Composition, Self, and Cultural Demands

Hello Class,

     We have been discussing the conflict between academia and a writer’s struggle (and often “failure”) to remain genuine to his/her sense of individuality or identity. I would like to bring up  Fan Shen’s article and the issue of cultural and academic demands we encounter in our writing and writing process. Shen writes, “Rule number one in English composition is: Be yourself” (460). This, as Shen describes, is a traditional approach several teachers have encouraged in their students. Personally, I find myself trying to limit my “self” within a text: I think it risks authority. Instead, I put on my “academic hat” and write from that point of view. This was brought up in a few of the other articles, specifically by Mellix and Rodriguez: we are often demanded to take on the academic voice, at least temporarily, if we want to be taken seriously. The topic we choose needs to be taken seriously, so we borrow the credibility of other academics and attempt to write an original paper; we borrow concepts, ideas, even styles-sometimes it’s even demanded that we do so by instructors. Of course, if we want our students to take their writing seriously, as some of the articles have emphasized, we need to encourage students to gain a vested interest into what they are writing: if they care about a topic, then they are more likely to develop their ideas carefully. So this is one of the academic demands- create an ethos that demonstrates your credibility and limits bias- particularly when we think about reading and writing; we use our “self” in order to relate to a piece of literature, but when it comes time to write about the same piece of literature we(more often than not) have to step back for fear of losing credibility(particularly in academic writing). When have you found it useful and/or harmful to write your “self”? In a different class, we have been having the same discussion of when to implement this approach: should this approach( writing from the self) be taught to freshman students in order to promote their writing, or should we compromise when to apply our personal voices?

     Another interesting idea Shen brings up is the influence society has on the structure of our(American) writing: “The concept of a topic sentence, it seems to me, is symbolic of the values of a busy people in an industrialized society, rushing to get things done, hoping to attract and satisfy the busy reader very quickly”(462). I read this statement ambivalently: on the one hand this is an ideological difference between Chinese and American English criticism. This comment makes our writing seem so artificial, as if we are pandering to the reader. In my own writing, I try to be as “fluid” as possible, transitioning carefully and presenting my ideas as building on each other and supporting my thesis. The issue raised here is the cultural influence on our writing; another example of this could be “formal conclusions.” I’ve sometimes had instructors who demand a tidy resolution, while others place less emphasis on the conclusion and more on the body and thesis.