We consciously and playfully take on a role to have fun but also become part of a community that offers something we need or want. David Bartholomae reminds us that when we roleplay in writing, we don't simply imitate or blindly follow tradition conventions or ways of speaking and writing. Instead, we knowingly play the role we are given even as we resist and push against forces that would make us all the same. Writing, then, is about power and authority. We must consider how language silences but also enables us to speak in specific situations.
Sophists are more helpful to writers than Platonists .
Sophists used language to persuade, to shape politics and ethics. As a result, being able to use language effectively allows us to shape reality. Writing, therefore, is the act of renaming. Writing is collaborative . Not only do we collaborate in the sense of asking friends, classmates, and teachers to read our written work, but writing is always collaborative in the sense that every time we write, we engage previous work, other readers, sources of our own thought, reader expectations, our expectations and mental frameworks, texts we have read, and institutional demands.