In reading Sam’s response I was struck by the advice he gave his girlfriends brother who is attending Rice: forget everything you know about grammar and punctuation, you utilize them perfectly, so now you can let them go. Focus on making the text come alive.
This is sound advice and worth applying to any of our own writing; however, is this advice able to be given to unskilled writers?
I focus on the idea of the unskilled writer, as the writing of the skilled—in this case, the student at Rice—seems to me a much less problematic pedagogical question. If our writer already utilizes grammar perfectly, the skills we need as tutors to encourage or help him along in finding his own voice are hardly a mystery. The advice you give—make the text come alive—is simply a recognition that what this writer really needs is time and dedication to his writing.
When a skilled writer comes to the writing center, and is both equally skilled in global and local techniques, they are usually there for criticism. This relegates the tutors role to a tertiary level since, as Donald Murray points out, his criticisms are irrelevant. That the student is there in the first place, crafting a written voice, is the important step. The skilled writer already is engaged in writing as a process, and therefore the tutors role becomes: help and encourage with what you can, but most importantly, stay out of the way.
But what advice do you give to those who cannot write complete sentences or are unsure of what separates two paragraphs. Even more perplexing, what about those students who “read in” the missing pieces of their written product? Sondra Perl, in her essay “The Composing Processes of Unskilled College Writers,” finds a case study in the freshman student Tony, who “consistently voiced complete sentences when composing aloud but only transcribed partial sentences…During rereading and editing, Tony supplied the missing endings, words, or phrases and did not seem to ‘see’ what was missing from the text. Thus, when reading his paper, Tony ‘read in’ the meaning he expected to be there.”
What advice or techniques does one start with now? This is certainly not rhetorical, and if anyone has something approximating real advice, I eagerly await it. This is the real issue. The five-paragraph essay or the three-paragraph essay is hardly the issue. Helping an already skilled writer does not inspire a bemused look on my face, especially since the help that a skilled writer needs can only be found when he is alone writing, discovering it for himself. We all know that such conventions as the three-paragraph essay are there for many reasons, none of which are to create inspiring work.
To open up dialogue to an infinitely more pressing and complex issue, how do you help Tony? How do you help an unskilled writer?
This is sound advice and worth applying to any of our own writing; however, is this advice able to be given to unskilled writers?
I focus on the idea of the unskilled writer, as the writing of the skilled—in this case, the student at Rice—seems to me a much less problematic pedagogical question. If our writer already utilizes grammar perfectly, the skills we need as tutors to encourage or help him along in finding his own voice are hardly a mystery. The advice you give—make the text come alive—is simply a recognition that what this writer really needs is time and dedication to his writing.
When a skilled writer comes to the writing center, and is both equally skilled in global and local techniques, they are usually there for criticism. This relegates the tutors role to a tertiary level since, as Donald Murray points out, his criticisms are irrelevant. That the student is there in the first place, crafting a written voice, is the important step. The skilled writer already is engaged in writing as a process, and therefore the tutors role becomes: help and encourage with what you can, but most importantly, stay out of the way.
But what advice do you give to those who cannot write complete sentences or are unsure of what separates two paragraphs. Even more perplexing, what about those students who “read in” the missing pieces of their written product? Sondra Perl, in her essay “The Composing Processes of Unskilled College Writers,” finds a case study in the freshman student Tony, who “consistently voiced complete sentences when composing aloud but only transcribed partial sentences…During rereading and editing, Tony supplied the missing endings, words, or phrases and did not seem to ‘see’ what was missing from the text. Thus, when reading his paper, Tony ‘read in’ the meaning he expected to be there.”
What advice or techniques does one start with now? This is certainly not rhetorical, and if anyone has something approximating real advice, I eagerly await it. This is the real issue. The five-paragraph essay or the three-paragraph essay is hardly the issue. Helping an already skilled writer does not inspire a bemused look on my face, especially since the help that a skilled writer needs can only be found when he is alone writing, discovering it for himself. We all know that such conventions as the three-paragraph essay are there for many reasons, none of which are to create inspiring work.
To open up dialogue to an infinitely more pressing and complex issue, how do you help Tony? How do you help an unskilled writer?
posted by Anonymous at 8:11 PM
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