How are the theory and practice of this course similar to and different from "Discovery of Competence"? (How much would these teachers argue with each other if they had to work together to create a course?)
So far as theory, TDOC is bent on using their class to launch their education-as-research model, which may or may not champion the student writer. Like the DOC model, the B&P approach is heavily scaffolded, letting students discover their compositional voices, discovering, too, the power of discovery through personal writings. While the DOC curriculum implementation is more vague, it appears that the strong research side of it tapers off somewhat as the term passes, in favor of more examination of fiction and other genres. In this sense, the B&P platform is similar, eventually moving away from student-as-center-of-the-universe, in favor of more practical college-level studies of fiction, anthropology and psychology. In this way, the B&P plan seems to set the student up for success outside the classroom more successfully, minimizing coddling and maximizing growth.
The DOC approach is much more student-centered throughout, however, as far as can be sussed from the chapters we've read. For example, the DOC ladies wouldn't likely have a set reading list for the whole class, whereas the B&P people would, and it's very teacher-driven in that sense, although students are to pick out four additional books on their own. Bottom line on the application end: B&P students are going to be exhausted in a very healthy way, and truly learn composition (even if it kills them!), while the DOC students will basically have a very nice, organic educational experience and learn how to be ethnologists, even if their writing skills lag far behind their research skills.
Ideally, teachers of either approach will need to have a strong background in Vygotskyian scaffolding and keep it all very student-centric and activity-based, with lecturing cut back to bare bones. In both cases, teachers will need to be selfless Joan of Arcs. So, I think instructors for either model might have more in common than not. For this reason, I don't know that teachers of either school would claw each other to death exactly. On the other hand, I've seen some conventional teachers tear into each other, and it wasn't over ideologies...I believe someone ate the last donut in the teachers' lounge...
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