The only thing worse than being wrong, is being wrong and thinking you are right. The article “Helping students write literary analyses: Some challenges and opportunities for writing center consultants specializing in literature,” by Brian Yothers, got me thinking about this idea. Ignoring the fact that this article has an obnoxious and unnecessarily long title, this text articulates one of the types of encounters we might experience as writing tutors and that I myself confess I have been both a culprit off and witness too. The article focuses in on the situation of “Kevin” who is described as entering into a writing lab wanting nothing more than “another set of eyes” to look over his work. The author describes that ,although, Kevin believes that his work is fairly complete, the writing tutor soon discovers “that [Kevin] has not understood the material he is discussing at all.”
Personally I believe that the article did a good job of suggesting a solution to such a situation. I have found that when helping a friend or one of the students I have tutored in their work, getting them to summarize their paper like the article suggests is not only helpful, but exposes many of the elementary flaws in their interpretations and arguments. I remember I was helping one student who had come to me wanting help with her grammar, word choice and style in her paper, seeing as English was her second language.
She sat down and informed me that she had literally been working on this paper the entire weekend and her tone suggested that she was not only tired of writing it, but seemed to hint that she was also pretty “over” working on it. However, as I began to read the first few pages, I soon realized that she had absolutely no argument at all. She had obtained credited sources and had great ideas, but her paper made no viewpoint or source of tension. When I asked her to tell me what her paper was about, it took her 5 minutes to get out what, in theory, she should have been able to articulate in 30 seconds. Like Kevin, her paper lacked a focus because she was not fully understanding the material and thus not only using it incorrectly, often contradicting herself, but not using it effectively to prove a specific claim.
However, when we went back to her sources themselves like this tutor did with Kevin, she was able to look more closely at specific key phrases and by braking the articles and books down piece by piece, was able to get an accurate and more clear picture of what her sources were really saying and eventually, what she wished to argue and how to support that argument with a deeper analysis.
Although my own experience matches that of the Kevin, and I too found Yothers’ approach worked, what the article does not address is the reluctance and frustration of a student who thinks that they are merely having their paper proofread who soon discovers that there are fundamental problems with their ideas and therefore, often have to rewrite sections of their papers.
I remember being a freshman in high school and asking my mother to check over what I thought was a truly brilliant paper for my paper on the Tempest. My mother, being an editor, has a great eye and although she did not pass down her talent for being great with grammar and spelling to me, she served as both my sounding board and mentor for most of high school when it came to writing. I distinctly remember her calling to me from her bedroom where she was reading my paper. She had been reading it for no more than 20 minutes, which for her was incredibly fast, and I sauntered in thinking that her speediness must be a testament to how good my paper was. I remember her looking at me and saying, “Honey, I am sorry, but this makes absolutely no sense.” To say the least, I was crushed. As a result, she, being my mother, was forced to calm me down as I ranted on about how she didn’t know what she was talking about. Angry, I set off to my computer to rewrite the entire thing. As it turns out, she was completely correct. My paper had been confusing and inarticulate and I had not reached deep enough into Shakespeare’s work. I rewrote my paper, thus rewording my already throughout ideas and searching for new quotes, and ended up with a piece of writing that got me my first A in an English class ever.
With that said, however, I think that frustration of the student must be something that the consultant must be aware of. Although obviously, I acted in that way because it was my mother, and I therefore had freedom from social constraints, my emotions were normal. Although it is ok for a student to be frustrated, I think it must be noted that sometimes that frustration can turn in to reluctance to hear what the consultant is suggesting and to walk out of the session feeling pissed off and it ending up to be a waste of time for both.
I've often wanted to tell writers "this makes no sense" or "you obviously did this crap in one hasty draft." But faculty and Writing Consultants cannot do that. We are not, after all, your mom.
ReplyDeleteThe approach you used with your friend--ask the writer to nutshell the argument--can be enormously helpful. If the writer cannot, your task is simply "work on that, make sure the introduction says it, then show me the draft again." Writer's like Kevin, in Yothers' article, will not benefit from a helper polishing the grammar when the essay makes no governing claim.
There is nothing more aggravating than having someone expect you to take their paper and "make it better," and so I feel your pain when you talk about that specific student. When I would edit papers for the two kids I tutor at home, the son often does not even create coherent arguments, let alone points. He looks at me with eyes that say "my parents are paying you to help me with this." And how can I make him do something that he doesn't want to? Obviously, I would like to tell his parents that their son spends too much time playing Call of Duty on XBox, but I cannot-- instead I must drudgingly pull the child along.
ReplyDeleteThis idea to ask him what he means is great-- however, usually when I do this, he just shrugs and still does not offer opinions...
Perhaps this is why I can be thankful that students who go to U of R are willing to work for their grades, and therefore are able to present their argument or at least some early form of it!