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Practice as Inquiry

Nature of "Knowledge"

Lore. Practitioner's lore is driven, first, by a pragmatic logic: It is concerned with what has worked, is working, or might work in teaching, doing, or learning writing. Second, its structure is essentially experiential. That is, the traditions, practices, and beliefs of which it is constituted are best understood as being organized within an experience-based framework.

Lore's pragmatic logic and experience-based structure means
--anything can become part of lore
--nothing can ever be dropped from it either
--contributions to it have to be framed in practical terms, as knowledge about what to do

Metaphor of the "House of Lore" (27)
--depicts lore's size, absorbency, and the nature of its accumulated wealth

The communal lore offers options, resources, and perhaps directional pressure; but the individual, finally, decides what to do and whether (or how) it has worked—decides, in short, what counts as knowledge. The heart of the Practitioner community derives from its shared institutional experience.

Lore as a body of knowledge is embodied in three primary forms: ritual, writing, and talk.

Inquiry—Practice as Inquiry

Practice becomes inquiry only when 1) a situation cannot be framed in familiar terms, 2) when standard approaches to a familiar situation are no longer satisfactory, or 3) when situation and approach are non-standard—so new approaches must be created. Less than 10% of practice qualifies as inquiry.

Form of Practice as Inquiry:

  1. Identifying a Problem
  2. Searching for Causes
  3. Searching for Possible Solutions
  4. Testing Solution in Practice
  5. Validation
  6. Dissemination

Whereas Experimentalist insist on replicability, Practitioners are satisfied with experience-based testimony. As an art, Practitioner inquiry is most often a combination of informed intuition and trial and error. They gauge the effectiveness of trial solutions by a combination of textual and non-textual indicators.

Example Practitioners
Mina  Shaughnessy, Peter Elbow, Ken Macrorie

 

 

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This site contains direct excerpts from The Making of Knowledge in Composition by Stephen North. Portsmouth: Heineman, 1987.
Lirvin Researching | Site created by Lennie Irvin, San Antonio College (2007) | Last updated August 20, 2007