Good writers are made, not born (essay)
iStock The author-god, according to mid-20th-century language theorist Roland Barthes, embodies the Romantic notion of the artist to whom brilliant epiphanies come to be written down. In fact, at times throughout history, the best authors were believed to have been chosen and directly inspired by God himself. Because of this cultural paradigm, many of us are deeply psychologically invested in the idea of individual genius authorship, and it manifests negatively in students’ approaches to their classes and other rhetorical situations that require critical reading and writing skills. How ofte...
Source: insidehighered.com