This article was written by David Bartholomae and to me, it was difficult to understand. The main bulk of it focused on student writers and how their work can be influenced if they act as part of the discourse community of their audience. It was stated that it is hard for students to take on the authoritative role in the papers and that is due to the fact that they may not feel like an expert on the issue they are talking about. However, Bartholomae says that they do not have to, they just have to act as they do. And in doing so, it will provide them the opportunity to explore this new discourse community. If they turn away all the thoughts of the outside communities and focus on the discourse community they are writing for, their papers will be so much better. First and foremost they will be aimed towards the people interested in the topic and it will be written int heir language. Bartholomae said a good place to start for this would be to create a commonplace.
A commonplace is "a statement that carries with it its own necessary elaboration" (pg. 626). This will give the audience something be be curious about and the writer will then have something to explain. "If writing is a process, it is also a product,; and it is a product, and not the plan for writing that locates a writer on the page, that locates him in text and a style and the codes or conventions that make both of them readable" (631). This sentence to me, summed up the main points of the article. It incorporates the audience and the writers intentions. It also discusses the points made by Flower and Hayes with writing as a cognitive process and the goals the writer creates. The writer creates goals independently and privately, when the paper is finished and others read it is when it becomes public.
One of the issues presented in the article was the problem of not feeling apart of the discourse community one is writing for. This happens a lot in school because of the assignments given. Teachers assign things that require students to be interested what those above them do but not actually be apart of it. So writing for the teacher requires them to be placed in an academic community and most times they just imitate what they see and know and don't really discover anything. By acting as a part of this discourse community they are taking in certain elements and this allows them to take o n the authoritative role that they need to make their paper memorable.
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3 comments:
I agree with what you said about the article being a bit confusing. Bartholomae made some good points in why students have trouble writing for a discourse community, but I first had to find those points amid all his examples of student writing and other therorists' veiws. I think this article could have been more benificial to us (the audience) if Bartholomae paired down his writing to fit our discourse community of students.
Maria,
I agree with your comment about how students often put on facades in the classroom environment. In my experience, a lot of classroom assignments require students to be interested in material that they have no desire to learn.
This often happens in Gen-Ed courses. Students are required to spend a whole semester of their lives (and quite a bit of pocket change) to feign interest in something they will probably never want to experience again.
However, Gen-Ed courses force students to act the part- students have to engage in this academic discourse in order to achieve their ultimate goal of passing the course and thus seeing graduation day. In this respect, I can see how students have no choice but to "invent the University." In a way, it can be argued that Gen-Ed courses are just as effective as courses where students actually care to participate- becuase as Bartholomae says, acting the part is just as effective as being the part.
I agree that my initial thoughts on the article was that it was very confusing, however as i read on it made more sense and i was begining to get a sense of what Bartholomae's message to the reader actually is.I do undertand alot of his points reading further on into the article and i think your response made it even more clearer.
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