Micciche is calling for students to begin using grammar before the revision stage. I myself have this problem, so this article spoke to me. Rather than making it a "grammatically correct" paper, we should make it so it's "rhetorically grammatically correct". This makes it so thoughts and ideas flow, and the audience can easily hear the tone of the piece. In order to get a sense of this rhetorical grammar, Micciche suggests that students write in a "commonplace" journal.
Micciche states goals for the common place are,
- first, to emphasize the always en- tangled relationship
between what and how we say something;
- second, to designate a place where
students document and comment on their evolving relationship to writing and
gram- matical concepts. Both goals circulate around the idea that learning how
to recognize and reflect on language as made and made to work on people’s lives
is central to being able to use language strategically. (Micciche 9)
With this journal, students can deconstruct what makes a good passage good, and get behind the rhetorical essence of its grammar.
Grammar is a varying cultural practice, and by understanding this, we can further understand what makes language great.
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