Patrick has a long post about the essay, tying the reading to Mode 2, while also weaving in several other’s comments. This is a blog that is beginning to mature as it writes with ideas and other people’s stuff. His observation that people might have gone better at school if they could write in the way the reading describes, rather than the more rigid way prescribed, is one of the things I was getting at in my lecture about why come to lectures. VCE and university preselects certain sorts of competencies. If you don’t have them, if you haven’t immersed yourself in them (generally unknowingly) then you don’t even get here. One of the things we’re doing in this subject is letting some other competencies be legitimated. Not great at the ‘formal’ essay, but good at tech, write lots of help. Or write some wiki entries that look at that door ajar.