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It contrasts colleagues’ praise for They Say / I Say—framed as practical tools that clarify “basic moves”—with the author’s concern that formalism can narrow academic writing into mechanical convention. Drawing on conference testimony and key arguments from Graff and Birkenstein, the essay argues that when fixed forms dominate pedagogy, students may reproduce conventions at the expense of intellectual richness, rhetorical flexibility, and critical thought.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":15,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/literature/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/filling-in-the-blanks-they-say-i-say-and-the-persistence-of-formalism-focusing-on-a-writing-instruction-debate/597837/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/filling-in-the-blanks-they-say-i-say-and-the-persistence-of-formalism-focusing-on-a-writing-instruction-debate/597837.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"SANS","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-23","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":19},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"What does the author criticize about template-based writing instruction?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"The author worries that templates and fixed moves can make academic writing overly mechanical, reducing complex intellectual work to convention-heavy acts.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"How do Graff and Birkenstein justify using templates?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"They argue that templates demystify academic writing by isolating basic moves, organizing ideas, and stimulating critical thought, even if some view them as overly prescriptive.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"Why does the author think formalism can limit students’ learning outcomes?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"When formalism dominates, complex ideas may suffer in favor of reproducing conventions, leading students to take away limited notions of the choices writers can make rather than practicing rhetorical flexibility.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},597837,1792360624,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":14,"category_name":15,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":19,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":29,"language":139,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":143,"read_time":44},962090760505,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_155a257f0dc6eb9ab79c44ca47cae57d","The CEA Forum  \nSummer/Fall 2009: 38.2  \nNext: Advising Undergraduates Considering Graduate Work in English  \nFILLING IN THE BLANKS:  \nTHEY SAY, I SAY, AND THE PERSISTENCE OF FORMALISM  \nAmy Lynch-Biniek  \nFluorescent lights, sandwiches and coffee, muffled chatter from the busy hall beyond the door: I was attending one of the informal weekly meetings our department holds for those teaching writing at the university, a gathering our program director calls “Comp Conversations.” Five of us sat around this time, two of us lunching from bags as we discussed our work in freshman composition.  \nTalk to turned to textbooks. My colleagues offered assessments of their recent choices—some old standbys, others brand new collections. Will (a pseudonym) leaned back in his chair and announced that he had found a jewel. He had adopted They Say / I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein (NY: Norton & Company, 2006) . He originally chose this text for a senior seminar course for English majors, but he planned to use it in first year composition [FYC] next semester.  \nAfter reading it, Will said, several of his senior students proclaimed, “I wish I'd read this when I was a freshman!” He encouraged them to use Graff and Birkenstein's templates in their writing and said he saw marked improvement in their prose afterwards. Will fully approved of these models and felt the approach allowed students better to adapt their own voices to academic expectations.  \nWait—templates? I straightened my posture in both my chair and my thinking. Having just drafted a chapter in my dissertation railing against the over-standardization of both curricula in general and the school essay in particular, I wondered for a moment if the others could hear the bang of my mind slamming shut.  \nA few short weeks later, I attended a standing-room-only session at the 2007 Conference on College Composition and Communication [CCCC] featuring Graff and Birkenstein, during which many attendees testified to their love of their textbook. My colleague Will was not alone in his admiration. The authors reiterated the goal of their text as noted in its introduction: “To demystify academic writing by isolating its basic moves, explaining them clearly, and representing them in the form of templates”(ix) . They further claim that,“In showing how to make such moves, templates do more than organize students' ideas; they help bring them into existence”(xiv) . Graff and Birkenstein acknowledge that templates may be criticized as overly “prescriptive,”“passive” or “automatic”(xiv-xv) . In fact, others present in the CCCC session argued those very points. The authors insist, however, that many students need such explicit instruction, and that templates can in fact “stimulate and shape” critical thought (xv) .  \nYet the testaments of my conference-going colleagues, the text and its subsequent editions (2008 brought a version with more readings) have left me more alarmed than impressed. I see the continued popularity of Graff and Birkenstein's text as a manifestation of a troublesome persistence of formalism, an approach to teaching that can certainly be useful, but which, if allowed to dominate composition teaching, can reduce the complex, intellectual process of academic writing to mechanical acts. Formalism can be generally understood as instruction grounded in fixed forms, set schema and particular “academic” turns of phrase. Formalist instruction emphasizes learning the conventions of select modes or genres. While it has long been debated in Composition Studies for its limited views of academic writing, correctness and style, formalism continues to be the focus of much composition instruction. My intent in this essay is to confront this trend on several fronts.  \nFirst, I argue that when formalism dominates instruction, complex ideas may suffer in favor of reproducing conventions. As a result, students may produce less intellectually rich or stylis","cbCaicOJJhxMzEw0","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaicOJJhxMzEw0","pdf",43057,"English","# Filling in the Blanks\n## They Say, I Say, and the Persistence of Formalism\n## Conventions and Content","[{\"question\":\"What does the author criticize about template-based writing instruction?\",\"answer\":\"The author worries that templates and fixed moves can make academic writing overly mechanical, reducing complex intellectual work to convention-heavy acts.\"},{\"question\":\"How do Graff and Birkenstein justify using templates?\",\"answer\":\"They argue that templates demystify academic writing by isolating basic moves, organizing ideas, and stimulating critical thought, even if some view them as overly prescriptive.\"},{\"question\":\"Why does the author think formalism can limit students’ learning outcomes?\",\"answer\":\"When formalism dominates, complex ideas may suffer in favor of reproducing conventions, leading students to take away limited notions of the choices writers can make rather than practicing rhetorical flexibility.\"}]","FILLING IN THE BLANKS: THEY SAY, I SAY, AND THE PERSISTENCE OF FORMALISM - Focusing on a Writing Instruction Debate | PDF",1792085803]