academic

Bartholomae says that "there is no writing done in the academy that is not academic writing" but then Elbow raises the point that the attitude behind the writing can change depending on who the writer is. An academic writer, according to Elbow, sends the message that his writing has something important to say. On the other hand, the unseasoned first-year comp student often says with his writing, "is this what you want me to say?" I think there is a good reason for this. The fact is, most first year comp students are just 18 years old. They aren't experts or authorities on anything, so of course they're going to turn to the professor to make sure they're doing their assignments the "right way."
I thought it was interesting to read about the argument that Bartholomae and Elbow are having, since in the end they are just finding different means to the same end. Both want students to become more confident in their writing. They just approach this diffrently. Elbow seems to place a lot of confidence in student writing, wheras Bartolomae feels a need to guide their writing more. While reading Elbow's side, when he discussed turning his students into writers, I thought of the activity of journal writing. This allows students to practice writing, but can be separate from the formal papers that would be required in the writing course.
There is one comment that Elbow makes that made me wonder about the whole argument. He says that he hopes that he is "helping students achieve their goals" in the long run and to "gradually relinquish their conditioned assumption that their job is to accomplish our goals." I wondered about what makes one of these goals better than the other. In a way, I think, there is absolutely nothing wrong with having a teacher be the one to determine the goals. Not all students want to be writers, but for a semester of their first year of college, they have to be. Perhaps the teacher can help guide students with their goal-making; few first year students really have any set goals. And what kind of goals are we talking about here, anyway? Writing goals? Goals as students, in general? Straight A's? Doing a minimum amount of work to pass a course? College is the place where young adults start to figure things out for themselves, but they still do need some guidance.