ABSTRACT
Working in relative isolation during the 1930s, in Kazakhstan, USSR, M. M. Bakhtin wrote his comprehensive theory of discourse. Again and again throughout his 50-year writing career, his works were nearly "lost"; many were literally saved from extinction by a devoted friend or a dedicated Bakhtin circle. Through the exercises of recognition, the students become sensitized to the distinctions between monologic thinking/writing and dialogic thinking/writing. Once they know that "good writing" embraces uncertainty and double-voicedness, they naturally prefer the intriguing playfulness of the unfinished dialogue. The voices of professional writers are dialogic. Such writers have learned the realities of academic and other discourses. Writing in the 30s and 40s in backwater Russia, Bakhtin "described" the more open-ended, uncertain world of the 90s. Bakhtin argues that rhetorical purpose is unitary, singlereferenced, unrefracted, polemic, and only artificially double-voiced, hence lifeless. In support, the author ventures a nonhasty generalization: all effective writing teachers know instinctively that the writing classroom must be dialogic.
