TIRP#2

When analyzing past work I find that I have written as close to the institutional standard as I could, while still adhering to my own style of writing. By this I mean, that even though there is a standard, I am not someone who will let it hinder me, even if it makes my work appear less “academic”. I have learned though that this deviation I have from the standard is most appreciated in my non-English courses. Professors have seemed to appreciate that I allow myself creative license because in the end it is more refreshing to read then just another standard essay that may be technically adequate yet lacks any kind of distinctive quality. It doesn’t make sense, after all, to have such a high expectation when the school system in the U.S. is failing us. If academics want to read academic work then they should teach their students the mechanics while leaving leeway for original thought and style. So my work may not be mechanically sound, I feel it reflects me as a writer because it is me, just without a rigid frame. This I think would be appreciated by Linda Flowers and John R. Hayes since they are concerned with the inventive power of the writer.

Roland Barthes says “a writer does not write, but is, himself, written by the languages available to him”, and this is something I agree with. Though I have been in school for 15 years there seems to be a disconnect in my academic writing, which comes from not spending all my time in school. I have multiple languages available to me and the most prevalent one is the one I associate with how I interact with my friends and family. I am colloquial and informal, crude and poetic, argumentative and detailed. All of these things make for being able to form narrative fiction, but when it comes to more formal work is not often accepted. This is something that is a challenge for me, being able to break from my own strong held beliefs that writing should be something free flowing and inventive, not rigid and unoriginal. Academics, I feel, are so concerned with what has been taught to them (during a time when students were actually taught) and not what could be. This is why I disagree with Patricia Bizzell, who emphasizes convention as a standard on what makes a “good writer”.

In his article, Inventing the University, David Bartholomae, makes some interesting points. He is the one author in my selection of readings that I can most relate to. Bartholomae puts more merit in a student that is able to appeal to their audience, while still maintaining their own identity as a writer. I appreciate that he encourages student writers to expose the intelligence of their audience, even if that means appearing to have more authority, even if that isn’t the case. As long as an author is able to back up their writing with the necessary information, then a writer may challenge an authority. I think this is something that I was able to accomplish when writing for a folklore class on the topic of community culture, in which I had to describe the unique practices of a particular group. Because I was writing on a topic that I knew my professor was unfamiliar with, I was able to become the teacher, while still being aware that I must implement a standard set upon my by academia.

When approaching my folklore paper, I thought of it in terms of William Perry’s view of “Relativism”, where there are no “absolutes”, which are axiomatic statements in writing. I knew I would be the teacher because I was the one with the knowledge of the topic with my audience being my professor, whom I felt was someone I could relate to personally and whom expected me to relate to because she was just that kind of professor. Challenges I had, however, when writing this paper was taking its graphic and seemingly inappropriate nature and making it so that a professor would not find herself cringing at certain explanations, my topic being a BDSM community. I felt as though I was hindering myself, but it was a practice of my own skill of being able to take something that is incredibly informal and making something academic.

“Education initiates one into the traditions, habits, and values of a community” is a statement in the article, William Perry and Liberal Education that I agree with. I believe the statement is both encouraging and discouraging, in that yes there is a community effort, but so often I feel an individual gets lost in that community. So though I agree with the statement on education, I do not necessarily believe it is how it should be. Education should be more of an outline that is filled in by its students. This is why I feel what I write about tends to rub people the wrong way. It is something I admittedly should work on if I want to be taken seriously in academia, but not enough so where I would compromise my own beliefs to a system that is still being debated upon.