Friday, April 15, 2005

Inventing the University

I've been thinking about Bartholomae's concept of inventing the university, more as it applies to "basic writers" like generation 1.5 learners, which is the focus of my dissertation. However, I also see how this idea applies to the 802 students to some degree, particularly the new students, like those I had in the fall quarter. Most were newly arrived Master's students, who had little idea of what topic they wanted to focus on and struggled throughout the quarter to find one. The finished products weren't as organized and developed as those written by the students in the winter quarter. Perhaps it was the group of students. However, perhaps it was also what Bartholomae calls inventing the university.
According to him, basic writers “must see themselves within a privileged discourse, one that already includes and excludes groups of readers. They must be either equal to or more powerful than those they would address” (p. 515). He continues by stating, “To speak with authority student writers have not only to speak in another’s voice but through another’s code; and they not only have to do this, they have to speak in the voice and through the codes of those of us with power and wisdom; and they not only have to do this, they have to do it before they know what they are doing, before they have a project to participate in and before, at least in terms of our disciplines, they have anything to say” (p. 521).
According to Bartholomae, basic writers invent the university in a unique way. This includes ... It would be interesting to see how newly arrived 802 students invent the university. What strategies do they utilize to help empower them and position themselves within the academic discourse community? What unsuccessful strategies do they try out as well? Why don't these work? Do the strategies vary according to discipline? If so, how?

4 comments:

cherepaha said...

Another way to look at it is to see what values the academy values and what values they don't. In essence, we are teaching students what are the norms and values of the community; that's fine, as long we understand that's what we are doing. That is very clear in evaluation. It is not just that students have weak strategies, but they don't understand the value we place on evaluation and expressing your own voice. That's why I foreground evaluation so much. It is not just that they can't do; they don't necessary understand why they are doing it because they may have competing values. That is the issues research in contrastive rhetoric has struggled with for 40 years
I see the same problem in 106 with the students use of texts. We know that academic writing values the use of texts; students don't necessarily know this so they often try to claim things for their own and get accussed of plagiarism. Then what we see is that students begin to use the source texts, but they aren't necessarily clear why they are doing it. that's why I love Rose's idea of trying on discourse because that is what we see.
the problem is how far we need to negotiate these distances and discrepancies. That is the central problem with plagiarism; if it is a moral issue, you can't negotiate; however, if you see it as a class of norms than you need to approach it in a different way.

cherepaha said...

You might want to look at Chris Haas' research she did at CMU on six students moving from their freshman comp class to their content courses over the four years. She takes a more cognitive approach about how their conceptualizations change over the years, particularly about reading/writing texts. It is in the Handbook on Literacy

seocom said...


معلم سباك بالمدينة المنورة
إذا كنت من سكان المدينة المنورة وتواجه مشكلة في الأدوات الصحية أو أعمال السباكة أو المواسير أو مشكلة تركيب أنواع مختلفة من البلاط أو السيراميك وأيضاً الكشف عن تسربات المياه.
فما عليك سوى أن تتعامل مع أفضل سباك بالمدينة المنورة الذي يهتم بتقديم أجود أنواع الأدوات الصحية، وأيضاً تمديد وصلات المياه والمواسير، فضلاً عن استخدامه أجود أنواع الأجهزة.

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