Class-produced Bruffee Questions

1. "If my talk is narrow..." (p. 639)

When does making a decision go from being biased to being informed?

2. What limitations do thought and conversation have and how do they effect writing? (p. 639)

3. When has a student mastered the "normal discourse" of a field and when is she qualified to explore/express "abnormal discourse"? (p. 643)

4. If the ability to socialize with other dictates one's ability to write, then why is it true that hermits and mentally disturbed people have been some of the most renowned writers in the past? (i.e. Edgar Allen Poe & Emily Dickinson) (p. 641)

5. Knowledge is established by communities of knowledgeable peers. Once we get out of college and live and work with people of other "communities," how will that effect our previously established knowledge" Does knowledge always change depending on what community you are around? (p. 644)

6. "..the students and teachers of literature and writing must begin...." (p. 652)

Do new ways of learning (collaboration), in your experience, succeed more often than they fail? And how far can we take it? One day, teachers may not be needed if we keep going."

7. "The kind of conversation peer tutors engage in with their tutees, for example, can be emotionally involved, intellectually and substantively focused, and personally disinterested." (p. 642)

Can the same be said for a class room where the students aren't "personally disinterested"? Is collaborative learning between a tutor and a tutee as effective as collaborative learning between students of the same class?