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.

Write What You Love, Write What You Know

Today I read a story called “Intro to Creative Writing” by Dani Johannesen for my creative writing class that caused me to wonder, what is the point of writing if you don’t like what you are writing about? If you have not yet read this piece of creative nonfiction, you really should, in one page, the clear and concise story depicts a moment that so many of us can relate to as writers, constantly seeing our classmates write to “get it done” or to write what they think sounds smart or overly intelligent. Although this story is creative non-fiction and thus, a different style of writing than we will most likely see as writing consultants or many of us are used to writing, the story’s narrator emphasizes how important it is to “write what you know,” which I believe directly correlates with what I see as a growing problem with College writing: students are still writing about topics that are of no interest to them.

In high school, I was given precise and specific topics that were supposed to guide us as writers to certain subject matters or schools of thought. Like a film editor controls how an audience views the world, so did my teachers in regards to how I was supposed to view what my thesis or topic or overall paper should concern. In so many ways, we were writing what they wanted us to write because their essay topics dictated it to be that way. With Johannesen in mind, I look back on my high school work and have come to the conclusion that there is no point of writing something yourself, if you aren’t going to put you in it. Although you can insert your personality depending on your style and tone and the way you acknowledge your reader, really, the best way of all is to do so by liking what you write about.

When I got to college, I remember being both liberated and frightened by the idea of having the freedom to not only chose my topic, but also, chose the texts I wished to work with. I have had moments where figuring out my topic is 100 times more work because there is so much to chose from. My own personal problem is that I often spend more time swaying back and forth between ideas and texts and outlines than I do writing and I am always looking over my shoulder thinking maybe I should have written about something else. Even though it can be harder at first, I believe there is no point about writing what you don’t care about, especially when you encouraged to do so.

I remember one of the first times I really experienced the joy and rewards of deciding for myself what I was going to write about was during my second semester of Core when I decided to write my essay using the texts, House of Mirth and The Love Suicides of Chikamatsu. For some reason, when I read House of Mirth, I have this weird moment that I have had only a few times in my life, when I feel that I completely and utterly understand a characters and seem so much of me in them. Although comparing myself to Lily Bart could in many ways be doing myself a disservice, I acknowledge this in order to make the greater point that I felt a true connection to the work because I identified it and felt passionate about it. I felt like I understood Lily, and therefore, that I understood Wharton’s meaning and words more deeply than many of my other classmates. When we read The Love Suicides of Chikamatsu, I felt connected to the work for another reason: I am a huge romantic. Although one could argue that the work was incredibly depressing, I would still argue that put into context, the text was littered with rich examples of human love and emotion that was very different from any of the other texts we were reading. Therefore, when it came time to write a paper, and I was allowed to write about whatever I wanted, I jumped on the chance to not only write about the two texts I loved, but to write about what I knew. As a result, my paper had greater depth and insight and won me my first A in Core.

However, Core was not the only time I have been given the opportunity to write about what I know or love, seeing as in almost all of my other classes during which I have written analytical papers, I was given at least one assignment where I was forced to chose my own text and topic. Knowing that this is often the case, I am left to wonder why so many students still chose topics that are incredibly dull to them because that’s what they think the teachers want and just want to get their paper finished. The wonder of being in college is that, for the first time, we get to take the classes we want, chose the professors we want, and even think the way we want. Therefore, it amazes me that so few students take this opportunity to actually do so.

In one of my upper level English classes last semester, I had to peer edit two of my classmates work as a part of our revision process. Although the text I chose to use was one I found challenging and I would be no means ever pick up on my own to read casually, I still selected a topic that focused on the diverse female characters in the work, which were far and few in between. However, I was amazed to see that the students whose work I was editing had not only chosen the texts that, despite being one of my teachers favorites, were universally thought to be the most confusing and unexciting. One writer overly simplified a complex subject and the other’s paper was so verbose and puzzling that poking my eyes out seemed a better alternative to finishing the paper. I think the reason the drafts resulted the way they did was the direct result of the students choosing a topic they didn’t really like and therefore, did not really work to fully understand. Instead, they were writing to write. What amazed me though was that our teacher had explicitly encouraged students to choose a topic that excited them and that made them passionate. Therefore, it seems to me that not only are the writing patterns established in high school hurting the freshman writers of Core of FYS, but, to some extent, still plague the minds of even more advanced writers.

http://www.creativenonfiction.org/brevity/brev34/johannesen_cw.html

Link to the story, “Intro to Creative Writing” by Dani Johannesen

Sorry To Be the Bearer of Bad News

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. 

Using Personal Examples to Respond to "My Teacher Hates Me"

 Blog Entry 1

When we read the article “My Teacher Hates Me” for our last class I found it to be very applicable to my own experience teaching and as a high school student. When Perry says that “students often engage in “pseudo-academese,” an artificially inflated prose style that they believe is a key to success,” I felt as if I was back in my Senior Year struggling to figure out why my teacher in my creative writing class had given me a B when I had worked so much harder than anyone else in the class who had received an A and I concluded that she just disliked me. However, several months afterwards when I was cleaning my file cabinet, I found a copy of my paper again and finally understood. I had written it in an attempt to sound more creative and intelligent and therefore, more mature. In actuality however, all I had really done was leave my paper bleeding with too many adjectives and had lost my reader by using words I didn’t really know how to use effectively, but that I thought sounded “good” in my paper.

Although I have yet to have any experience working as a Writing Consultant, I have for several months worked as a writing tutor for international students whose first language is something other than English. I have found several common trends amongst my students that this article also addresses, but the most applicable is the statement that students often “express frustration over the “devaluing” of personal observations and experience in the sciences, and the need to couch everything in order to achieve credibility.” The sentiments that the article expressed by making this claim were often, in my experiences, translated into two types of writing: unsupported arguments and summary of one particular authors ideas, as well as, repetition of previously stated thoughts. I remember the first student I tutored came to me with his essay that was supposed to be a research paper on a topic of his choosing. I read through the paper and it not only became clear to me that he was doing everything he could to be “done” with the paper, but also, I was amazed to find that, although he summarized the ideas of a few authors, repeating himself, he had failed to use a single quotation in his entire paper. Although shocked at first, when I asked him about what he was arguing, I realized he himself had very little idea. I have seen this patter repeat with several of my students. I find that its not necessarily just a frustration in having to reiterate someone’s words the way Perry states, but more over this problem stems from having an unclear argument or lack of thesis, but wanting to just “get it done” and therefore, the student just writes a brain dump of information that often only shares the common trend of being about the same topic. When I finally figured out that the statement explaining what my student seemed to want to talk about and argue was actually on page 3, it became clear to me that his inability to find quotes to support his argument came from his not really having any focus when he started writing, but had just kept writing to finish it. When we moved those few sentences he had written from page 3 to the beginning of the paper, he seemed to feel more focused and understood how he was going to alter the rest of his paper and began thinking of evidence he could use to support his idea.