Re: Reassessing our practices

Steve Krause (skrause@BGNET.BGSU.EDU)
Mon, 12 Feb 1996 20:04:17 -0500


On Mon, 12 Feb 1996, Greg Ritter wrote (in part):

> Depends on what *kind* of essay you're talking about. The kind of
> essay that gets published in academic journals is a far stretch
> from the kind of essay that freshman are asked to write in comp
> or sophomores asked to write in American History, etc. etc.

Ain't this the truth? Think about the "essays" of Derrida or Foucault or
Baudrillard or Haraway or Spivak or [insert your favorite theorist here] and
then try to draw some kind of connection between them and fy comp. No,
Greg is making a really good point here: the fact of the matter is we
_don't_ value the sort of writing practices fy comp students (all
undergrads for that matter) are required to engage in. So no, I
personally don't see much connection between the "power" of the esay form
either within academia or within the work-a-day world. I think we teach
the "EDNA" essay form because (as Sharon Crowley and others have made so
clear) that's just the way it's been done.

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Steve Krause * Department of English * Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green, OH * 43403 * (419) 372-8934 *skrause@bgnet.bgsu.edu
On the WWW at http://ernie.bgsu.edu/~skrause/CV/Main.html
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