Head to Head

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We probably should have mentioned that we were drawn to wiki technology in part because of Myka Vielstimmig's "Petals on a Wet, Black, Bough."

Paul was rather enthusiastic about Vielstimmig, integrating the essay into the reading list for his Junior Composition class.

John was a little less impressed. But since he's not reading this, let me level with you. Don't you think the single-author illusion is a big part of the problem behind students' traditional disengagement with writing tasks? It takes a lot of smoke and mirrors to keep the illusion going.

Mightn't it be liberating to forget about that hogwash and just engage in a kind of writing that's based essentially in rhetorical choice in a way that the tired old 5 paragraph essay just can't be?

And yet so much of "learning how to write" involves learning how to manage the smoke and mirrors of the single authored voice. I'm for liberating my self and students from the pressures of this voice, this construct, from time to time. But move beyond it? In the university? In the United States of America? My creative vision has not the force to imagine this.