Haas and Bartholomae Quotes

In Bartholomae, he states “to speak to us as a person of status or privilege, the writer can either speak to us in our terms-in the privileged language of university discourse-or, in default (or in defiance), he can speak to us as though we were children, offering us the wisdom of experience” (514).

To me, this is stating that a student’, or scientist in Haas’ case study, language, tone and vocabulary determine his audience and how he views them. Does the student have the advanced writing skills to speak within the academic discourse? Or do they think they know and offer some knowledge in the form of wisdom? A writer must not only master concepts and knowledge within a particular discipline, but also learn to write with authority to engage in scientific discourse. The steps to this includes many of Bartholomae’s ideas including using mimicking, relying less on grammar and the rejection of commonplaces, which seem to complicate essays more than enhance them.

The complementing quote from Haas I chose states “in general, these educators have argued that in order to understand, use, and judge scientific content-and, of course, scientific content remains of vital importance to science educators-students need a meta-understanding of the motives of science and scientists and the history of scientific concepts” (359).

Understanding of scientific figures and facts is important, and as we learned with Eliza’s progress, but also knowing views and opinions of other scientists becomes significant in engaging in the discourse of that field. Bartholomae would agree with understanding facts and knowledge because it is part of mimicking, copying other ideas until you’ve become advanced enough to create your own. The only thing I can think of that would complicate these two quotes if a student relied too much on context and did not contribute their own ideas to the conversation, or discourse.