Inventing the University

One of the first thoughts that came to me when reading this article is how Bartholomae addresses the performance/authentic self indirectly. The mention of the writer and authority reminded me of another class I am taking, where we were talking about the authority, and how his authority changes between the first and second part of the book (Don Quixote). From the first part of the article, I am pretty sure that Bartholomae does not think that a student is an authentic self, at least when it comes to writing academic papers. He makes the point that students write differently, depending on who their audience is, and why they are writing the paper. I think he makes a good point that students have to ‘target’ their audience. Depending on who their audience is, the student can use jargon from a certain study without confusing the reader. One would not write a paper full of math or science jargon for an English class.

Continuing on the first paragraph, I think he is saying that people code switch when writing. Changing the way things are worded when talking to different people is really important (especially when one is trying to make a point). People talk to children and teachers differently. Can you see someone using a lot of college level academic jargon when talking to a child? The poor child would be so confused after talking to the person.

Through the article, I think that the author takes his writing really seriously. Towards the beginning of the paper, he points out that a technique would only work if they treat writing as words on a page. With that comment, one can tell that he believes that writing is more than just words on a piece of paper. His writing is influenced with his opinion, and perspective of the world around him. While there are people who write, just to make a living, he gives me the impression of wanting to be a writer because that is what he chooses to do. Since he is painting the people who write as a job in such bad light, I hope he is the type of person who likes to write, or is someone who writes for themselves while taking into account of who he is writing for.

I did not really notice it myself, how writing differs depending on what that piece of writing is supposed to do. While I know that writing lab reports is really different from writing papers, I did not take into account how I am unconsciously tailoring the language and phrases I use in paper to the audience.