Writing, Reading and Language
Craig Hancock [+–]
SUNY – Albany
Craig Hancock has taught English at the college level for almost three decades. He is the senior writing faculty for the nationally honored Educational Opportunity Program at the University at Albany, where he has sought to discover approaches to grammar compatible with process (meaning based) approaches to teaching writing. This text was developed and refined over five years in an introductory course in English grammar.
If language is what it is because of what it does, then much can be gained by looking at language within a range of discourse contexts: speech oriented genres (drama and colloquial first person narration), recounts and narratives, newswriting, non-fiction retrospectives, public discourse argument/persuasion, advertisement, poetry, and academic writing.
Though all resources of language are available at all times, some discourse contexts draw on some resources more heavily than others. This volume treats the resulting patterns as functionally driven. It also looks at differing ways in which alternate genres accomplish work like stance and perspective.
One argument thread throughout Writing, Reading and Language is that demystifying the nature of effective text will be of value to language users and literacy professionals alike.
Though both books will be accessible independently, this can be thought of as a companion book to Meaning-Centered Grammar, giving an overview of language in the context of important public use.
