ABSTRACT
When I first began teaching writing, the hallway outside my office displayed a cartoon-like picture depicting a classroom of 100 years ago or more. In the center of the scene was a stereotypical professor, caricatured with pointed gray beard, wire spectacles, bushy gray eyebrows, and censorious expression, who was doggedly pouring knowledge through an oversized funnel into the head of a student, a sulky, somewhat plump young man. Obviously intended to be humorous, the picture ironically suggested that successful teaching involves transferring knowledge from professor to student, the professor active and determined, the student passive and submissive, perhaps uninterested, even unwilling.
