"Normal discourse" is an attempt to translate Kuhn's idea of "normal science" to the field of composition studies. According to Bruffee, normal discourse is "conversation within a community of knowledgeable peers. A community of knowledgeable peers is a group of people who accept, and whose work is guided by, the same paradigms and the same code of values and assumptions" (89). In other words, it is "business as usual" for a particular discourse community. Should we be teaching "normal discourse"? I don't think you can teach normal discourse. It's what happens naturally between members of a community. As students (or novices of any type) enter a discourse community, they gradually learn what normal discourse is and how to "participate in the conversation." Depending on the discourse community, the barriers to entry may be high (for example, the academic discourse community, assuming for a second that there is a monolithic community). Since it is unlikely that we can possibly teach (or even know) the norms of all the discourse communities a student will be a part of, then the task of attempting to teach normal discourse (even "normal" academic discourse) is hopeless.
So what should we do instead? Rather than offering a cafeteria-style approach (although I do believe that exposing students to a variety of types of discourse is useful), I think we should get students to become critics of the idea of normal discourse. Even as they attempt to define "normal discourse" for their own classroom community, they should begin to analyze and challenge the social structures, rules, habits, and power relationships that define normal discourse. Rather than seeking peaceful consensus as a goal to be achieved in the classroom (or in whatever other discourse communities students may belong to), getting students to see how consensus and dissent function dialectically may better prepare them for participating in knowledge making in the real world, rather than just accepting the status quo. In his criticism of Bruffee's view of collaboration and normal discourse, Trimbur (1989) offers this perspective:
Students' experience of non-domination in the collaborative classroom can offer
them a critical
measure to understand the distortions of communication and
the plays of power in normal discourse. Replacing the "real world" authority of
consensus with a rhetoric of dissensus can lead students to demystify the normal
workings of discourse communities. But just as important, a rhetoric of
dissensus can lead them to redefine consensus as a utopian project, a dream of
difference without domination. (p. 615)
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