every level is found at every other level” (p 48) and “likewise, the three main logics - chronology,
analogy and tautology - operate at every level” (ibid.). What is more, the fictive dimension (yet
another dimension that does not appear in the diagram above) is a matter of distance too - not of
abstraction and generalization, but of degrees of distance from the perceived world (see Pavel
1986). We had to wait until the mid 1980s to have Pavel’s full articulation of the degrees of distance
in fictional theory to understand the ‘mythic’ dimension that Moffett refers to (p 48), but does not
fully explore.
Part of the limitation that results from a tendency to adopt Piaget rather than Vygotsky is an
underestimate, in Moffett’s conception, of the powers and discourse faculties of younger children.
The often-quoted statement that “whereas adults differentiate their thought into specialized kinds
of discourse such as narrative, generalization and theory, children must for a long time make
narrative do for all” (p 49, my italics) seems, in retrospect, contradictory and illogical in a model that
posits the notion that “something of every level is found at every other level” (op. cit) - and yet we
must remember that Moffett’s is a model of growth combined with a rhetorical model of the arts of
discourse. He builds in a developmental sequence that is flexible, as in the refinements of neo-
Piagetians; and, of course, there is the disclaimer that “this whole theory of discourse is essentially
an hallucination” and “heaven forbid that it should be translated directly into syllabi and packages of
serial textbooks” (p54) - which, ironically, it was, in A Student-Centered Language Arts Curriculum,
Grades K-13: A handbook for teachers (1968/1991), a “companion volume” which was written
alongside Teaching the Universe of Discourse.
So, to what degree does Moffett’s work constitute a rhetorical model? The answer appears to be
that it is a hybrid - part-psychological, part-rhetorical, but ultimately a series of reflections that can
act as the spur to an imaginative, coherent and engaging curriculum for young people and for
teachers designing the best kinds of learning opportunities for them.
The chapter on Drama from Teaching the Universe of Discourse
What is distinctive and original about the core of Moffett’s book is that he posits drama and speech
- what is happening - as “central to a language curriculum” (p60). This would not be news to the
long tradition of rhetoric which had its (Western, at least) origins in pre-Athenian public speech and
drama. But it is news to the hundred years of Scottish and American tradition for which Bain (1871)
strikes the keynote at the time when the tradition in England was abandoning rhetoric for the study
of literature (and thus leading to an unhealthy split between literature and language study). Bain’s
categories of narrative, argument and description in writing have formed the template for successive
curriculum formations in English, right up to the present. Yet again, the emphasis on speech and
drama at the heart of the English project would not be news to those who were advocating speech
in the 1960s in England and who helped to transform, gradually, primary and secondary classrooms
into places where talk was valued as a means to learning.
The case for drama is well made by Moffett: in essence, it is primitive, accessible, the “first...verbal
art to come into being” (p64). What is not fully acknowledged is that it is highly framed. Despite its
connections with play, drama is one of the arts of discourse that is consciously framed; and framing
is a key act in rhetoric. It might be said to be the agent of rhetoric in that without framing, there is