David Bartholomae

Thanks to Emily's presentation, I now have a clearer understanding. It seems that Bartholomae is advocating a more formal approach to writing, one that strives to be academic. It is a common problem among high school students that they are unfamiliar with the formal tone or register required for academic and professional writing. They learned well in elementary school to write like they speak, for the sake of getting something on the page. Somehow that is all the instruction they got or remember.

I have seen a lot of high school essays that start, "Hi, this is my essay about the Civil War (World War I, World War II, etc.)." Maybe some of the problem lies in the fact that people so rarely speak in the formal register. Most kids have not heard this sort of discourse, and so they don't know how to imitate it in their writing.

This is an example of the "cultural commonplaces that sometimes predetermine how and what they write" (Mlynarczyk). If our students don't have any idea that speech could be more proper and formal, how could they ever adopt a more formal tone in their writing? Furthermore, I wonder if they know that thought can be more or less formal. That's a topic for Patricia Bizzell, who I will get to in a while.

Dr. Donna's Pedagogy Statement refers to her desire to be, at all times and in all endeavors, self-conscious. Bartholomae favors students positioning themselves, self-consciously (or purposefully) against the "common" discourse. I like this idea. I think our students should be taught to discern what level of formality is required in a writing (or speaking or thinking) situation, and them set themselves, on purpose, contrary to the way the general public might approach it. Self-consciousness, I believe, leads to being very present to the situation, and surely would lead to better writing.