Terri Tims
Dr. Brent Lynn
Teaching College
Composition
23 November 2013
Teaching
Academic Writing as Discussed by Bartholomae and Elbow
In their 1995 articles published in College Composition and Communication,
David Bartholomae and Peter Elbow presented very different ideas on how writing
should be taught in college. While one
author sees a college writing instructor as being tasked with emphasizing
students’ connectedness and, truly, inferiority to the academic world, the
other bolsters his students’ confidence in their abilities to express their
thoughts and experiences and have their voices heard.
In his article, “Writing with
Teachers: A Conversation with Peter Elbow,” Bartholomae defines academic
writing as all writing done in colleges and universities. Being in an academic setting forces writers
to recognize that others have thought their thoughts, confronted their issues,
and written about those thoughts and issues.
While many teachers seem to hope that they can give their students a
sense of freedom in writing by pretending that a student’s writing can be
original and in no way influenced by other writing. Bartholomae argues that this goal is unrealistic,
and though it sounds noble and empowering for the students, it isolates
students from the rest of academia. By
learning to read and criticize other writers, students can find their own
places in the academic world.
Bartholomae is a proponent of
keeping writing instruction and the classroom “real.” Instead of camouflaging the power structure in
the classroom and all of the academic world, embrace it. Students should work with pivotal writings
and learn to use the vocabulary the authors use. The goal should be to use the words of
authors who have gone before as a springboard for deeper thinking.
Bartholomae traces the history of
not focusing on the discipline of
writing to the 1970’s, when more value was placed on individual experiences
than on what previous writers had written about human experiences. School was an institution that had to be
endured so that one could move on with the process of discovering truth in oneself.
So,
what type of writing should be taught to college students? Students may not know how it feels to be an
author unless they are encouraged to create their own literary worlds through
writing for class. In teaching a more
creative type of writing, instructors give student writers a rare taste of
freedom from the web of all other texts that have ever been written.
However,
Bartholomae asks if this taste of freedom is fair to students who will truly
just have to slip back into the routine of reading others’ work and commenting
upon it. By teaching sentimental realism
in college composition, Bartholomae says that instructors are simply upholding
the philosophy of traditional humanism.
It is better for students not to see themselves as unique individuals
but instead as connected to all of the thought and writing that has come
before.
Peter
Elbow presents a different view of teaching college writing in his essay,
“Being a Writer vs. Being an Academic: A Conflict in Goals.” Elbow wants his students to define themselves
as both academics and writers.
Unfortunately, it seems difficult to be both at the same time;
therefore, though Elbow sees himself as both writer and academic, when he
teaches his freshman composition courses, he hopes for his students to learn to
be more like writers than academics.
One
way that Elbow focuses more on his students as writers is by having students
read and comment on other students’ writing published in a class magazine. Elbow also includes some important published
works in his freshman writing courses, so at least in this area, the use of
text, Elbow does recognize there is a balance between students as authors and
students as academics. The aspect of
student as academic is especially fostered as students critique the published
works and use them as the beginnings of discussions.
Elbow
also claims that through allowing his freshman students ample time to write, he
helps them to have a relationship to words that is not distrustful. Writers use language as a tool and not do
spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about the nature of the tool. The writer focuses on the experience that is
being expressed, just as the swimmer focuses on the act of swimming and not the
water she is swimming through.
What
about students seeing themselves merely as part of a conversation rather than
the character delivering the monologue?
Elbow teaches his students about academic conversations by allowing the students
to have conversations with one another about their writing and to write about
one another’s writing. This practice
helps Elbow to draw out his students who are typically too shy to profess deep
feelings about what they are writing.
Through helping students to become more confident about their writing
and their ideas, Elbow is preparing them to join the sometimes dangerous and
daunting conversation of academics.
Elbow
states very effectively that students are taught and academics in general
continue to produce writing for which they are continually seeking approval,
whether it be the approval of the teacher or the approval of the academic
community. Elbow wants his students to
be bold in their conviction that they have something to say, and they have the
right to be heard. Having this
conviction will serve them well as authors and academics.
I
learned a great deal through my multiple readings of these two articles,
especially in combination with the comments on the discussion board. I see how Elbow and Bartholomae’s
conversation reflects both of the viewpoints that have been put forward by the
students in our class. I never thought
about the strict teaching of the modes and academic writing as having to do with
a philosophy of the state of a human in relation to the world, and I really
must admit that I found Bartholomae’s article depressing in that it left me
feeling that very few people have much to say that is very interesting or worth
reading. I much prefer Elbow’s belief
that students do have voices that should be heard merely because of the
individual nature of their humanity. I
also much prefer Elbow’ s tone of cooperation and agreement that some aspects
of both academic writing and more personal authorship have merit and should be
present in freshman composition. In a
way, I see through Bartholomae that my own ideas of the value of personal voice
are in no way new or interesting, but through Elbow, I see that my opinion is
supported by an expert in the field, and my ideas (and the ideas of my
students) deserve to be expressed!
Works Cited
Bartholomae, David. “Writing with Teachers: A Conversation with Peter Elbow.” College Composition and Communication. 46: 1 (1995): 62-71. JSTOR. Web. 19 Nov. 2013.
Elbow, Peter. “Being a Writer vs. Being an Academic: A Conflict in Goals.” College Composition and Communication. 46: 1 (1995): 72-83. JSTOR. Web. 19 Nov. 2013.
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