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Invention Strategies and the ESL College Composition Student
Author(s) -
SPACK RUTH
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
tesol quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.737
H-Index - 91
eISSN - 1545-7249
pISSN - 0039-8322
DOI - 10.2307/3586581
Subject(s) - composition (language) , mathematics education , psychology , pedagogy , sociology , linguistics , philosophy
The recent finding by composition researchers and teachers that the composing process can be taught as an intellectual and cognitive activity has led to a renewed interest in the ancient art of invention and the view that invention can be practiced as systematic procedures of discovery, the primary purpose of which is to generate ideas about a subject. This article reviews composition and invention research, discusses a variety of discovery techniques, and provides a rationale for teaching invention in an academic writing course. One student's notes are then presented to illustrate how invention can be successfully employed to narrow down a topic, generate content, discover a form, and create a thesis for an assigned essay. The article concludes by suggesting that although ESL students may experience invention differently from their native English‐speaking counterparts, they can benefit from instruction in invention which is adapted to meet their needs.