James Moffett--Detecting Growth in Language

This past summer has been something of a Moffett summer for me. I spent time in June reading through Teaching the Universe of Discourse so I could pull together some broad statements about the development of writers. I paralleled Moffett's levels of abstraction with Bereiters and Scarmandalia's "knowledge telling" and "knowledge transforming" model with King and Kitchener's growth in reflective judgment. What I produced probably served to confuse my workshop attendees more than enlighten them, but for me these various models represent interesting perspectives on the same phenomena of growth.

Most recently, I've been reading through Moffett's thin (but very dense) book on Detecting Growth. He discusses 26 different "growth sequences," and his premise in the book is that instead of standardized tests (which provide a inadequate measure of growth) these growth sequences indicate real development. If we could get good at identifying these growth sequences (and fostering them), then we would not need these tests because we could easily demonstrate learning and growth in our students.

The problem, as I have been finding, is that Moffett's growth sequences are complex and difficult to grasp. He also has a dizzying number of these sequences, so that though he may have an overarching sense of development in writers, we would all need to be James Moffett to see them too. I have just finished his section on "chaining" and sentence combining. I was pleased to see that the sequence I have my students work though in the sentence combining  and editing exercises I typically use, fits with his notions of a growth sequence in how to relate ideas in sentences: from modifying to conjoining, to reducing, to embedding.

As I read Moffett, I experience a grasping of importance in a partial sense, but not the whole. I also desire this whole sense, so I can piece it together and translate it into curriculum that fosters development. I can't help but wonder if others have done this same thing (he does have his own textbooks), and I wonder if anyone has researched his concepts of development to see if they can be identified (and verified) empirically. Moffett speaks with a philosopher's voice, like Dewey or Aristotle, stating truths seemingly out of thin air that ring true and provide deep insight, and like these other philosophers he speaks from his own experience, intelligence, and speculation--not necessarily from research.

I know that I will continue to try to make sense of Moffett, and I wonder what others have said about his ideas of growth in writers.