Authorship poses many problems. We can see this everyday regarding the use of sources, misuse of another’s words, illegal pirating on the Internet, the list goes on and on. This is really not a new phenomenon but rather one that is gaining prominence as we experience a shift in how we view authorship and the writing process.
Lisa Ede and Andrea Lunsford address this shift in writing strategy in their article “Collaboration and Concepts of Authorship” (2001). They argue for a re-evaluation of how we view authorship. The wider world beyond the humanities is frequently built upon the collaborative efforts of a team. This collaboration is making its way into the humanities slowly but surely. Yet we still place singular authorship on a pedestal. One of Ede’s and Lunsford’s examples is that of the doctorate candidate and how that person is expected to write their dissertation alone yet contribute something original and meaningful to their respective field. Instead, they propose that looking at collaborative and non-collaborative authorship has the potential to reveal “the powerful ideological, cultural, social, and political forces that work to resist, co-opt, or contain change,” (Ede and Lunsford 356). Furthermore, they conclude that by examining the strategies of collaborative and non-collaborative processes we can work to replace debilitating academic practices of authorship that hinder progress and learning.
In conjunction to understanding the collaborative process of writing in the university, we also need to evaluate how we perpetuate ideas of writing in the ways that we instruct writing practices in the classroom in university settings. David Bartholomae in “Inventing the University” (1985), early on makes a call for understanding how we expect unattainable results from our students by asking them to join academic conversations that they are wholly unprepared to join. We ask our students to “learn to speak our language. Or he must dare to speak it or to carry off the bluff, since speaking and writing will most certainly be required long before the skill is “learned.” And this, understandably, causes problems” (Bartholomae 606). In asking students to write an academic paper, we are most often asking them to write to a level that they are not prepared to write to with the added burden of trying to write to someone that is far beyond their own comprehension of the topic they are writing about. And to make matters worse, we are asking them to use a discourse that they are unfamiliar with and unprepared to utilize. Thus we often see our students slip into the “teacher role” where they shift voice from conversation to lecture which can potentially alienate the reader (the teacher) because of the shift in power structure.
This idea of alienation relates to Ede’s and Lunsford’s idea about evaluating writing practices and authorship for a revelation of ideology. We ask students to offer academic conclusions and ideas to the reader by mimicking works by respected academics who are accustomed to making the rhetorical moves of their field and furthermore have the authority to do so. Instead, as teachers we need to teach “students to revise for readers” which will in turn prepare them to eventually write with the reader in mind from the beginning of the writing process (Bartholomae 609). Essentially, we need to teach students how to be appropriated by the writing communities so they can learn the expected discourses of those communities.
To do such instruction, writing teachers need to be more aware of students and their needs specifically in relation to social constructs and classroom organization. Glynda Hull, Mike Rose, Kay Losey Fraser, and Marisa Castellano speak to this idea in their article on remedial writing instruction titled,“Remediation as Social Construct: Perspectives from an Analysis of Classroom Discourse” (1991). In their article, the authors focus their attention on remedial social constructs and the influence those particular constructs have on student outcomes but much of their discussion can be applied to any writing course. Through their analysis of real classroom interaction, the authors offer four major suggestions to combat negative social constructs present in writing classrooms: “remembering teacher development, attending to classroom discourse, making macro-micro connections, and rethinking the language of cultural difference” (Hull et al. 799).
Teacher development is exactly what it sounds like in that we need to continue to grow and learn as instructors and not fall into stagnant teaching practices that do not address the needs of our students. Closely tied to this concept is the suggestion of attending to classroom discourse because “discourse structures direct talk in particular ways and that certain moves within those structures can instantiate assumptions about cognition and undercut creative thinking and engagement” (Hull et al. 804). Examining how the classroom operates at a macro and micro level also aids in this construction of a positive learning environment because it asks the teacher to objectively evaluate how the classroom works in relation to students and social/cultural expectations of writing and student ability. And finally, we need to evaluate how language and social conditions shape how we use language as a social instrument that can potentially devalue a student and place undue cultural characteristics upon them that hinder learning or poses lofty expectations that they are unable to meet.
Writing and language are closely tied in that how we use each are heavily influenced by social constructs of what constitutes each. We need to evaluate those social constructs and learn what they have to offer/hinder the writing classroom. How do those expectations, both attainable and not attainable, shape how we instruct students and how do our teaching practices perpetuate those social constructs? Are those constructs beneficial to our students and the larger society as a whole?
Works Cited
Bartholomae, David. “Inventing the University.” The Norton Book of Composition Studies. Ed. Susan Miller. New York: W. W. Norton, 1985. 605-630. Print.
Ede, Lisa, and Andrea A. Lunsford. “Collaboration and Concepts of Authorship.” Modern Language Association 116.2 (Mar., 2001). 354-369. Print.
Hull, Glynda, Mike Rose, Kay Losey Fraser, and Marisa Castellano. “Remediation as Social Construct: Perspectives from an Analysis of Classroom Discourse.” The Norton Book of Composition Studies. Ed. Susan Miller. New York: W. W. Norton, 1991. 783-812. Print.
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