Stanley 1

Elliot Stanley

Professor Jan Rieman

English 1101x

November 20, 2009

For my first college writing course, I have read two pieces of interest. The first essay is

entitled Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work by Jean Anyon and the second is

entitled Composing Our Composing Processes by Min-Zhan Lu and Bruce Horner. Both pieces

are found in Writing Conventions by Lu & Horner. In the works leading up to those critical

interpretations, I did much analyzing of key terms and concepts that each of the authors

introduce in their work. When each piece is viewed separate from the other, the key terms and

concepts from each author seem only relevant to the subject at hand. However, when the works

are viewed in light of one another, I have found similarities in the subjects and implications

made by all the authors.

Lu & Horner wrote Composing our Composing Processes as one of their many chapters

in Writing Conventions. They also chose Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work to be

in Writing Conventions. There must be significance for them to include Anyon’s whole essay in

their book. These pieces are both written to help the college writer by using examples and by

inspiring them to reexamine the way they compose writing.

Both pieces deal with specific types of research in writing. The Anyon essay is entirely

observational research that is interpreted in a pedagogical manner. Lu and Horner provide a

comprehensive section on research and the applications they have in writing. Lu and Horner

“….see research as a crucial part of the composing process for much college-level writing….
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(14)” They include both the first chapter in their book and Anyon’s essay as opportunities for

college students to understand that benefits from research.

Lu and Horner devote a section to addressing the influence of material resources. They

don’t limit what classifies as a resource, but include a writer’s “kind of time, space, energy, and

writing tools available…” as their definition for material resources (17). When you use this

definition as a lens to view Anyon’s essay, you imagine the type of resources that each school

that each studied school possessed. When I do this, I’m able to relate what I learned from Lu and

Horner to what I learned from Anyon’s essay.

Composing Our Composing Strategies is a chapter dedicated to the focus on writing as a

practice that contains a specific set of different processes that vary from writer to writer. It has a

subject that deals with academic writing; specifically college writing. When Anyon’s essay is

viewed as an example of a very good writer understanding and accommodating all of the

composing processes into her work, it’s easy to say they share a definite relationship. The

definite relationship is similar to a blue-print and its finished product. Lu and Horner outlines the

techniques writer’s use to consistently write good papers and the Anyon essay is a product of

some of those same methods. Anyon used collaboration, research, materials, and a process all to

write Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work. All of her techniques tie back to the

rhetoric that one learns from reading Composing Our Composing Strategies.

Works Cited
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Lu, Min-Zhan and Bruce Horner. Writing Conventions. New York: Pearson Longman, 2008.

Print.

Anyon, Jean. “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work.” Writing Conventions. Eds. Lu

and Horner. Pearson: New York, 2008. 225-51.

Dear Dr. Rieman,

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I found this assignment very hard. If you were looking for me to find more profound

connections between the two pieces of writing, then I honestly couldn’t. This is the first time I’ve

ever tried to describe one essay in terms of another when each have a different subject. In the

end, it seems like both pieces of writing deal with the subject of writing in some way, and that’s

what I hope you saw one of the points in my paper. In the future I’m not going to let the subject

of my paper beat me if I think it’s too challenging. I think that’s what happened with this paper.

This was a very challenging task but I’m glad it was given to me. I think that by challenging me,

I motivated me to think in a new way about both of the essays. I’d like you to remember I’m a

newbie in this mode of writing when you analyze my paper.