If writing were a celebrity, it would have a public and private image called “transactional” and “expressive” writing respectively.  The teaching of writing over the last forty years has been the struggle of the private persona to keep up with the public.  James Britton, who coined this distinction between the transaction and the expression, first reported in 1975  (Britton, Burgess, Martin, McLeod and Rosen) that the majority of writing in the British secondary schools was transactional.

In the public eye, writing is about business and politics, the power brokers of society.  Just peruse the Common Core Standards for Language Arts, published in June, 2010 and see the prominent text types are “Information/ explanation” and “Argument,” the staples of business and politics respectively.  Oh yes, Narrative was inserted in the three position, after some lobbying from literacy educators over the last year. But Narrative, as described here, is what Britton called “poetic” writing. If writing were a celebrity, “poetic writing” would be her avocation or hobby.

I realize personifying writing as I have, as a marriage partner (July 15) and as a celebrity, is a bit incredible and romantic, but the media personifies all kinds of objects today, from sports to music to decongestants, and it seems to convey their status and identity in society, not to mention attract consumers. And I am all about attracting consumers, or rather, practitioners, to writing.

Britton’s classification of writing’s facets has helped us understand how it works in our lives.  He allows the reader,  the consumer of the writing, to define what it is.  So if the reader is concerned with the information and message of the writing foremost, he calls it “transactional.” If the reader is most interested in the craft or technique of the writing, he calls it “poetic.” If the reader is most intrigued by the writer, the composer of the writing, he calls it “expressive.”

These personas of writing are really a continuum, in which one merges with the other, but Britton thought the most generative, the one that allowed writers to move in and out of the other personas, was “expressive.”  Expressive writing tells us about who the writer is, as he rambles in a journal, in a notebook, in reflection, in writing to explore an unfamiliar subject.  It is the entry point when writing is difficult or when a subject is being learned. It is the facet most interesting to the writer, himself, and to the teacher of writing. It is not typically published writing.

But the private lives of celebrities do attract the snooping public.  Although the proper subject of business and politics is the trends in the economy and in reforming legislation, we are very curious about the people who negotiate these changes.  Sometimes we begin to comprehend the arcane procedures of business and government by understanding the people who wield that power. And so it is for transactional and expressive writing.  We understand the transactional by our familiarity with the expressive facet of writing.

Returning to the writer of expressive writing, she finds everything easier to write about expressively and sometimes she even finds joy in writing in a diary, a reflective journal, a trip log, or a workout journal.  Unless her career depends on transactional or poetic writing, her satisfaction comes from the expressive mode that arises in daily life.  With the proliferation of e-mail, texting, and blogging, this daily writing becomes more and more recreational, something that gives the writer pleasure in the act itself. She is not concerned with work accomplished by expressive writing, because she feels satisfaction in merely writing.

Writing’s pleasurable, expressive identity is key to its gaining social and cultural prominence. While readers know they will find pleasure in their favorite genre, whether political columnists, graphic novels or mystery or romance, writers may know the pleasure of writing by indulging in its expressive forms. The rigors of grammar and convention are eased in expressive writing, and the writer has the privilege of exploring his favorite subject– himself and what he thinks.

The public persona of writing, the transactional, is a little disdainful of the private one. The private persona is not visibly productive or powerful in the commerce of society.  It seems self-indulgent and self-absorbed.  It does not deserve to be considered “serious” writing.  So it struggles for equity in the celebrity’s personality.

The struggle between the public and private persona of writing has continued lo, these forty years. Can this be a healthy struggle, a personality torn by conflict? More on the celebrity we know as  “writing” in the next installment.

Reference–

Britton, J., Burgess, T. , Martin, N.,  McLeod, A.,  and Rosen, H. (1975). The development of writing abilities of , 11-18. London: MacMillan.