling with issues of power. At the end of her book, she asserts that teachers’ decisions “will somehow involve stances on issues of power, culture and identity . . .” (p. 223). Her final questions are: “What do students want, and do they fully understand the consequences of their choices? What do teachers want, and do they understand the consequences of their choices as well” (p. 224). These are good questions with which to conclude an excellent book. Casanave guides her readers through the many possible responses to these questions within the major current debates in L2 writing. She lays out the arguments and the scholarship with exemplary clarity. She describes interesting and pertinent practical examples of how the issues have been addressed in teaching situations. She provides useful guiding questions at the end of each chapter for the teacher/researcher and student. Her book is of great benefit to newcomer to the field, and I would confidently assume, also to the experienced practitioner. Perhaps I would have preferred to see the political and ideological nature of teaching expressed more overtly and at the beginning, but I cannot quarrel with Casanave’s conclusions.

References

Casanave, Christine Pearson. (2003). Looking ahead to more sociopolitically-oriented case study research in L2 writing scholarship. Journal of Second Language Writing 12.1. 85-102.

Kaplan, Robert B. (1966). Cultural thought patterns in inter-cultural education. Language Learning 16, 1-20.

Kubota, Ryuko and Al Lehner. (2004). Toward critical contrastive rhetoric. Journal of Second Language Writing, 13, 7-27.

About the Reviewer

Gill Teiman is a long-time member of the administration and contract faculty at York University in Toronto. Until her recent interest in second language teaching and scholarship, she had focused on English literature and academic writing, with occasional teaching in areas related to her administrative work in human rights and employment equity.

Copyright is retained by the first or sole author, who grants right of first publication to the Education Review.

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