I've been thinking lately about the effect on a person -- me, perhaps -- that the continued reading of student writing has. I mean, what happens to expectations about coherence, fluency, style when one (me?) is inundated with novice/student/practicing writers? What does this immersion do to one's (my?) sense of the possibilities and polish of writing?
Maybe it makes me more compassionate, although I think I see a LOT more ridiculously unprofessional writing coming from my college's employees (don't ask). Maybe it makes me more pliable, able to make meaning out of discontinuity and sincere attempts at communicating. Maybe it makes me stuck, unable to recognize written prose as a communicative artifact instead of a thing to be graded. Maybe it makes me stupid. (That's truly what I worry about: that I lose a critical edge and then find any half-way coherent, innovative utterance to be impressive when it's merely pedestrian because I'm so used to seeing practice prose.)
Sometimes I think I should just quit reading all the writing my students produce (because I ask them to do so!), and indeed I don't read everything. But mostly, I want to know what they think, want to witness thinking on the page/screen, want to help them make sense of their own senses and sensations and sentience and sensibility. I really do.
Evacuation roots
5 hours ago
3 comments:
Julie --
As a longtime comoposition instructor myself, I appreciate what you're saying about the possible "rub-off" effect of reading clunky writing. Me, I find I have lost the ability to spell certain words correctly because I see them misspelled so often in student writing! Issues related to teaching writing and especially to media portrayals of our work are the focus of a new blog I wanted to call your attention to: the WPA-NMA WatchBlog. Check it out at htt;://comppile.org/watchblog.
Joel Wingard
Moravian College
Bethlehem, PA
Thanks, Joel.
I defiantly agree with you're point about spelling. ;-)
How did you come to read this post? I will certainly check out your blog.
Julie
During my first year at BNCC I saw pattern of terrible writing in some "all college" e-mails. Because the e-mails concerned a student group, I assumed the author was a student. I was shocked when I realized the author was the group's advisor, a tenured faculty member who holds more than a few leadership positions.
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