Gere, Eubanks & Schaeffer

After reading Gere and Eubanks & Schaeffer’s articles, I found that the focus of both is pointing to how academic writing is affected by the writer’s emotions. For example, Gere mentions that extracurricular writing is more personable because the author is doing it on his/her behalf. They have no forced motive to be writing, so what they’re writing is more likely to be about something they love or enjoy ‘talking’ about, because extracurricular writing is like a “conversation.” I see a relation to Eubanks & Schaeffer’s essay because they talked about academic bullshit. This is related to a person’s emotions as well, because if a person doesn’t truly relate to what they are writing about, it comes out as bullshit. On the other hand, if it is only for an academic purpose (the writing that is), then the writing just sounds like jargon ( a class favorite) which is also bullshit. I believe, that for true literacy acquisition, beyond what is deemed academically correct, academic writing is truly achieved by combing one’s true emotions with what the topic of writing is. This is the main connection I saw between the two readings. A minor connection I saw was the presence of peer reviews and their affect on productive writing. Both Gere and Eubanks & Schaeffer acknowledge that peer review can be very positive for academic writing.

Eubanks & Schaeffer describes literacy in a very controversial way. First off, they make the statement that academic writing is not for the general audience, which is why most consider it bullshit. By saying this, I feel as though Eubanks & Schaeffer are saying that literacy is different for all types of people. I feel this means that people can be literate in a general sense, but when it comes to some academic topics they become illiterate, because what they are reading seems to be bullshit and unintelligible. In truth, academic writing may not always be that indecipherable bullshit, but may be a writing made for those who have become ‘literate’ in that category of academic writing. Because this occurs, bullshit may be found in those trying to become better academic writers. This happens when you attempt to become better at something you have not yet mastered and you can make mistakes along the way.

One of my favorite lines of the bullshit article is “good writing is inseparable from the context in which it arises” (385). I think this is a great way to connect both articles and can be a perfect quote to motivate learning writers. It shows how extracurricular topics should be introduced to the classroom (from Gere’s article) because this can lead to the good writing that Eubanks & Schaeffer are trying to sort from the bullshit. Writing about something you love, can lead to the love of writing and the acquisition of good writing and literacy. When I first started reading the two articles, it was hard to get through them at times because I thought they were sort of dry. After searching for the main points they offer to our class, and discussing them with our class, I have found that they relate to myself in a lot of ways. When I began to understand them more, it was easier to write about them, which is basically the point both made about writing. I thought this was a really cool observation.