Saturday, May 17, 2008
Shamoon and Burns
When I read Shamoon and Burns’ story about the master’s thesis, I was reminded of the story Michele talked about in class on Friday. If I recall, correctly, Michele said that her friend needed someone to show her exactly how to use a comma. It wasn’t that she was a bad student, but that she had never been taught in a way like Shamoon and Burns describe. These authors seem to think that imitation is a good way for some writers to learn. When I read this, I was reminded of Quintilian and what he says about imitation in Insitutes of Oratory. He writes in Book 2, Chapter 4, “It will also be of service too, at times, for the master to dictate whole subjects himself which the pupil may imitate and admire for the present as his own.” But, if imitation of expert writing does help students write, what constitutes expert writing? Would we be placing a value on certain kinds of writing and excluding others? Would we fall into the trap of creating a canon?
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And is the WC the place to provide the directive/authoritative tutoring that is sometimes needed, as S&B say, or can it serve as a resource for students and maybe even instructors to access it? For example, what if the WC had sort of a speaker’s bureau: a group of professors from different disciplines who were willing to talk with groups of students about writing in their discipline and share some of their work in the way S&B describes on page 238? I could see as an instructor that if my undergrad comp class had five or six students from a certain discipline that it might be helpful to bring in an academic writer from that profession to share his/her writing and perspective with a class. Or the WC could coordinate such a master’s class if enough students expressed interest (actually, students AND faculty could attend such a master’s class). Another resource would be samples of academic writing from different disciplines, say just hyperlinking to papers as examples. The students still have the agency in deciding to access the classes or papers, and it might avoid the canonization that Claire warns of if the work is presented as just examples.
But sometimes students need to not only see a sample but practice in their own writings to recognize and deal with similar problems. Examples, modeling, and practice should go hand in hand.
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