Annotated Bibliography #5

Smagorinsky, Peter, and Michael W. Smith. “The Nature of Knowledge in Composition and Literary Understanding: The Question of Specificity.” Review of Educational Research 62.3 (1992): 279-305. Web. 21 Apr. 2012. <http://rer.sagepub.com/content/62/3/279>.

This article looks at three prevailing theories about how students transfer knowledge to a writing or reading task: general, task-specific, and community-specific knowledge. General knowledge contends that “no matter what you are writing about, the basic steps involved in writing are almost always the same” (qtd. 282). Murray, for example, says his writing process can be applied no matter what the writing project. Task-specific knowledge says that one must have further knowledge of the specific genre or form before they can effectively engage in writing it. As Applebee writes, “Essay exams require one set of approaches, research papers another” (qtd. 287-8). Community-specific knowledge claims that within each genre or form a writer must have specific knowledge depending on who or what they are writing their piece for. For example, while film critics and judges both rely on argumentation, their separate forms of argumentation are so different that the two could not swap places and still remain effective. The article does not take a stance on these issues, but rather reports on them and points out the necessity of all three. There are certainly cases where all three are equally valid.