The Forbidden "I"

As I am reading Blau's chapter on "Writing Assignments in Literature Classes: The Problem", I am stunned by the blatant statement that colleges do not support the idea that students should not be using "I" in their academic writing.  What truly astonishes me is that I am a doctorate student and this is the first semester I have had to confront this idea.  This is the first semester in my educational career that my professor has told me to have a conversation with the texts, that we should be interrogating the texts.  I have always analyzed texts and interrogated how they correlate or disassociate from each other, but I have written in a perspective of an outsider looking in.  I questioned this professor and tried to clarify. "I understand that you want us to interrogate the text, but you don't want us to use "I" do you?  We need to keep our writing professional and not personal, correct?"  He smiled and said, "Professional is a must, but you can do that using I."  He immediately saw the look of confusion on my face and he pulled out models of lots of scholarly writing that used "I".  Do not think that I have gone to hack schools that do not have students read scholarly works, I have read plenty of scholarly articles-many of which have used "I"-but never had I made the connection that I was allowed this same privilege in my own writing.  These were people whose brilliance far surpassed mine, which allowed them to work outside of the constraints of normal academic writing.  They were obviously in a league of their own and thus afforded their own rules to the writing game; this must have been what I was thinking to never make the connection that I am also allowed to use "I" in my own writing.  I feel utterly terrible for promoting this subversion of personal identity in writing.  I am one of those high school teachers that have focused on my students conforming to an academic writing without the student's voice.  Not only have I taught high school students in this format, but it has seeped into my college teaching also.  I taught a test prep class for teacher certification and in that class, I was adamant about leaving "I" out of the paper.  I give myself a little leeway on this class though because standardized tests have promoted this type of voiceless writing.  One of the words that they use to assess this writing is "objective", and to be objective in writing many understand that to be yourself and your thoughts completely out of the paper.  I think this is where many of the disconnects between college writing and high school writing come into play.  I believe that many high school teachers do not think that students can stay objective if they use the word "I" because they will become too emotionally involved in their writing and let emotions instead of true analysis take over.  Don't get me wrong, this is true in many cases that I have seen at the high school and college levels, but instead of banning it altogether we should be taking a stance of how do we combat the ideas of emotion versus voice.  This idea seems very teachable.  Then, it is possible, that I would not be struggling to change the type of writing I do in my own academic pursuits.  Speaking from my own experience, it is truly difficult to change this behavior 10 years into your schooling when it has become so deeply ingrained in your mindset, that I have to consciously take the time to remember how I think and speak and then try to incorporate that back into my writing.