Discourse

Today's discussion of Ong and Bartholomae was fascinating, I thought, and I'd like to see you all continue the discussion for as bit here on the blogs. Our primary concern with all of this is with the students, of course, who are all apparently trapped in a nebulous space where they are asked to write in a discourse with which they are unfamiliar as if they were familiar with it. What do you think of all this? Is Bartholomae right? Are we asking expecting students to mimic a discourse with which they have no familiarity? Is this why we sometimes see errors?

The second half of this question, of course, is whether or not something that is an error in one discourse is not an error in another?

Finally, what do you all think about Bartholomae's notion that "writing is an act of aggression disguised as an act of charity"?