Academic Initiation: Learn the Rules before Breaking Them

As a sophomore in college, I went through a writing center training course in which we tutors-to-be read several of the essays included in Cross-Talk, most notably the Bizzell, Bruffee, and Murray pieces. While I found that this strictly theoretical approach left much to be desired (we looked at no sample papers, did no kind of role play, etc.), the readings led me to a realization about the term “discourse” and ultimately informed my work as a tutor.

As I discussed in last week’s post, during high school and my first year of college I followed a relatively misguided approach to writing papers. It wasn’t until I took the training course that I started to understand the almost mathematical side to a lot of academic writing. Breaking from reading only literature and literary criticism to reading about academic discourse as its own entity (also through the work of Gerald Graff) served as an important shift for me as a writer; in some ways, the training course benefitted me more immediately than it did the students I would be tutoring.

In other words, I believe the distinction between academic and other forms of discourse should, to some extent, be addressed early on in students’ college careers. Of course, there are many differences between the writing styles of various disciplines, but I am thinking more generally in terms of academic versus nonacademic discourse. What does it mean, exactly, to write an analytical paper rather than a reflection piece? In what ways do we define the word “argument” differently in the classroom than we do in everyday conversation? These seem like basic enough questions, but there are fundamental rules that separate academic writing from less formal modes of written expression.

Although Britton’s primary purpose in “Spectator Role in the Beginnings of Writing” is to examine the differences between literary and nonliterary writing and to notice patterns in the ways in which children acquire written language, he makes an important observation in his conclusion: “We give and find shape in the very act of perception, we give and find further shape as we talk, write or otherwise represent our experiences… In learning to control his environment [the writer] has gained a freedom of choice in action” (172). When discussing the nature of academic writing, it may be more helpful (and less off-putting) to think of perceptions instead of fundamental rules. Learning how to adopt the perspective of a professional academic writer gives the student agency in the writing situation, the tools he/she needs for full expression within the confines of the discipline.

The results of Braddock’s topic-sentence study and his ensuing reflections hint at a similar idea. Sure, he says, students probably “should not be told that professional writers usually begin their paragraphs with topic sentences” (202), because doing so would depict the situation as too cut-and-dry. Braddock advocates teaching topic sentences as a tool students can use to hone their skills and further ground their writing in academic discourse, not presenting them as gospel.

There are many tools and perspectives involved in academic discourse, and a writer need not use or agree with all of them to succeed; but some exposure to their existence and the ways in which they function in a piece of writing can help a student navigate this mode of communication.

Using Dialectic to Assume an Active Role in Academic Discourse

When I first entered the realm of academic discourse during my undergraduate career, I did not think that my own observations and analysis on a text carried much weight compared to previous scholars in the field. Because I was initially afraid that my own opinions did not have a place in the tradition of academic discourse, I would often approach my writing in a similar method to Britton’s quote from Harding in Spectator Role and the Beginnings of Writing: “…the student contemplates represented events in the role of a spectator, not for the sake of active intervention…his response includes in some degree accepting or rejecting the values and emotional attitudes which the narration implicitly offers..” (Cross-Talk p. 155) Rather than playing an active role as a responder to a given text by analyzing and questioning the views shown through a work of literature in my writing, I tended to assume a spectator role and accept the ideas laid out in a literary work. Once I understood that my own analysis on a text was important and could matter in academic discourse, I started to question literary texts and attempt to address these questions within my academic writing.

 

Through my experiences in discussion-based literature classes, I have discovered that what Berlin dubs the “hermeneutic approach” is an engaging approach to studying literature that allows the student to develop an understanding of academic discourse. In Contemporary Composition: The Major Pedagogical Theories, Berlin explains that “…the hermeneuticist truth is never fixed finally on unshakable grounds. Instead it emerges only after false starts and failures, and it can only represent a tentative point of rest in a continuing conversation. Whatever truth is arrived at, moreover, is always the product of individuals calling on the full range of their humanity, with esthetic and moral considerations given at least as much importance as any others.” (p. 248) Since the nature of academic discourse involves an ongoing conversation between participants, it is necessary for those entering this discourse to realize that there are many unresolved questions in the academic world. Because they are entering academic discourse, students can address questions and issues within the realm and attempt to bring light to them through their own analyses. If we explain to our students that truth in academe is never fully resolved and is constructed through the efforts of individuals, than we encourage our students to take an active role in in the continuous conversation that formulates academic discourse.