Bartholomae

Bartholomae’s research paper brought to into focus several interesting points about students beginning their college career and what is expected of them when it comes to their scholarly writing skills. Students are expected to be able to achieve higher academic writing right out of high school – and many are not prepared – and learn to take charge of the information they present and feel comfortable taking a certain level of authority over the information they yield

One of Bartholomae’s arguments is the importance of taking scholarly authority. Of course to many papers, this is a very important part where the researcher is able to reveal their findings from a speaker with authority over the information being released. Bartholomae argues that when students deviate from this however, they often “…slip into the more immediately available and realizable voice of authority, the voice of a teacher giving a lesson or the voice of a parent lecturing at the dinner table.” (6). They then switch from talking about ‘I’ and confer advice in the form of the pronoun ‘you.’ This Bartholomae recognizes as an error because they have not yet developed themselves as someone who is speaking from a point of scholarly authority.

Another point Bartholomae brings up is the expectation that students must be able to use academic writing before they understand how to. Bartholomae seems to argue that this is a good thing and that only through practicing it will it get better, which I agree with, but I also question how students would be able to ever truly learn how to do that without a basic understanding of creating language that flows and can be easily understood. If someone never broke out of their comfort zone and experimented with exploring new language and ideas that would be problematic to learning as a whole, but not being able to write in a way that is understandable in the first place somewhat destroys the entire meaning of writing which is clearly to communicate.

It’s easier to build on basic ideas once they are understood than to leap into something that is way beyond the skill level of the person trying to complete them. It’s likely this is purposeful to see where students place, though and where they should start with their classes. Still, it’s hard for me to understand how it would be preferable for a student to write in a style that is difficult to understand or the words are used incorrectly to their intention than someone who uses more basic language that directly answers the questioned asked. This to me is a problem almost because every single teacher I have ever had has wanted information to be clear and precise in a paper. Students learn scholarly jargon along the way, but how they are expected to try – and almost undoubtedly fail – in something before they are ready for it seems a bit unfair. Students will over time, learn it.

However, ultimately I do agree with Bartholomae’s view that at some point students should teach themselves how to write completely academically, though I’m not sure it should be expected before they have even learned how to use it. However, formal writing itself should be used and is usually taught in high school anyways – students should already know when to include formal writing and not use colloquial language in a formal essay.

Bartholomae also addresses students writing to their audience. This is true with any sort of writing, really, and unfortunately in the case of student writing they do not feel what they know about a subject is good enough quite often (which leads back into authority and how students may struggle with it) and do not know how to address their audience. If a student doesn’t feel their knowledge of the subject is enough to break it down and talk about it or is afraid of mistakes, it’s certainly easier for them to attempt to try and play it safe.

I’m not really sure I understand all of what Bartholomae was saying myself, I did fall asleep a few times reading it be completely honest, and I gave myself some intense eyestrain reading it off of my iPhone. And now, what I do grasp I’m having a hard time formulating into something interesting and coherent to my audience here on this blog. I did, however find the subject interesting myself though, because it is something I have thought about before. I’m not really sure what the answer is. It almost seems like a chicken and egg question. Which came first? The basic writing skills, the academic prose, or the authority on subject material a student isn’t quite comfortable assuming?