Download File - EAP in the North

CRITICAL THINKING?
A view from Humanities
Every time a student sits down to write for us, he has to invent the
university for the occasion-invent the university, that is, or a branch of
it, like History or Anthropology or Economics or English. He has to learn
to speak our language, to speak as we do, to try on the peculiar
ways of knowing, selecting, evaluating, reporting, concluding, and
arguing that define the discourse of our community.
David Bartholomae INVENTING THE UNIVERSITY,
Journal of Basic Writing, Vol. 5, No. 1, 1986 4-23
Every time a student sits down to write for us, he has to invent the
university for the occasion-invent the university, that is, or a branch of
it, like History or Anthropology or Economics or English. He has to learn
to speak our language, to speak as we do, to try on the peculiar
ways of knowing, selecting, evaluating, reporting, concluding, and
arguing that define the discourse of our community.
David Bartholomae INVENTING THE UNIVERSITY,
Journal of Basic Writing, Vol. 5, No. 1, 1986 4-23
The students have to appropriate (or be appropriated by) a
specialized discourse, and they have to do this as though they were
easily and comfortably one with their audience, as though they were
members of the academy, or historians or anthropologists or
economists; they have to invent the university by assembling and
mimicking its language, finding some compromise between
idiosyncracy, a personal history, and the requirements of convention,
the history of a discipline.
The students have to appropriate (or be appropriated by) a
specialized discourse, and they have to do this as though they were
easily and comfortably one with their audience, as though they were
members of the academy, or historians or anthropologists or
economists; they have to invent the university by assembling and
mimicking its language, finding some compromise between
idiosyncracy, a personal history, and the requirements of convention,
the history of a discipline.
Two principles:
◦ No right answers
◦ Engagement with authors/ideas.
What students ask:
◦ Can I give my own opinion?
◦ Can I write in the first person?
YES – but…..
Debating Literacy
WALTER ONG
The arrival of written language in human
society, and of wholesale engagement with
written language, brings about
transformative change in human
consciousness.
Oral consciousness, typical of predominantly
oral cultures/societies, is profoundly different
from literate consciousness, found in
cultures/societies like ours.
Agree? Disagree? Why (not)?
BRIAN STREET
 Hard to separate oral from literate
societies so absolutely.
Evidence to support theory is thin.
Speculation about ‘oral’ consciousness
by humans who are deeply ‘literate’ is
unreliable.
Too many different forms of written
language (text-speak…academic
written discourse).
Interpenetration of literacy and
society: traces of each within the other,
multimodality, “speech” events.
Forms of written language
HT22 cells were lysed in RIPA buffer (50 mM TrisHCl, pH 7.4, 100 mM NaCl, 5 mM
ethylenediaminetetra acetic acid, 0.5% Nonidet
P-40, and protease inhibitor cocktail tablet). The
protein content of the cell lysates was then
determined using Bradford reagent (Bio-Rad,
Hercules, CA). The proteins in each sample were
resolved by SDS-polyacrylamide gel
electrophoresis and transferred to a
polyvinylidene difluoride membrane. After
blocking with 5% non-fat milk in Tris-buffered
saline with Tween 20 (TBS-T) for 1 h at room
temperature, membranes were incubated with
the appropriate antibodies. After incubation with
the secondary antibodies, membranes were
developed with enhanced chemiluminiscence
reagent
Primary and secondary criticism
Do students have their own ‘critical’ view of Ong? (primary criticism)
Do students replicate Street’s critical view of Ong? (secondary criticism)
Do they express any criticism of Street? (primary criticism of primary criticism)
Moving beyond…
Students, even those who broadly agree with Street, will get extra credit if they:
◦ Recognise some merit in the Ong position and explain what that is.
◦ Find, in the broader literature, empirical research relevant to the debate (on
either side of the argument, or on both).
◦ Begin to imagine research experiments or ethnographic research projects
which might add more evidence to the debate.
◦ Identify weaknesses in the critical literature (Street).
No right answer because….?
1.
….the level of theoretical abstraction takes the debate beyond the scope
of empirical confirmation/refutation.
2.
… the grading of the work is not as concerned with the answer as it is with
the range of propositions about literacy/society/consciousness that students
are introduced to, and what they make of those propositions as critical
thinkers.
3.
Books and articles are tools for thinking.