To Be Or Not To Be Politically Correct, That is the Question

After reading Serkan Gorkemli’s article “‘This is a redneck argument!’: The Politics of tutoring paragraphing,” I began to think a lot about what our role is as tutor and what the boundaries we encounter really are. Especially at a school like the University of Richmond, where our title as writing fellows has been changed so many times to evoke the very concept of equality, the level of informality between fellow and the student being helped is something that has to be considered. Seeing as we all go to the same school and are assumed to be relatively the same age with similar levels of academic caliber, the question of tone when working with a student becomes incredibly important.

For example, although at first I questioned the reasoning behind us as tutors being told not to use “you” in paper commentary, or being told to use it as sparingly as possible, I now really understand the reasoning behind it. I think it is important that students and tutors develop a certain level of comfort and trust because as a result, the student will become more open and vocal and the session might unearth more creative thoughts and willingness to take positive risks than it would in a similar situation with the student and the teacher. However, with that said, this article does pose an interesting question regarding what a tutor is supposed to do if the students argument is somewhat offensive. Although I think that the positive relationship should allow us as tutors to vocalize our concerns with our student freely in order to help them in the long run, I think it is very important that we remain objective at the same time. Without a doubt, I think it is a difficult gray area, but I think it is important for a tutor to remember that according to the Writing Center’s do’s and don’ts, we must “Avoid turning the writer's paper into YOUR paper” even if their subject matter is offensive to you. However, although in theory this is true, I will acknowledge that I myself would be in a very difficult place if I was to encounter this situation in real time.

 When I was in high school, I was told that when taking a stance in a paper, I should chose the side I felt I could most easily support. The interesting aspect of such a concept is that this means you could potentially support or argue for something in a paper that you personal do not believe is right, because it is the most convincing argument. Although I am not saying that the student “john” chose the easier side to argue and that’s why his paper was so offensive, I still think it is important that when conducting a session, the student being tutored is still given the same about of respect even if their topic matter is controversial. I think that the author was therefore completely correct in arguing that his “task as a tutor was to get [john] 1) to talk to [him] as a tutor rather than someone with a professed authority over him, and 2) to appreciate the complexity of the issue he is dealing with rather than to have him temporarily put on a politically correct academic hat.” The way this tutor chose to deal with the situation is to engage in methods that allows for the same partnership relationship between the student and tutor, prevents the tutor from saying anything negative about the teacher, and get him to think about the deeper meaning of his argument rather than just tell him he is wrong because his opinion disagreed with that of the tutor. I think what is particularly clever about the second tactic of this tutor is it still allows the student to continue with the side he chose, as long as he does so more accurately and convincingly. Although completely unprofessional, by saying that his argument was “Red Neck” the teacher was commenting on his argument on two levels: the first being that he was being too casual with his argument and the second being that he was being naive and wrong. With the approach the tutor was taking, it allowed for correcting the tutor’s problem with the argument being too weak, without having to change it (thus making the student lose confidence in his work and his own individual voice). Even if the student’s paper did have a controversial or naïve approach, if argued appropriately and was very compelling and convincing, a good teacher would recognize that the teacher herself must also remain unbiased. I think that by aiming to attack the paper that way, the tutor made the best out of a difficult situation.

Taking the Bull By the Horns: The topic of control in teacher commentary

In one episode of the office, Dwight claims that, “In the Schrute family we believe in a five-fingered intervention. Awareness. Education. Control. Acceptance. And punching.” If you were to remove the “punching,” (at least in the current decade where corporal punishment is illegal) I think Dwight’s approach to life is how many teachers often approach correcting a student’s paper.

However, I agree with the Richard Straub’s article, “The Concept of Control in Teacher Response: Defining the Varieties of ‘Directive’ and ‘Facilitative’ Commentary,” which advocates for the removal of teachers imposing “control” when editing a student’s paper. The article focuses on how teachers respond to student writing and the amount of power they assert over a students work through their commentary. Straub argues that teachers are often too eager to insert themselves into their student’s work, altering the student’s overall experience and inevitable product and feelings of accomplishment.

