At today's discussion about Stock's article, questions like how we help to create a culture of diversity and how MSU WC philosophy would challenge the institutionally defined ideas... I got reminded of the sweet and bitter experience with a client I worked with at SASS. That kid really wrote an interesting essay, successfully expressing his intent to his audience through the paper he laid out. I was so pleased to see how he exercised his agency and showed his intended style and identity in the paper. However, I was also afraid to tell him that the instructor who was gonna grade it really quick might not necessarily appreciate the sounding and quick pace (jumps)he put in the paper.
I feel sad in a sense that we, as writing center consultants, strive to create better writers, but just can't guarantee better grades for the clients. I know we don't give grades, but can we give some kind of recognition to clients' effort or creativity by publishing their works? If Trixie and Dianna would accept recommendations for clients' works to be published through the WC, I would love to recommend that kid's essay and put some kind of my (or the author's) annotation. It's just like an artistic work that sometimes needs a little bit explanation to be appreciated, if not graded.
How does MSU Writing Center publication sound? What a cool idea! Next summer project? or just another section on our website?
Comments
I think this is a really
I think this is a really interesting idea, but I wonder how we would determine which papers are good enough for publication. It might seem a bit elitist or segregating to publish some people's work and not others just because we make judgements on the caliber of the writing. I think there are other ways to give recognition to writing that's done well. For instance, verbal encouragement is always an easy way to acknowledge the student's work. I try to encourage all the students I work with by telling them what they did well and what works in their writing, so they will continue to use that in their future writing. However, I'm always careful to say that I'm not their professor and won't be grading them so I can't gaurantee that they will get a good grade on their paper. I can only give my suggestions. Publishing student writing is a really cool idea, but like I said before, I just wonder what sort of criteria would be involved in determining what good writing is that deserves to be published and who would be choosing what writing to submit? While it will make the student that is asked to publish their work in a WC newsletter or journal feel good, it might make other students feel inferior. That would be my biggest worry along with the subjectivity of the entire process. Would this be some sort of competition that students would participate in? And what type of student permission would we need? And who would be submitting their work? Students themselves or consultants?
Post new comment