Month: October 2013

Journey into History

Recent events have given me cause to dig into the Freshman English archives, which go back to the mid-1980s.  This is fascinating reading.  I’m serious here– there’s a real difference of style in how the Freshman English Program and the English Department communicated back then compared to now. Lots of long letters, long memos. Now, […]

Contributing to the University

David Bartholomae’s essay “Inventing the University,” is still a foundational text of composition studies, a testament to Bartholomae’s farsightedness and his understanding of student work.  In that piece, he argues that “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 […]