When posing the question, “How do different kinds of response create different images of the responder and establish various relationships with the student?” Straub forces his reader to consider how the teacher’s tone and commentary can not only influence a student’s writing, but their perspective of the process and the teacher. I have found this to be a questioned answered by my own experiences with editing:

When I was in middle school, I had a teacher hand back my paper early bleeding in circles and comments. Although inadvertently, she embarrassed me by singling me out, only turning back my paper and making me hyper aware of my flaws as compared to those of my classmates. Furthermore, she did exactly what we were taught not to do from the very first day of class, soaking my paper in comments and a using a tone that was discouraging and disappointed. From my point of view, what had happened was that I had experimented with dialogue for the first time and as a result, butchered many of the grammatical and formatting policies that come along with a specific style of writing. With that said however, instead of looking through the entire paper and realizing I was just making the same 3 mistakes over and over again, she circled every single flaw so that the ink from her pen was basically jumping off the page. Although she was a nice teacher with good intentions, I was discouraged by her behavior and began to see her as a negative figure, someone who was bringing me down instead of guiding me. Despite the fact that I could have used help, I became embarrassed and frightened, no longer wishing to seek her help. Straub comments on the theory behind a similar sort of situation saying, “Generally speaking, the more comments a teacher makes on a piece of writing, the more controlling he or she will likely be.” Despite this being so long ago, I remember this moment and paper vividly because my teacher was so controlling that she instilled within me a negative fear that was more counter productive than anything else. Like Struab argues and this anecdote illustrates, not only can asserting control through overbearing comments be overwhelming for a student, but can destroy the relationship of trust between a student and a teacher which allows students to grow and take risks. It was these kinds of negative experiences that caused me to feel completely insecure about my writing abilities up until my sophomore year of high school.

However, when I got to high school, I was met with teachers who did not let the focus of their criticism lie with “sentence structure and correctness,” but instead focused on the content of my work and like Struab suggests, attempting to get us to “consider the rhetorical situation or to try some technique of revision.” From watching my writing fellow conduct his sessions, I can see that this is an effective method because it gets the writer to think about the solutions themselves, allowing the writing consultant to work as a sounding board and to get the writer to acknowledge or see what they might not have seen before. The approach that my writing fellow uses reflects what Struab praises in commentary, where the” comments refrain from directly telling [the student] what to do.”

Similarly, I saw the effect changing tone in commentary can have on a student from the exercises we have done with editing in class. The first time I corrected a paper, I used “You” in almost every comment, coverings the margins in an attempt to be specific, but abandoning my reader by forcing them to figure out for themselves what I was meaning when I made comments like “I am a little lost here.” However, after more practice and guidance from class, my goal is to execute what Struab suggests when he claims it I more effective when you are “keeping [your] tone positive, keeping [your] emphasis on what is working and what could be made to work better.”

Although I agree with almost everything Struab argues for in his article, there is one claim that has me a little puzzled. He says, “Of course, the optimum style of response for any teacher is going to be a function of her personality and teaching style.” Although I agree that this may be true, I wonder if it is something to advocate for. I have a friend who has helped me correct one of my papers before and while he is very intelligent and makes good suggestions, his personality is honest, sometimes brutally so, concise and sarcastic. Although as a friend, I am used to it and find it refreshing, in a tutoring situation, I have a feeling it could come across as uncomfortable for a student, making them feel discouraged. I think that maybe what would be a better argument for Struab to make is that every “optimum style of response” should be a function of their most presentable and understanding selves while maintaining their natural teaching style.

Conciseness will you by my Valentine?

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

Sugar is sweet;

And so are you.

On Valentines day, I cannot think of a better example of writing that gets to the point. I, myself, am one of he biggest culprits when it comes to using long verbose sentences that are often flowery and excessive (like that one). Despite this being true through, I am actually a huge advocate of concise language and writing. However, the truth is that while I may not always be able to achieve such a writing style, it is one that I admire and personally believe it is the most affective. A few weeks ago, I wrote a creative writing piece for one of my classes and was determined to use this type of language. I sat down and cut out everything that was unnecessary or that restated anything that had already been made clear the actions of my characters. What was I left with? The best piece of creative writing that I have ever written (in my opinion). What I believe worked so well about this piece was that by just putting on the page what was the essence of what needed to be said, it not only displayed a certain amount of honesty, but it also showed that I had complete confidence in my work and my ability to prove something and therefore didn’t need to repeat myself. I think that same strategy can completely be applied to writing analytical papers.

