"When students are writing for a teacher, writing becomes more problematic than it is for the students who are describing baseball to a Martian. The students, in effect, have to assume privilege without having any. And since students assume privilege by locating themselves within the discourse of a particular community-within a set of specifically acceptable gestures and commonplaces-learning, at least as it is defined in the liberal arts curriculum, becomes more a matter of imitation or parody than a matter of invention and discovery."
- David Bartholomae
Although this was a hard article for me to comprehend and I may be completely wrong, what I got out of this article was that Bartholomae is more concerned with the creativity of a particular students work rather than the grammatical aspect. When a student is so focused on getting a grade by the work that he or she presents to their professor, they are more focused on creating fewer errors in their paper rather than making sure that they are involved with the audience and making sure they write in a way that shows their voice. When a person is not so concerned with how a professor or a University is going to be grading an essay, the student doesn't feel the need to act like they are trying to impress and then be judged by the reader on their performance, instead they are taking on the position of someone with authority and intelligence in the subject, rather than taking on the voice of a parent or teacher.
I am never quite sure whether or not it makes sense to ascribe a belief in "creativity" to Bartholomae. It is interesting; in many ways, Bartholomae is considered a conservative scholar of writing...who in many ways is advocating that students assimilate--they just need to discover that assimilation is also about demonstrating "new-ness."
ReplyDeleteI really like the quote that you chose, though. I think that it points out the complex power dynamics at work in the intimation and parody that students have to engage in.
I find what you are talking about very interesting. I believe that he does talk more about how students are now focusing on not making errors and trying to write what they think the teacher wants to hear.
ReplyDeleteI tend to think that we need to find a way to get students to write what they actually want to write. I believe that students dont get the chance to talk about what they are interested in.