Questions for Discussion and Journaling
Read "Reading and Writing without Authority" and answer the following questions.
1.
Penrose and Geisler point to a number of reasons that Roger wrote with more authority than Janet. What are these reasons?
2.
Penrose and Geisler point to a number of ways in which Roger’s text was written differently than Janet’s. What are these differences?
3.
The authors argue that the differences between Roger’s and Janet’s texts stem from a difference in their views of knowledge. They argue that Janet has been trained in an information-transfer model of knowledge while Roger sees “the development of knowledge as a communal and continual process” (para. 25, also known as a constructivist model of knowledge). Explain the differences between these two views of knowledge.
4.
Janet did not seem to trust herself and always deferred to the authors she was reading, even when their claims conflicted and when the examples she thought of refuted the author’s claims. Why do you think this was the case?
5.
Is your writing more like Roger’s or Janet’s? Do you think you hold more of an information-transfer model of knowledge or a constructivist model of knowledge?