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.
Seminar in Teaching Composition 