Bartholomae - Inventing the University
Summary
At the beginning Bartholomae defines what is inventing the university, and he says, “He has to speak our language, to speak as we do, to try on the peculiar ways of knowing, selecting, evaluating, reporting, concluding, and arguing that define the discourse of our community (403).” Bartholomae continues talking about inventing the university and he uses as an example an essay of a student, where the student was asked about a time when he had been creative, and the student wrote about what was creativity for him. Bartholomae recalls about this essay, “Even though he knows he doesn’t have the knowledge that makes the discourse more than a routine (404).” Bartholomae says the student needed to make research, needed to find a “setting” required by the discourse (404). Then Bartholomae says that a common mistake made by basic writers is, “They offer advice or homilies rather than academic conclusion (405).” Another error that Bartholomae find in basic writers is the breaks in concluding sections. After this he exposes another example and he tells how a student should write to a teacher, “the writer can either speak to us in our terms – in the privilege language of university discourse- or, in default, he can speak to us as though we were children, offering us the wisdom of experience (406).” Later Bartholomae says, “Our students, as I have said, have to appropriate a specialized discourse, and they have to do this as though they were easily or comfortably one with their audience (406).” He continues talking about what being a writer is, “the privilege of being “insiders”… being granted a special right to speak (408).”Later on Bartholomae advice, “To speak with authority student writers have not only to speak in another’s voice but through another’s code… with power and wisdom (413).” To wrap up he says, “some students will need to learn to crudely mimic the “distinctive register” of academic discourse before they are prepared to actually and legitimately do the work of the discourse, and before they are sophisticated enough with the refinements of tone and texture to do it with grace or elegance(415).” He also says, “ Their initial progress will be marked by their abilities to take on the role privilege and their abilities to establish authority (415).” |
Synthesis
This reading written by David Bartholomae is written with the purpose of the audience to be teachers. In the reading Bartholomae shows different example of university students, in which each one of these essays had different errors. He says that most of university students are basic writers, and they all write different, but most of them have the idea of how to write, they do not completely develop what they are trying to say in their essays. I think Bartholomae pointed an interesting fact about students being able to write, he said, “the privilege of being “insiders”… being granted a special right to speak (408).” I found this very interesting because I have never thought about writing this way, but now I see that writing is what we think or know about a topic in paper instead of speaking, and that is right that is never refuse to anyone. I think that the mistakes that he pointed out are one of the most common, but he also gave some advice, such as, “to speak with authority… with power and wisdom (413).” What Bartholomae is trying to say is that when you are writing you need to persuade you audience and convince them about you dominating the topic. Bartholomae goes all along the reading pointing different errors and trying to give advice about what can a solution be for those errors. At the end he emphasize to teacher and to the student that writing is a creation and it needs to show progress and authority. |