Reading Response: Who Owns Writing?

To clarify the question of ownership of writing as Douglas Hesse does, we are not considering the property rights of "textual acreages" but "the conditions under which writing is taught" (Norton, 1248). The reflexive response to this question is professors, for aren't they the ones who determine the structure and material of the course which teaches one to write? Not only the course which teaches one to write but the course which teaches one to read, and reading is an important part of learning to write, is formed under similar confines; the teacher decides the structure and material.

Hesse would suggest that "those who teach writing must affirm that we, in fact, own it" (1249). Prior to this statement, however, he does cede that the answer one has to the question might find ancestry in Wordsworth, Barthes, Althusser, or Rorty (though hopefully one is not merely parroting the opinions of another as though the endurance of a thinker's name somehow lends credence to his opinions, as students might be inclined to do...I digress.) If, as Hesse suggests, we must affirm that those who teach writing own writing (or must, at least, believe that we do), it is likely because students will look to us for evidence of control or mastery in writing, and in their osmosis of those sentiments might find confidence in their own. We might assert that we own the conditions of writing but a student must feel that they own the "textual acreage" they produce...and perhaps be proud of the land they till.

Or maybe we should go the route Wittgenstein suggests and not ask the question in the first place. Perhaps it is best to focus on improving production instead of fiddling over ownership.