1. Through the beginning of Bartholomae's article, he engages in a interesting conversation about the state of academic writing and what is considered good and how that is rarely if at all challenged, asking the question how does a teacher tell a student to write "worse." So my question is: is there a stringent hold on the state of academic writing where there isn't room for creativity of the writer to work outside the norm and how do we as instructors foster students to not just replicate examples presented to them?
2. This may be a little generic...but Tobin discussed the different approaches to teaching writing. Does different approaches to teaching writing work better at different stages of writing? Such as, taking an expressivist approach is more beneficial to first year undergrads. And why?
Antonio, I don't think your second question is generic. This is something that came up when I responded to Tricia's post for Dr. McElroy's class. Perhaps I'm wrong but I suggested that seeking a voice, which is something I see closely aligned with Expressivism, is possibly best reserved for the college environment as opposed to high school or earlier. At least it is in academic writing. I think that Expressivism would be useful specifically for undergrad because at this point, we might assume that students have been exposed to other styles of teaching writing, such a formalist-heavy style discussed by Faulkerson (412-3). I’m certain it won’t always be the case, and that’s why I think it’s also useful to glean from Faulkerson’s article that while we may value an aspect of composition, they all are important to writing (410). To return to the initial subject of your question, I see undergrad as time for exploration. Maybe that’s because I attended a Liberal Arts college, but I think it’s useful to consider what Tobin observes about “those who claim that process [pedagogy] has had its day and then acknowledge that in their teaching they still employ free writing and journals and peer response groups and the idea that writing generates as well as reflects meaning” (7). As this indicates, it seems that there’s no denying the value in various approaches to teaching. Perhaps it is best at this point in students’ education to employ an approach that does give them more freedom in their writing but with continued structure, one not influenced by just one single approach.
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