Reading and Writing Without Authority

18

On close examination, Janet’s reading strategies were more “expert” than we would have predicted: She did develop some sense of authors speaking to one another in these readings; she often reflected on and evaluated the illustrative examples they offered; she even developed examples of her own to clarify, and in one case to test and reject a defining condition proposed by one of the authors. Granted, these strategies were used haphazardly, but what is more striking is that none of this rhetorical sophistication was reflected in Janet’s writing. Janet’s approach to this task revealed that she saw no role for herself in this conversation. She responded to sample cases or proposed definitions only in passing as she read; these responses did not become central to her work and do not appear in her paper. Not even when her examples clearly “disproved” another author’s position did she step into the conversation to say so.

19

As we noted earlier, feminist theorists have questioned the validity of the adversarial, “monologic” mode of argument that dominates academic discourse, offering alternative models which value connection and negotiation over confrontation, the personal and contextual over the impersonal and abstract. But Janet’s approach to the paternalism task cannot be said to fulfill either of these models. She has not rejected argumentative discourse in favor of personal response or consensus building but has kept herself out of the discussion altogether. Both discourse modes assume a basic sense of personal identity and authority on the part of the writer. In the confrontational mode, writers rely on their own authority to form judgments about the work of others; in the collaborative mode, writers must value their own experiences and responses in order to connect with others (Lamb 16). Janet is reluctant to do either.

20

Janet seemed well aware of the customary split between public and personal, and continually resisted inserting herself in the text. In one session, she changed an example from first to third person (“it’s not supposed to be in first person... that’s silly”), rejected a campus example as frivolous (“I mean requiring freshmen to go on the fifteen or nineteen meal contract is a silly example”), and complained about how hard it was to come up with alternative examples (“I’m thinking of examples I can relate to... [un]fortunately they’re different from the examples that the readers can relate to...”). And in perhaps the most obvious instance of excluding herself from the conversation, Janet deleted from her draft a pair of terms she had developed to help explain a complex distinction proposed by one of the authors, saying “Why did I bring in ‘indirect’ [paternalism]?... That’s my own word... I don’t think I can just do that.”

21

Janet’s approach illustrates the degree to which such personal authority is denied in school contexts. It is generally acknowledged that students enter college classrooms with extensive experience in, and often a strong commitment to, an information-transfer model of education which clearly clashes with current constructivist views of knowledge (Bizzell, “Cognition”; Bruffee; Witte). Certainly these contrasting views have personal and political implications: they shape learner attitudes and self-concepts and determine the extent of the power that individuals are willing to claim within the educational and larger social system. But our analyses of Janet and Roger suggest as well a more direct influence on reading and writing processes. These contrasting theories of knowledge and their corresponding assumptions about individual authority shape the way individuals approach intellectual tasks. Students like Janet who see all texts (except their own) as containing “the truth,” rather than as authored and subject to interpretation and criticism, will of course see the objective report as the only conceivable response to a reading-writing assignment. Janet’s “objective report” interpretation can in fact be extracted from our task directions, which stated that readers “will want to understand what paternalism is” and “under what conditions it can be justified.” But she ignored other components of the task: “Summarize and evaluate the definitions of paternalism given in the first part of the corpus, and formulate your own definition.” She selectively attended to those guidelines that fit with her information-transfer model, ignoring those that didn’t.

22

The information-transfer model leaves little room for provisional or hypothetical thinking. Roger, speaking as an authority, can be playful, tentative, exploratory. He can, and does, change his mind as his examples point up inconsistencies in his thinking. Janet has no such luxury. She must find the truth. And, while she acknowledges no authority of her own, she must speak authoritatively. Examine the tone of her conclusion:

The methods mentioned throughout the second part of this paper can be used by the paternalist to decide when to act and how much to act. They can also be used by others to determine whether or not the paternalist is justified.

Janet writes the definitive text, a handbook for potential paternalists.