I don't think we should assume that some contexts (e.g., writing to demonstrate
knowledge and ability for the teacher as judge/examiner) are any more or
less "authentic" as rhetorical contexts than others (e.g., writing to amuse
a friend with tales of student life??). Russ, when a student writes
to you or, at least, to me as a representative of a university institution
whose job is to judge students' abilities to demonstrate knowledge, I think
that they are writing to "me"--it may not be a "me" or a job that
I relish, but it is still, authentically, me--just as a student writing
a classroom essay for the rhetorical purposes that bother you (and, an
other, "me") is also authentically "herself" on that occasion, herself
as that student (which doesn't mean that she doesn't find other selves
preferable to perform). I'm all for questioning the rhetorical contexts/exigencies/motivations
which our educational instutitions structure and perpetuate, but precisely
for that reason I think we need to acknowledge them as very real--both
for ourselves and for our students. We can't just decide to be outside
them and, oopla, there we go--we're out of them. For students, as
far as I know, the desire to secure good marks by successfully performing
a classroom genre is a terribly real motivation, one that so many aspects
of the worlds they live in validate above other motivations.
Philippa
