Thursday, May 28, 2009

Inventing the University

I found the piece "Inventing the University" interesting and particulary enjoyed reading the different essays that were shared and realizing that my own style of writing probably coincides with the just out of high school college freshman. I have never really felt at home writing. I always graded well in my English courses whether it was college or high school, but always felt that I was writing "to" someone, probably my instructor, and never really felt comfortable and at ease with my essay. I can see now from this lecture that I wasn't really part of the discourse. I hardly ever seemed to truly understand or truly feel capable of contributing in a meaningful way to the conversation. My only goal was to write what I felt the professor wanted to hear. Complete the assignment, pretend that I was part of their community, this was the thought process behind most if not all of my written works of my life. As I near graduation, and I become more intricately involved with my major and making sure that I understand all that it entails, I am slowly feeling more part of the conversation. I can view myself now as almost part of that community and it has taken me the better part of 6 years to accomplish this. A spanish major, I would imagine, should be eerily close in ideals to that of an english major. Both require the student to learn about the language initially and how it functions and flows, and then progress to writing and learning about different styles of writing the particular language. Finally, we learn about the history of the language and the beliefs of the most prolific and important of its authors. As a discourse community, it contains discussion and a conversation about the spanish language, there are membership requirements for any who wish to engage in and contribute to the ongoing conversation. Like the initial story about the conversation, I may be fairly new to it and I certainly dont know all that has gone on before I arrived, but I can contribute for a time to it and when I move on, others will take my place and it will continue indefinitely.