As I began reading the first page of this weeks assigned article, “Reading and Writing Without Authority”, the unfamiliar word “Paternalism” stood out to me. My initial reaction to the first paragraph on the first page was “Why is Fatherly, and consent in the same sentence”. I just did not understand why freedom, authority, and independency was in correlation to the sentence “Fatherly way”. Truth be told, after first few pages I kept losing myself it was not as interesting as I thought it would be. The first page caught my eye because I was intrigued by the term “Paternalism” and it affects us as writers. But as I continued to read, I could not really understand the rest of the pages. This brings me to an important point that caught my eye since I am thinking about teaching writing one day. Kathleen Yancey writes that there are educators out there who would rather writing pedagogies be “uniform”. Meaning, encouraging more teachers to follow a set practice so students can all understand the same way. But the major problem is that how can teaching be uniform when as a student, you learn differently. All student’s process information differently, students have different thoughts and understandings. That same way, all teachers will educate differently and it’s basically a whole circle. For me personally, I write because I feel more comfortable putting my thoughts on paper rather than in person. Victor Villanueva says that writers should become aware about their identities and ideologies appearing in their writing but isn’t that the point? Even as an academic, you have a voice, and you have an opinion all based off of your identity so of course it will reflect in your writing. My writing isn’t for specifically one group of people, whoever can relate or agree can indulge in my thoughts but if my personality and self isn’t reflecting in my writing I would be disturbed. Furthermore, Kathleen Blake Yancey mentioned that “Writer’s identities are in part a function of the time when they live: their histories, identities, and processes are situated in a given historical context” (52). Again, it’s a circle. Everything is leading back to one another. My own experiences shape my identity which eventually becomes historical in a sense. The way I will teach will reflect on what I have been taught and how/what I decided to do with that information.
Writing and Authority
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