Katie B’s. Art of Persuasion

18

A Teacher's Role Inside a Classroom-final

2

Katelin Brand

Dr. Allen

English 319

15 September 2008

WC: 1199

A teacher’s role inside a classroom

2

            The discussion about the teacher’s role in a classroom has been brought up by two very important scholars in the education field, Peter Elbow and David Bartholomae. Peter Elbow’s view on the teacher’s role in the class is that students can be taught something without a teacher or teacher figure. Bartholomae’s argument against Elbow’s is that students (people) are influenced by other people (such as teachers), events and social and political experiences. Not only do these two scholars write about teachers in the classroom they argue about the actual role that the teachers plays and how they(the teachers) influence or not influence the students, in writing and in reading.

            Starting with Peter Elbow’s take on the debate over what the teacher’s role in the classroom is, his focus is about voice and how students (the public) can use theirs to be taught by themselves. He mentions that a successful way to express your own voice is to do free write every day. Elbow’s rules about free writing are you can never stop writing, not to edit or not to wonder how to spell a word. (Writing without Teachers pg. 3) If you stop writing during your free write “your voice is damped out by al the interruptions, changes and hesitations between consciousness and the page” (Writing without Teachers pg. 6). Which means your so called voice really isn’t your voice, it’s the edited voice that you want people (the readers) to hear.  Elbow also writes that if you use just your voice it “…is the forces that will make a reader listen to you, the energy that drives the meanings through his thick skull” (Writing without Teachers pg. 6). Elbow also describes voice as what is “sifted through his entire self” (Writing without Teachers pg. 8) without the influences of others and the society communities. When expressing your own voice in your papers, the teacher’s role starts to fade away especially if the students (writers) follow Elbow’s arrangement of what voice and free write should really be.

            Teachers should be looked at as “not as frontier guides but as managers, people who manage substations in cultural network…” (Writing with Teachers pg. 66). Bartholomae’s view is that teachers should be looked at as managers and when he says that he means that teachers should be there to correct, to influence, to be able to focus students- the public- on what the guided writing should be. Bartholomae also says that “hid[ing] the teacher is hid[ing] the traces of power, tradition and authority present at the scene of writing….” (Writing with Teachers pg. 63). Since the majority of society has followed what Elbow has created, Bartholomae is afraid that they (educators) will keep the knowledge of writing but most importantly academic writing from our students. Bartholomae wants the future teacher to become …”one that becomes a subject in the classroom where we ask young writers to think about, or better yet, confront their situatedness” (Writing with Teachers pg. 64). This statement is a direct hit against Elbow’s theory of teachers should not be in the classroom but they should be a part of the student body. Again Elbow’s theory is to have free write in the classroom-this involves not actual teaching but does involve the students to write what they feel. In Bartholomae’s argument  he shoves Elbow’s theory back in his face by saying, “In my department, this other form of narrative is often called “creative nonfiction” or “literacy non-fiction”-it is a way to celebrate individual vision, the detail of particular worlds” (Writing with Teachers pg. 68) Both scholars have unique points and have distinctive support for their work.

1

            Not only does Elbow and Bartholomae discuss what the role of the teacher is in the classroom, but what types of writing the teacher should develop in the classroom, a writer who freely writes about what he/she wants to or an academic writer, more focused on a topic and to meet the criteria of a teacher’s expectations. In order to write you must learn how to read. Peter Elbow focuses on many questions about reading and how it is tied together with writing. Starting with the question, ‘What we should read in the first year writing course…” and to follow there are many more questions another one is “How to read these text…”, and “How much to read…”, and one of the last ones, “What my attitude should be toward these readings when reading them and teaching them to the class” (Being a Writer vs. Being an Academic pg. 73, 74, 78). Having a teacher in the classroom makes the students write and read what the teacher wants to hear, therefore students are not allowed to write and read what they want to hear and what they want to feel when they are writing. On the other hand having a teacherless classroom it gives the students the pleasure that they are able to red at their pace and to write to their understanding. When a student is able to write to their own pleasure they are able to call their writing their own writing, but visa-versa as well when a student writes for someone else’s pleasure, this could bring pleasure to themselves just knowing that they might have caused an up roar over something that they wrote.

            Bartholomae’s writing career has “[made] my life difficult enough that I sometimes wonder why I went into this business in the first place” (Against the Grain pg. 20). He writes, “How I write is against the grain” (Against the Grain pg. 19). I ask what does he mean against the grain. As Elbow says never to revise when you write, Bartholomae says he writes and revises all the time and he works efficiently knowing that he is able to revise so he can get his point across without repeating himself. Bartholomae also writes, “Without imitation and, therefore, tradition….kind of textual conversation/confrontation with people whose work matters to me and whose work, then, makes my own possible” (Against the Grain pg. 21). He is talking about Elbow’s work, without his views there would not be the argument what him and Bartholomae have created. This proves Bartholomae’s points as no one can write without influences. Bartholomae tries to teach his students to write against the grain, such as he did/does, so they can be challenged and analyzed in new ways. “…to teach students to work against fluency, the “natural” flow of language as it comes to a writer who has a grasp of a subject” (Against the Grain pg. 23).

            These two scholars have opened new doors for students to explore and for students to establish their own critique on the teacher’s role in the classroom. If it’s the teacher needs to be an influence and help the students or guide them in on a new writing path or if they need to be transparent in the classroom and allow the students to learn from themselves. Either way the argument(s) of both sides are exclusive. “Learning to write means learning this and learning to handle it” (Against the Grain pg. 27).