But that is partly because what I have to suggest is not a method but a stance towards one's teaching. This stance requires a sort of doubleness: an awareness that one's course is part of an ideological structure that keeps people from thinking about their situation, but also a belief that one can resist this structure and help students to criticize it' (Myers 172). Even while using collaborative learning techniques, Myers does not want students to lose their individuality. This is also Holt's goal but it is unclear if this as easy in 'theory' as it is in fact, based on the experiences she chronicles. Holt calls the Bruffee approach 'democratic' but in a perfect democracy there can be a loss of valuable minority opinions. Writing, it could be argued, is designed to express individualism. But not all authors agree with this idea. John Trimbur's "Consent and Difference in Collaborative Learning" presents Bruffee as part of a long tradition of intellectuals like John Dewey, who stated that...

Within the larger American discourse community and set of norms, however, the idea of individualism still holds a powerful sway, and may cause many students and educators to be suspicious of the extreme consensus Bruffee calls for, even while many of his specific techniques are used in writing classrooms, such as peer critiques and group discussions about student writing.
Works Cited

Bruffee, Kenneth a. "Collaborative learning and the 'Conversation of Mankind'." College

English, 46. 7 (Nov., 1984): 635-652

Holt, Mara. "The importance of dissent in collaborative learning." The Writing Center Journal,

28.2 (2008).

Myers, Greg. "Consensus and Reform in the Rhetoric of Composition Teaching."

College English, 48. 2 (Feb., 1986): 154-174.

Trimbur, John. "Consensus and Difference in…