His Pedagogy
"Students must be actively writing and actively involved in the study of their writing."
He Believes
These are separate skills:
- Those that can be taught
- Those that must be developed
Text
The students' writing is the primary text in the course and that it must be.
Composition definition
[Composition] is the institutionally supported desire to organize and evaluate the writing of unauthorized writers.
Where Should Composition Be Located?
English Departments are the departments of language and literature. The imperative for language instruction is there historically -- the teaching of writing was part of the original charge to English in the formation of the University in the United States.
When a Writer Can't Write
Students must learn to sound like experts when they write, and they thus adopt personae that seem to them authoritative and academic. The errors of inexperienced writers should be seen as the result of this effort to approximate and finally to control a complex and alien discourse. Students "extend themselves, by successive approximations, into the commonplaces, set phrases, rituals and gestures, habits of mind, tricks of persuasion, obligatory conclusions and necessary connections" that constit
David Bartholomae
David J. Bartholomae is a leading American scholar in composition studies. He is Professor of English and a former Chair of the English Department at the University of Pittsburgh.
His primary research interests are in composition, literacy, and pedagogy, and his work engages scholarship in rhetoric and in American literature/American Studies. His articles and essays have appeared in publications such as PMLA, Critical Quarterly, and College Composition and Communication.
He is also the co-editor, with Jean Ferguson Carr, of the University of Pittsburgh Press Series in Composition, Literacy, and Culture, a leading list of monographs in the field.
Bartholomae has served on the Executive Council of the Modern Language Association and as president of the Conference on College Composition and Communication and president of the Association of Departments of English.
In 1985, Bartholomae was the Chair of CCCC, where he gave his CCCC Chair's Address ?Freshman English, Composition, and CCCC.?
He received his Ph.D. from Rutgers University in 1975.
Writing with Teachers
Academic writing-writing done in the shadow of others-is the real work of the academy and therefore the key term for teaching writing. To pretend otherwise is to withhold from students knowledge of the politics of discursive practice. Student writing is situated in a heavily populated textual space in an institution where power is unequally distributed. The image of a free space for expression, found in Peter Elbow's work, reflects a desire to be outside of history and culture, a desire for a co
More about Bartholomae
- David Bartholomae
- University of Pittsburgh Pitt Home
- Writing with Texts
- An Interview with David Bartholomae
- Baldwin: Conversations
- Chapter II: A Pedagogy of Conversation
- ns 69 (Fall/Winter 2007) // the minnesota review
- interview
Basic Writing
Basic writing students should be immersed in academic discourse so that they can begin to appropriate it for their own ends. Bartholomae contends that basic writing studies should not center simply on error. Instead, we must better understand how basic writers' lack of understanding about constructions of authority and the rules of academic discourse put them at a disadvantage in an arena that values such knowledge. As a result, Bartholomae argues that the basic writer "has to invent the univers
David Bartholomae works
Ways of Reading: An Anthology for Writers
Amazon Price: (as of 12/29/2009) 
Ways of Reading Words and Images
Amazon Price: $35.95 (as of 12/29/2009)
Reading the Lives of Others: A Sequence for Writers
Amazon Price: $44.38 (as of 12/29/2009)
Writing on the Margins: Essays on Composition and Teaching
Amazon Price: (as of 12/29/2009)
Facts, Artifacts, and Counterfacts: Theory and Method for a Reading and Writing Course
Amazon Price: $33.15 (as of 12/29/2009)
Basic Writing
Borrowing from historian Carolyn Steedman, Bartholomae argues that basic writing courses segregate students and replicate social divisions. "In the name of sympathy and empowerment," he writes, "we have once again produced the 'other' who is the incomplete version of ourselves, confirming existing patterns of power and authority, reproducing the hierarchies we had meant to question and overthrow . . . in the 1970s" (18). He also argues that these classes are ultimately necessary because they pro
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- gmarlett gmarlett Sep 15, 2008 @ 12:07 pm
- Writing is such a fascinating discipline and Bartholomae would be an awesome teacher to have. Welcome back to the Squidoo All-Stars Group!
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- tdove tdove Jun 5, 2008 @ 8:48 pm
- Thanks for joining G Rated Lense Factory!
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