Inventing the University

Inventing the University by David Bartholomae is an interesting article. It addresses the process students go through to do college-level writing. They have to appropriate the language of the professors in order to be considered a good writer. Writing academically does not mean that one is writing well, but it is frowned upon to write colloquially. Bartholomae mentions how some students have caught on to vocabulary needed to sound academic but don't really have anything to say.

The subject of audience is addressed. "I think that all writers, in order to write, must imagine themselves the privilege of being 'insiders'-- that is, of being both inside an established and powerful discourse, and of being granted a special right to speak." The authors opinions on audience and power of the writer is a bit confusing. He draws analysis from a couple of samples of college freshman all given the same prompt. Describe a time when you felt you did something creative and then draw some general conclusions about creativity.

The example of the Jazz writer and the Clay Model writer is interesting when the two are compared. the clay model writer was clearly faking a level of sophistication in writing that he had not yet reached, there were issues on the sentence level and some of his ideas failed to come through but he was using academic language. The Jazz writer made sense, it was clear he had a grasp on the language he was using but he talked around he subject instead of answering it.

The main point of Bartholomae's article in my opinion, is-- there are stages of development students go through when they enter college. There is a lot that is asked of them and they learn to do what they need to do to succeed.