Expanding the Constructivist Metaphor: A Rhetorical Perspective on Literacy Research and Practice

Abstract

In this review we summarize some of the accomplishments and shortcomings of constructivist accounts of reading and writing activity as part of our argument for social and textual views of literacy. Arguing that reading and writing are inseparable from each other and from other modes of meaning making, we aim to foreground studies and theories that depict the rhetorical dimensions of literacy. We define rhetorical as referring to the means and circumstances through which readers and writers represent and negotiate texts, tasks, and social contexts. A rhetorical perspective on literacy research and practice calls attention to the ways in which language use crystallizes relations between readers and writers. Such a perspective also brings into focus the extent to which the ways authors position themselves within a certain social space is contingent upon (a) authority (e.g., a disciplinary community’s conventions for inquiry, the institution of school, or a writer’s expertise), (b) the purposes that bring writers together within a particular social forum, and (c) the topic of their discourse or task at hand. In trying to expand the constructivist metaphor, we intend to contribute to a conceptual vocabulary and imagery for literacy research and practice that draw upon textual and intersubjective explanations of constructive activity in composing.