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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