bartholomae vs. elbow

Elbow believes that credulity should be the governing ides in the undergraduate writing course and he wants his students to "trust" language. While Bartholomae is on the side of skepticism and wants his students to mistrust language or criticise it. when asked the questions: Are freshmen ready to think first and primarily about the problems of writing when they write? Is criticism an appropriate point of entry into the college curriculum? is it the job of college English to teach students to learn to resist and be suspicious of writing and the text? Bartholomae argues that Elbow would say no while he says yes to all the questions.
Bartholomae argues against a course that would not begin by being dismissive but would start by encouraging students to work opening essays to perfection. Elbow and Bartholomae differ on just how much time students should devote to reading in a writing course. Bartholomae believes that a series of required texts are central to his teaching method while Elbow doesn't focus on that so much.