What useful messages can educators gather from a work postulating the change in thinking from oral to literate cultures? In Walter J. Ong's chapter four of the book Orality and Literacy, entitled “Writing restructures consciousness”, he expands on his idea that writing is a technology which has fundamentally changed the way people think, allowing us to become more analytical. To Ong, “...writing is artificial...” but “...utterly invaluable and indeed essential for the realization of fuller, interior, human potentials.” (p. 81) His work is controversial in that it is also very divisive: in Ong's view, people from oral cultures will never ascend to the quality of thought that is possible with writing in literate cultures. Whether or not you agree with Ong's premise, I believe that, as educators, we can take some suggestions from his work which I list below.
We need to make sure
that the written text that we provide for students is of high quality
with up-to-date information. Ong notes, “There is
no way to directly refute a text.... That is one reason why 'the book
says' is popularly tantamount to 'it is true'.” (p. 78) I
would say that this is especially true for beginning readers, for whom
the excitement and effort of learning to read overshadows their
abilities to be critical of the content. As educators, we need to be
critical of it for them until we can teach them to be critical for
themselves.
My next point also deals with the quality of written text:
We need to make sure that the factual text-based literature we provide for our students is well and clearly written. Ong (pp. 102-103) has these words for writers of text:
To make yourself clear without gesture, without facial expression, without intonation, without a real hearer, you have to foresee circumspectly all possible meanings a statement may have for any possible reader in any possible situation, and you have to make your language work so as to come clear all by itself, with no existential context.”
In the absence of body
language,
circumstance and immediacy of the topic, writers must make sure that
they convey exactly the meaning they intended. As educators, we must
thoroughly preview any material that we ask the students to use as
reference or for assignments to ensure that the writing is clear and
unambiguous.
This lack of context surrounding writing leads me to my next point:
We need to provide
opportunities for students to hear about and discuss text-based
assignments. Ong (p. 102) notes, “The distancing
which writing effects develops a new kind of precision in verbalization
by removing it from the rich but chaotic existential context of much
oral utterance.” Yet this very “rich but chaotic
existential context of much oral utterance” also provides the
context of a discussion that people use for cues about how to
understand the words they are hearing. With context, many discussions
are much easier to follow: without context, some are impossible.
Students who have the opportunity to hear others discuss a topic and to
put their own thoughts into words will have an easier time
understanding and remembering the material because we will have
provided some context within which they can situate the material.
My last point deals with the process of writing for the student:
We need to provide as much writing practice, across all subjects, as we can for students, and gradually move them towards writing critically. Ong (p. 81) notes, “By contrast with natural, oral speech, writing is completely artificial. There is no way to write 'naturally'.” We must move students through writing skills, from building proper sentences to writing critical analyses, and we must do this in science and math, as well as language arts. As students are taught more analytical ways of writing, the task becomes even harder. Ong, speaking of the care that writers must take to make their work clear, writes, “The need for this exquisite circumspection makes writing the agonizing work it commonly is.” (p. 103) We must work with our students to help them understand that good writing is worth agonizing over. Far beyond any other skills that students will learn, the ability to read and write critically will allow them to achieve their potential.
Unlike
Ong, I believe that our orality is still very much a part of us. Most
of our information is taken in through our eyes and our ears. Even as
I read, I “say” the words to myself in my head. To
divide our
communication into oral cultures (the way of the past) and literate
cultures (the way of the future or “for the
thinkers”) negates
the very way in which many of us obtain much of our information and
live our lives on a daily basis. However, whether Ong is right or
not, the world has become a much more literate place. As educators,
we need to do our best to assist our students in negotiating the text
that they will encounter during their lives.
Related links to writings by ETEC 540 students (sorry! Links have been removed as they don't work now that the course is finished.)
Bonnie Johnston responds to Ong’s writings in Searching for Ong’s Literacy.
Katherine
Sutton examines Ong’s
polarized
view of oral and literate cultures.
Ann Kim discusses the socio-cultural
aspect
of literacy.
Reference
Ong, W. (2002). Writing restructures consciousness. In Orality and Literacy. New York: Routledge.