Writing as ecology: "patterns which connect" academic writing to Gregory Bateson's ecological matrix of communication
| dc.contributor.author | Quigley, Sharon Frances | |
| dc.contributor.supervisor | Oberg, Antoinette A. | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2025-03-27T22:14:31Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2025-03-27T22:14:31Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2003 | |
| dc.degree.department | Department of Curriculum and Instruction | |
| dc.description.abstract | Because writing is used so pervasively as a tool of thinking/learning/inquiring, embedding composition theory and praxis within an ecological framework can contribute to the development of ecologically sustainable paradigms. To develop this framework, I explore the resemblances between Gregory Bateson' s epistemological, ecological theories and writing using a method called abduction, which is a method of drawing comparisons between differing entities that Bateson advocated as a way to build insightful knowledge within and across disciplines and different ways of knowing. Extending the abductive comparison Bateson made between creative thinking and evolutionary processes, I compare writing as a tool of thinking/learning/inquiring and biological processes and explore how both exemplify information, communication, and organizational processes of creative pattern making. I experiment with creating a holistic dialectic between traditional, expository, academic writing and autobiographical, reflective, creative, and aesthetic writing and consider how my own writing might exemplify what I am proposing. I explore how opening to deeper questioning and holding the tension of "not knowing" allows the myriad, unknown, exquisitely complex interrelationships in which an inquiry is embedded to be more fully integrated and thus lead to more ecologically wise answers and actions. | |
| dc.description.scholarlevel | Graduate | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1828/21699 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.rights | Available to the World Wide Web | |
| dc.title | Writing as ecology: "patterns which connect" academic writing to Gregory Bateson's ecological matrix of communication | |
| dc.type | Thesis |