Writing Analytically, 6th Edition - Rosenwasser, David & Stephen, Jill [17]
The Banking Model of Education—and Beyond
You will of course be responsible for retaining what you have read and “handing it back” on examinations. This is known as the banking model of education. The learner (in the banking model) is mostly a passive conduit taking things in and spitting them back out. Educational theorist Paolo Freire mounted a famous attack on this model, arguing that an education consisting entirely of “banking”— information in/ information out—does not teach thinking. Being able to recite the ideas of others does not automatically render a person capable of thinking about these ideas or producing them.
Banking is not limited to quizzes and exams. It also occurs when teachers, through the best of intentions, do too much of the thinking for you. When there is discussion of the reading in class, for example, it often moves from a teacher’s questions. If you write about the reading, this often takes place after the teacher has presented his or her explanations in lectures, maybe even with PowerPoints that foreground the teacher’s selection of important points. In these ways, you are “protected” from the task of treating the reading as raw material, so to speak.
At some point, however, you have to figure out how to “process” complex course information for yourself. It is hard to learn to do a cartwheel solely by watching someone else do one. And the best way to learn is to write about the reading, not after the teacher has banked it for you but before.
Why write about reading? It will teach you how to do the things with readings that your teachers know how to do—how to find the questions rather than just the answers, how to make connections between one reading and another, how to bring together key passages from readings and put these into conversation with each other, and how to apply an idea or methodology in a reading to understanding something else.
Virtually all of the methods and procedures in this book can help you to write analytically about reading. See especially:
Chapters 2 and 4, the two Toolkits of Analytical Methods, offer heuristics that are essential for analyzing reading
Chapter 5, Writing About Reading: More Moves to Make with Written Texts, shows you how to use a reading as a lens
Chapter 13, Using Sources Analytically: The Conversation Model, shows you how to put readings into conversation with each other and how to find your own voice in the conversation
Chapter 7, Making Common Topics More Analytical, helps you with traditional assignments that involve writing about reading such as summary, comparison/ contrast, and the so-called “reaction” paper
FREEWRITING: HOW AND WHY TO DO IT
Freewriting is a method of arriving at ideas by writing continuously about a subject for a limited period of time without pausing to edit or revise. The rationale behind this activity can be understood through a well-known remark by the novelist E.M. Forster (in regard to the “tyranny” of prearranging everything): “How do I know what I think until I see what I say?” Freewriting gives you the chance to see what you’ll say.
Author Anne Lamott writes eloquently (in Bird by Bird) about the censors we all hear as nasty voices in our heads that keep us from writing. These are the internalized voices of past critics whose comments have become magnified to suggest that we will never get it right. Freewriting allows us to tune out these voices long enough to discover what we might think.
There aren’t many rules to freewriting—just that you have to keep your pen (or fingers on the keyboard) moving. Don’t reread as you go. Don’t pause to correct things. Don’t cross things out. Don’t quit when