I had read this piece previously but couldn’t remember much
about it and now I remember why. My biggest frustration of this piece and his
position is the standpoint that you must first teach the academic fine points
of writing, and then you can move onto the more enjoyable writing. I think this
is such a backwards convention because if you don’t enjoy something, you’re not
going to want to do it. I hate math, with a passion that could burn down a city
block with nothing but a match and some newspaper, and the more academic and
conventional the math the less I enjoy it, but I took a math class once years
ago from an instructor who made math relevant to me on a personal scale and
made it enjoyable to do and it made the class easier to get through and more
enjoyable. I walked away, no longer HATING math.
I think writing is the same way, if we make writing accessible,
interesting, and enjoyable to students I think more people would be drawn to
it, it would be less daunting of a task and more of an enjoyable pastime and
what I take from “Inventing the University” is almost this self-inflated almost
elitist mentality that if you can’t write well and to strong academic standards
you shouldn’t be writing the more enjoyable and creative pieces, however, if
all people see is the academic side of writing how much is that really going to
inspire people to write more?
I think academic writing has its technical merits and
importance, but I know I would be completely discouraged if every time I sat
down to write, it had to be to the standards of exceptional which in a way
Bartholomae alludes to. I think conventions and guidelines are helpful, but I
think the more you limit creative expression with writing by making it a right
or wrong process you’re just making it more of a task and assignment, and less
of a piece of creative work.
Becca,
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with your point about having to first enjoy something and actually want to do it to get better. If I am accepted as a teaching assistant for my grad program next year I want to make writing accessible, interesting and enjoyable for students. I do believe academic conventions are important, too, and there is a healthy blend between speaking the audience's language and maintaining your own voice. I definitely agree with you, however, that a writer should always feel encouraged to make mistakes and if they enjoy writing they will feel encouraged to keep doing it and get better at the "rules" later. Thanks for sharing!
Maybe at the heart of this debate, Bartholomae argues elsewhere, is a conflict between what what it means to be a writer and to be an academic. He writes that "a writer is the person who works with pleasure and authority on his or her own and without being skeptical or distrustful, at least of his or her own language project." In comparing himself with Peter Elbow (with whom you'd align yourself, Becca, I think), Bartholomae writes that Elbow wants undergrad to "see themselves at the center of the discourse--in a sense credulous." Bartholomae says "I come down on the side of skepticism." It is "the job of college English to teach students to learn to resist and be suspicious of writing and the text." These, he says, "are two different versions of the writer." What do you make of that?
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