            Today I was shadowing and a first-year student brought his paper in to be looked at. First of all, I will say that I believe that this situation was an anomaly because otherwise us writing tutors would be out of a job. But, with that said, this student’s paper was incredibly successful and one of the best papers I have ever read. Thinking back on it now, I realize that the reason it was so effective and successful was because it was very focused and efficient in the sense that each paragraph had a clear point it wanted to achieve and did so. In The Bedford Guide for Writing Tutors, one of the suggestions they have for helping a writer when they are starting off is to continually ask them “What do you mean by this” and “How,” therefore getting at the age old concept of So What? I completely agree that this is a useful tool because the results of which can be seen in a paper like this student’s. As I was reading, every quote he used, paragraph he had and into/conclusion sentence he put in continually answered the “What/How/Why” questions. As a result, I never felt like he was just saying something to take up space or because he was repeating himself, but because each sentence propelled the reader to the next working through his argument.

            However, I think that it is not only important that a paper is concise overall, but also, that it is more effective when the sentence structure is not overdone.  The Writer’s Web guide for doing so really pulls out some of what I see as something I constantly do in my work that actually takes away from my paper rather than adding to it like I mean to. It’s interesting how something as simple as changing a sentence from passive to active, immediately strengthens an argument. I think that if it is possible to strengthen individual sentences, using only what is necessary by cutting out extra prepositions, adverbs and adjectives, then a piece of writing becomes not only more enjoyable for a reader. Therefore, the audience is able to soak up the main points, but makes the word choice seem very thought out.

Forget the Rumba, Lets Ramble Instead

Adverbs, run-on-sentences, comma after comma, fancy vocabulary and the use of the phrase “As well” = my old writing style. After reading David Bartholomae’s article, “The Study of Error,” I began to think about the presumption that basic writing is bad. I have found in my own experience and also in correcting the papers of some of my friends that as a student gets more advanced in a subject or attempts to write to impress their audience more, overwriting becomes inevitable. The best examples of this I can find are in my writing from High school, when I started believing that in order to prove to my teachers that I was a good writer, by sentences needed to be beyond “Basic Writing” and mirror the sentiment and language of more serious academic pros. Although my intent was good and the product of my doing so was a paper that showed a closer attention to detail and language, what I ended losing as a result was clarity.

            As a student, when I am supposed to read a primary source document for a class, there is one thing that always makes a difference between my being able to fully extract ideas from the text and not being able to do so: clarity. I am not saying that I wish the documents I am reading to be geared to the audience of a middle scholar, but that when an author removes all the unnecessary detail, vocabulary and subject matter that is not essential to their piece, they end up with a more finished and polished product. As a result of this, they are not taking away from their work, but adding too it, increasing their chances that their work will be understood and thus, appreciated. Talking in a straightforward and accessible way in academic writing should not be considered elementary or unscholarly, but praised because of its ability to grasp a larger audience. The same reason Wikipedia is preferred by most students and even many adults alike is because of its desire to be straightforward and to do so in the most concise and well tailored language possible. An encyclopedia however, uses jargon and highfalutin language that often further confuses the reader, defeating the purpose of the text in the first place.

            It is with this thought in mind that I turn to look at how “basic” writing of students is viewed. As a result, I come to the same conclusion, that when a stigma is attached to a students writing that is basic, it does the academic community a disservice. If a point can be made eloquently, but as tightly as possible, that is in my opinion the most successful type of paper. With that said, I think that a good teacher values the analysis and synthesis of ideas more than they value anything else. Bartholomae says in his article, “if we learn to treat the language of basic writing as language and assume, as we do when writers violate our expectations in more conventional ways, that the unconventional features in the writing are evidence of intention and that they are, therefore, meaningful, then we can chart systematic choices, individual strategies, and characteristic processes of thought.” I agree with Bartholomae in the sense that we as writing consultants and teachers as educators, should not be judging a paper immediately by what is wrong or different (whether that be they have made a mistake or their writing might not sound as elevated as one might hope). Instead, by looking for the strengths within the paper and seeing where the author might have a desire to really go, we can truly assess the author’s individual thought and abilities.