Teresa Marie Durham Dr.

Lauren Mason English 1101H-001 8 September 2013 Summary of Inventing the University David Bartholomaes Inventing the University is certainly an informative read, though it has its issues. He does not come forth with his goals or points like most people would blankly state but talks about everything in a round-about manner, and then in the middle, lays his goals out. He mainly points out the fact that even though some students may have the language but do not have the connection between them to make any common sense (Bartholomae 19). Bartholomaes solutions are to compare and determine the conventions (connections) then simplify to teach them (12). We have reassurance that, at least the assessment, is researched thoroughly enough it serves as an acceptable sample. The beginning of this essay demonstrates how a writer should select the proper discourse (i.e. disguise if you will) for the format of your paper (Bartholomae 4). From personal experience, I know it is difficult to select what is lecturing and what is academic conversation. There are different forms of authority to choose from, such as academic colleague and teacher/professor. They get offended if they are spoken to as if a student because they know things better than we do. Not necessarily more so than we do, they just understand to a depth we first years will barely scratch the tip of the iceberg. Writing for your audience instead of yourself is something on a whole other level. Bartholomae describes that level and what happens when that level is not reached. Sentence level errors are a signifier for

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developing writers (Bartholomae 18). Bartholomae touches on how character can make or break a writer, which he later tells you bluntly. Switching roles, slips in character (going from colleague to teacher), disjointed sentences are all signs of a basic writer. I use the term roles as in a play. Bartholomae elaborates and reiterates everything that slipping into a discourse involves and even admits that we will have to bluff in the beginning (5). Bluffing, or imitating, is a necessity because we do not know everything that is involved in every day academic conversation, nor do we have the understanding to respond how a professor would (Bartholomae 11). This is a problem because coupled with hyperawareness of audience basic writers flounder trying to succeed in their bluff which then makes them mentally stumble somewhere else. His solutions are simple, as is what the remedy is, ultimately. Bartholomae gives two fixes: One response to the problems of basic writers, then, would be to determine just what the communitys conventions are, so that those conventions can be written out, demystified, and taught in our classrooms. Teachers, as a result, could be more precise and helpful when they ask students to think, argue, describe, or define. Another response would be to examine the essays written by basic writerstheir approximations of academic discourseto determine more clearly where the problems lie. (12) Locating the problems and eradicating them seems an elementary task laid out that way. At the end of the middle to the termination of this essay, Bartholomae gives multiple examples of freshmen orientation essays on the topic of creativity and its meaning, along with commonplaces. As he does this, he metes out issues and trouble spots of these with

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explanations as to why these writers would make such choices. Bartholomae reiterates that errors such as grammar, proper punctuation, pronoun reference, and etcet era are stages of developments. I am arguing, then, that a basic writer is not necessarily a writer who makes a lot of mistakes, Bartholomae states (17). He also gives a peroration referencing the first two examples he gave. Bartholomae is mainly suggesting that it may be easier to get a person who makes sentence level errors to someone who is one with the audience than it would be for the first example writer to extend into muddier sentences (20).

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Works Cited: Bartholomae, David. Inventing the University. Journal of Basic Writing Spring. 1986, 4. WAC Clearinghouse. Web. 8 September 2013.