Writing Assignments: Where Writing Begins

  • David Bartholomae
Chapter

Abstract

I want to use this occasion1 to work on the paradox at the center of this passage from Beginnings: to begin to write is to “know” what cannot be known. It has become commonplace for English teachers to talk of writing as a “mode of learning,” or of writing as “discovery.” And it has become common to represent the writer’s struggle as a struggle for realization: “How can I know what I mean until I see what I’ve said?” This representation of writing is conventionally in service of a pedagogy whose primary aim is to enable students to work out something that is inside them: insight, vision, ideas, connections, wisdom.

Keywords

English Teacher Schematic Method Good Assignment Specialized Vocabulary Canonical Interpretation 
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Notes

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Copyright information

© Bedford/St. Martin’s 2005

Authors and Affiliations

  • David Bartholomae
    • 1
  1. 1.University of PittsburghUSA

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