Inventing the University?

Bartholomae talks about "inventing the university" in instances where students aren't experts in what they are writing about, but still write about their given topics as though they are experts. However, is the students' ability to adapt themselves to different fields and write as 'experts' really inventing the university? Or is it simply the students using the university to become "well-rounded"?

On the one hand students are forced to be economists in the morning, psychologists in the afternoon, and anthropologists in the evening. Then, for the students to have to go back home and have to write papers on three different topics proves they are forced to invent the university in the way that will get the students a better grade. They do this by having a basic formula on how papers should look in order to be considered, "good papers." In this way inventing the university can be translated into inventing what the university wants.

On the other hand, is it really inventing the university when students write papers on different topics without being "experts"? When students are given an assignment they are not completely clueless on how to write. There is background information given throughout the course that helps students set up their papers. If a student were truly "inventing the university" they would be writing a paper based on a topic they had no previous knowledge about. In this situation the student would have to invent the university by researching the information needed and transferring it into a form that the university thinks to be correct.

Myers vs. Others

Myers is unique compared to scholars like Brooks, North, Bruffee, and Cooper. Myers talks about ESL students who need somewhat different help than other students. While most scholars believe the writing center should be more focused on ideas and theses rather than syntax and spelling, Myers believes a different approach should be taken with ESL students. She thinks that if we ignore these "simple" problems, the ESL students would never learn from their mistakes. Most ESL students don't even realize they are making mistakes because the translation into english from their language could be very different.

Something I don't know about

Being a high school athlete, my peers always believed sports was my passion. However, once I got home from practice the one thing I cared to do was cook. Cooking is a great activity that lets you forget everything about your day and just focus on the delicious result. As a young teen, I was drafted into the Minor League Cooking League (MLCL). This was a tough challenge as I was timed and scored every time I cooked. Being pressured to always use the correct amount of baking soda and flour definitely made this a challenge. I even got to meet super star chefs Bobby Flay and Emeril Lagasse (great guys by the way). Ultimately, I retired young and never got to move on to the professionals. Now, I just cook casually whenever I have the time and I never have to worry about how long it takes me to make a strawberry shortcake, which was my specialty.

Response to audio comments and tutoring

This was definitely the first time a teacher of mine has ever responded to my paper with an mp3 file; then again it was the first time I've ever had to write a symposium too. When I first listened to the audio responses I found some frustration with the fact that I couldn't ask questions or respond to some of the feedback I received. In order to do that though, I decided to meet with Frank after class to discuss some of the issues he had with my paper. That discussion opened my eyes more towards how I'm going to structure the revision of my symposium. Overall, I liked the idea of the mp3 response because it was unique and I got to listen to how the professors felt rather than read it.

When we did the peer review I thought it helped a lot because I got to work with Lizz. We had the same basic problems with our papers, so when we reviewed her paper first, I referenced both my paper and the feedback given to me for my paper. Even though Lizz and I used different scholars, we were able to identify that our main problem was we didn't reference Bruffee as much as we should have. While we both had Bruffee in the background of our paper, it ended up that Bruffee became more of a jumping point instead of the focus. The best part about the conversation was that we were both good writers and, we new the topic enough to just talk about our ideas instead of specific problems in the paper.

Bouquet Reading

Bouquet believes the site of the writing center is vital for the writing center to succeed. The fact that the writing center is located in the university forces the writing center to tutor in a way the university's professors want. So, if a Political Science professor wants a research paper on the constitution, they don't want the writing center to help their students make a video diary.

Another interesting point in the article is the idea of a linear vs. non-linear pedagogy. Originally I thought the main reason professors might not want their students to go to the writing center is because they want their writing assignments done a certain way (linear). However, if the students were to go to the writing center, the tutors may make the students think differently in the way the write, making it non-linear. But, after our conversation in class I've come to realize that the professors' students are a representation of the professors. So, if the linear system of the professor giving an assignment to the student, and the student handing back the completed assignment based on the professor's notes is maintained, then so is the student's reflection onto the professor.

Student Tutor Exchange

I thought this conversation went pretty well, for the most part. The two clearly had some type of connection from the beginning. When the tutor starts to talk about the student's paper, he starts by complementing it and showing off the paper's good points. Then the tutor notices the thesis is somewhat unclear, so he asks the student about what he believes the paper is about. From here the tutor sort of gets an idea about what the paper is supposed to be about and tries to built on it, but the student seems to be unsure of how exactly to do that. The tutor points out some ideas that the student already has in his paper to support the thesis about manhood, but the student still seems to be a little resistant on how to approach the thesis. The one problem comes when the tutor starts to show signs about how he is taking over this student's paper. Especially when the tutor hints to the thesis as his own. At the end of the conversation the tutor tries to get the student to open up about the paper and to not be afraid to "risk it."

Normal vs Abnormal Discourse

Discourse

Normal --> maintain knowledge --> textbooks and common sense

Abnormal --> make new knowledge