Character and the Composing Process [microform] / Thomas M. Rivers

As communication is a moral action involving personal choice, composition instructors must help promote their students' character development. Whether during audience analysis, invention, or disposition, composition always involves the development and testing of four virtues: honesty, courage, love, and a combination of hope and humility. Teachers can encourage their students' honesty by assigning manageable topics that emphasize informed opinion over succesful argumentation and by stressing the need for concern over the reality created by writing. Teachers can promote courage by having students conduct primary research on topics that threaten their image of the world, by emphasizing that writing is a deed that needs to be witnessed, and by stressing that the students must decide whether to impress audiences with their writing style. Teachers need to understand that by establishing communion with the self and by communicating something beneficial and significant to readers, student writing can develop self-love and love of others. Finally, teachers can encourage students' humility as well as hope by helping them see that knowing and communicating are both difficult and valuable activities. (MM)