Wednesday, June 27, 2018

Hera Naguib Questions for 6/28


    1. In the essay “What is Composition and (if you know what it is) Why Do We Teach It”, David Bartholomae critiques institutions whose pedagogy devalues a process-driven approach to composition. Bartholomae   states that “we are trapped within a discourse of error that makes it impossible to praise the student paper that is disordered and disorderly” (16). In his essay “Process Pedagogy” Lad Tobin picks up where Bartholomae seems to be pushing as Tobin engages with his transformative experience of giving precedence to the expressivist version of the writing process within the classroom. In your experience in your own teaching and/or writing, how have you negotiated between the two approaches, i.e. what are some of the concrete ways in which you have encouraged yourself, within your writing or in the classroom, to adopt a more expressivist approach. How has this transformed your own relationship to teaching or writing?  

2. In his reading of the two excerpts of student essay, Bartholomae reads through a silence that is masked by what he perceives as the strict disciplinary measures or rules that stultify the process and product of composition and nearly obliterate the individual perspective. Bartholomae is interested in how the individual voice can challenge the replicated ideas of masters and great men. While I agree with Bartholomae’s assertion and believe it ought to be emphasized in composition pedagogy, what are the various challenges of adopting such an approach and the various ways of dealing with them? For instance, what if a student’s assignment or project hold minimal to no individual relevance? What are some of more concrete ways in which we can teach our students or ourselves to uphold a balance between getting past this silence and maintain a formal remove?   

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