The Elbow/Bartholomae conversation may be the most valuable reading I've done all year. It made me aware of a debate of which I was an unconscious participant--the question of whether we as teachers should help our students see themselves as academics or as writers. Reading this article helped me realize two things: 1. I've been coming down squarely on the side of the academic, and 2. I like the writers' side better and I want to (mostly) live there. Not that you can't have it both ways; Elbow rightly states that "students should be able to inhabit both roles comfortably" (489). He also identifies areas of apparent conflict, such as deciding whether to read established works by well-known authors or to focus on students' writing, and demonstrates that no actual conflict need exist. I loved the idea he presented about using texts to "wrestle with, to bounce off of, to talk about and talk from, to write about and write from" (491). Texts kept under glass like museum pieces rarely teach us anything except our own inadequacies. Working with texts as dynamic entities rather than as static artifacts also empowers us to write in conversation with them rather than merely in imitation of them. And writing is, after all, "an act of finding and acknowledging one's place in an ongoing intellectual conversation..." (495).
I believe that Elbow's perspective can help provide solutions for a variety of tough situations in the composition classroom, including the problem presented in Lisa Delpit's article (from the Norton readings) entitled "The Politics of Teaching Literate Discourse." Delpit addresses the issue of teaching academic discourse to students whose familiar discourse is far removed from the academy. She answers critics who maintain that it is neither possible nor desirable to teach "literate discourse" to those outside the dominant group. She says that teaching the dominant discourse to "outsiders" can "provide a way both to turn the sorting system on its head and to make available one more voice for resisting and reshaping an oppressive system" (1320). The problem is that students who feel rejected and alienated by academic discourse tend to reject it in turn. Here's where Elbow comes in. If all we're doing is teaching academic discourse, it will probably only increase that sense of alienation. However, if we also provide opportunities for students to feel themselves as writers comfortable in their own voices, they will hopefully come to value writing as a means of expression rather than oppression.
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Emily, I'm not sure where I want to be in the Elbow/Bartholomae "knock down drag out" pedagogical argument. They both make legit points, and I know I need to find where my place is. I don't know if I have been teaching long enough to know where I need to be. I WANT to be on the side of the writer, but should I focus more on the academic, or will one lead to the other?
ReplyDeleteI am also not sure aboout my place in this argument but my guess is that this argument is overblown and opposing points of views may have been exaggerated. Lad Tobin says in [his ? her] article on Process Pedagogy that "Murray and and Elbow, for example, whie emphasizing an expressivist sense of the agenc of the individual writer or the power of voice, also pay careful attention to audience and to ways in which response shapes revision as wel as invention" (Tate, Rupiter & Schick 10). Lad Tobin recognizes the issues between these camps but believes that they are not as clear as has been suggested. Also Christopher Burnham states that Elbow shows "how objective as well as subjective evaluation criteria can help writers revise for specific audiences to accomplish specific purposess" and therefore his approach "becomes more rhetorical" " (Expressive Pedagogy: Practice/Theory. Theory/Practice" 22-23. So there is a blending and it is not such a black and white situation as originally suggested.
ReplyDeleteTobin, Lad. "Process Pedagogy".
Tate, Gary, Amy Rupiper and Kurt Schick. A Guide to Composition Pedagogies. New York: Oxford Universty Press 2001. Print. 1-18.
Burnham, Chistopher. "Expressive Pedagogy: Practice/Theory, Theory/Practice." Tate, Gary, Amy Rupiper and Kurt Schick. A Guide to Composition Pedagogies. New York: Oxford University Press 2001. Print. 19-35.
Like David, I identify more with the academic side of the debate, but I see the potential for one to lead to the other. It seems, however, a more natural progression to move from academic to writer than vice versa. Writing in an integral part of academia, but it is possible to write without necessarily being academic. Rhetorically speaking, Bartholome's theory seems a bit more sound. Elbow states that we must teach students to be authoratative or to own their writing first, while Bartholomae argues that students must build an ethos or to become a participant in a larger conversation before they make direct, authoratative statements in writing. From a strictly personal standpoint, this seems like a much more productive approach that will allow student to learn composition and submit matter more effectively.
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