Essay 1

Bartholomae and Petrosky show an example of a student writer who was given the task to write his own experience of the “banking” concept as told by Freire. He writes a well thought out paper of all the things he could relate to after reading the banking concept one time through. He uses good examples and the paper is very easy to follow, especially coming from someone who has not read the original banking concept from Freire himself. When the student was asked how he prepared and carried out the task of writing the paper he was quick to respond, “I read through the Freire essay and I worked with what I understood and ignored the rest.” (p. 13)

Bartholomae and Petrosky were completely fine with this process for writing the paper, as long as it was for the first draft. They then spoke of how the student writer wrote the passage as two individuals in an individual example, but Bartholomae and Petrosky argue that “…Freire argues, is bigger than the intentions or actions of individuals.” It shows that while the student wrote some of his own individual examples, Freire was talking about the education system as a whole. Bartholomae and Petrosky then asked the student to re-read the passage and focus more on the parts that were difficult to him.

The revision was astounding to me. Even though they showed only a small portion of the revision, it showed that he had really taken Freire’s words to heart and that he was making his example more into a sample backing up Freire’s claims, rather than just an individual example.

Bartholomae and Petrosky gave praise to the student from the beginning, stating that it was a good paper before I was able to read it and formulate my own opinion. To them, it was a good start for a first draft. It was not until after we had read the passage that we were able to get the full input from Bartholomae and Petrosky. I tried to soak in in the first time I read it before I had someone else’s opinion in my head, and before long I was dreading what would come next because it seemed like a replica of my writings. Luckily Bartholomae and Petrosky praised it afterwords, but stated that it needed a lot of revision. As it has been recommended throughout the Ways of Readings, they wanted the student to go back and re read the text, focusing on the more difficult parts. This showed that Bartholomae and Petrosky really felt that the student had left out the importance of the argument and was just going with the basic facts. This is where I had to take Bartholomae and Petrosky’s advice into my own hands and re read their comments on the paper to see what the real meaning was that was hidden inside their complex vocabulary which I breezed through the first time.

In-Class Freewrite Sept 21

1. What argument are you trying to make in your draft?

2. How are you using the text in your draft?

3. How have you organized your draft so far?

4. What do you like about your draft so far? If you had to identify one sentence or passage that seems to get to the heart of what you are trying to say, what would it be?

5. What are you struggling with in your draft? What questions do you have? What kinds of feedback would you like?

1. The argument that I am trying to make in my draft is that I have noticed many similarities between myself and the student writer in Ways of Reading on pages 13-15. i can relate to the student that they talk about and I find it interesting to see the process that he goes through to improve his writing according to the authors. My argument is that the authors are correct and we should push ourselves to further understand the readings in their entirety so that we can respond to the readings with the highest potential.

2.I am pulling a few quotes to try and help my paper establish Bartholomae and Petrosky's opinions on the writings. I am also quoting a few parts from the students writing so that I can analyze it before and after the changes have been made.

3. In my draft I am analyzing the reading and comparing it to my own writing. then I am trying to interpret Bartholomae and Petrosky's opinions on the students original writing and put down on paper how I feel that they feel about it. Then I am trying to compare what I could do to some of my writings so that I can revise it in a similar way to the student in the book.

4. I like that my draft can relate so well to the student writer and I can almost put myself into his position and criticize my own writing habits. it makes it much easier to get into the paper.

5. I am struggling with some of Bartholomae and Petrosky's writings in the book because I am trying to find the parts that are difficult for me to understand and re read them, as they had their student writer do. It makes it more interesting because it is helping me get a better grasp on how they feel but is very frustrating at the same time.