To take Roger's point further, I've had students produce papers that have won
competitions for "Best Paper" at a conference -- a conference that combined
academy and industry as is so often the case in engineering. Is producing an
academic paper that is useful to people in the solder industry "unreal"?
Or to take another slant entirely, school itself is its own real game. This
separation of "practice" at school from "real" elsewhere is still not one I
buy into. This may be because I work in the practical science and the writing
frequently has straightforward application, but I have trouble seeing the game
I see around me as "unreal" (unless I look to the university politics!)
Rob Irish
Quoting Roger Graves <[log in to unmask]>:
> Theresa's message inspired me to read the latest Inkshed, wherein I found
> this quote towards the end of Russ' piece on plagiarism:
>
> "It's often argued that people need "practice" and that that's what school
> provides. Batting practice, fielder's choice practice, bunting and
> pitching and baserunning practice -- and that school, by definition, can't
> provide a real game. So school writing is always and invariably stuck in
> the rhetorical situation I've been describing."
>
> The phrase that stopped me was "school, by definition, can't provide a
> real game." I know schools often do not provide real games, but "can't"?
> I'm teaching a methods
> course for secondary education teachers right now, and in the past
> these students have developed unit plans that they used when they went on
> to student teach at high schools. In the fall I had students writing grant
> applications for social service agencies; in the past, some of these have
> garnered real money, to the tune of $5000 and over $20,000 in one case. Is
> this practice or a game (pre-season even)? Or does the distinction really
> rest with each student--they decide how seriously to take it, how real it
> is going to be for them?
>
> Roger Graves
> Associate Professor
> Department of English, DePaul University
>
> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
> To leave the list, send a SIGNOFF CASLL command to
> [log in to unmask] or, if you experience difficulties,
> write to Russ Hunt at [log in to unmask]
>
> For the list archives and information about the organization,
> its newsletter, and the annual conference, go to
> http://www.stu.ca/inkshed/
> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
>
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
To leave the list, send a SIGNOFF CASLL command to
[log in to unmask] or, if you experience difficulties,
write to Russ Hunt at [log in to unmask]
For the list archives and information about the organization,
its newsletter, and the annual conference, go to
http://www.stu.ca/inkshed/
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
