[Teaching_Composition] Academic Discourse

[Norgaard Rolf]

On seeing academic discourse from a broader perspective....

Last spring, at the beginning of the semester, I asked the students
enrolled in my upper-division seminar "Rhetorics of Civic Engagement" to
reflect on the intersection of their academic, civic, and personal lives,
and to prepare a 300-400 word statement that they could read to the
class.  I warned them I did not want a version of their resume, but some
honest reflection on the intersections (or lack of intersections) they are
experiencing.

I was incredibly moved by their responses, and the entire class bonded
through the experience of sharing these responses aloud.

When students found academic discourse vitally helpful (and some did), it
was largely in spite of the (balkanized) university curriculum, and in
spite of prior traditional appraoches to instruction.  Students
are eager to forge connections among different aspects of their lives.
Writing, envisioned as a rhetorically flexible craft responsive to
audience and exigency, can indeed help them in this effort.  But an
insular and narrow approach to academic discourse offers little genuine
help or solace.

Best, Rolf

Dr. Rolf Norgaard                   Environmental Design Bldg., Rm. 1B64
Program for Writing and Rhetoric    Campus Box 317
University of Colorado at Boulder   VOX: 303-492-3605  FAX: 303-492-7877
Boulder, CO 80309-0317              rolf.norgaard@colorado.edu