A Simply Complicated World

I find it ironic—many students could simplify the writing process by simply complicating their thesis. “Simply Complicate.” Could this be the next Writing Center slogan? A student sits down for a session and I say, “Let’s make this complicated for you.” Ha. Most would probably run screaming, yet complicating is precisely what we need to do if they are going to be able to make a successful argument.

It seems that there’s been a wave of argumentative papers (and students, eh Whitby?) in the WC lately. My favorite technique is to play devil’s advocate via the “potential reader.” Like all of you, I ask questions in an attempt to help the students find their argument, its weaknesses, and parameters. They usually don’t get angry with me because it’s the reader we’re arguing with. It’s very interesting to watch thought processes—and sometimes the lack thereof. A few favorites from this week: Water Pollution is Bad; This Novel Contains Humor; Teacher Salaries Are Low.

A certain student who shall not be named here (a WC regular) wanted to write about teacher salaries (see above). I was asking questions, trying to guide him toward a thesis statement that someone might actually want to argue against. “Oh! I get it!” he said. His new thesis: Pay Higher Teacher Salaries Damn It.

OK, we don’t always win. On to the slacker portion of this prompt.

I have a complaint.

Several weeks ago, WSU placed one of those radar-speed limit signs at the bottom of the hill by the visual arts building. You know the type—it flashes your speed as you drive by, so that in theory you will obey the posted limit. As I walked by it on that first day, it lit up. Apparently I was walking 10 m.p.h. I looked around, thinking maybe it had tagged a passing car. Nothing on the road but me. I felt pretty good about myself. The next day I matched my time. On the third, I surpassed it. Fourteen mph. On the fourth, I outwalked two guys and a slow-moving WSU bus. Amazing. But then my world was shattered. Like a student who got all A’s in English 1010 and then hit reality in 2010, I figured out that there was no possible way that I could be walking 14 miles an hour, even if it were downhill. Whitby—who was clocked walking at 10 mph herself—pointed out that I would have to be really hoofing it to reach those numbers. And then suddenly the sign, and my fun, was gone. Was this a cruel joke? Was WSU trying to scare me into walking slower? Am I on camera somewhere, elbowing my way past two students and a slow-moving bus?

Things are rarely what they appear to be. Life is so complicated. At any rate, I’m going to be ready for that sign if it ever reappears. Watch out, Bob. I’m in training.

A Variety of Thoughts

I once had a girl come in with a paper her professor had asked her to rewrite. He had commented that it sounded like an advertisement and not an essay. Upon reading her paper, I was surprised and a little amused to realize just how right the criticism was. This girl has a successful career in marketing ahead of her, but she simply did not understand the idea of looking at both sides of an issue,or have the ability to recognize weaknesses in her egregious claims.

So I talked to her. Her writing wasn't bad, just bombastic. I asked her what people didn't like about her topic, and why people who disagreed felt the way they did. She looked at me like I was an idiot, and proceeded to explain why anyone who disagreed with her was an idiot. Explaining that it actually helps you look smarter if you admit you have opposition, and can show why you're right, I tried to get her to at the very least include a paragraph starting out with something like "Some morons think that....but they are obviously socialists and hippies." Or something. Anything. The logical fallacies in her paper were begging for attention, but I would have taken any little concession at all.

I can't tell you if her paper had any comma splices, but we did spend a lot of time talking back and forth about her paper topic. By the end she had agreed to do more research and find some counter arguments to put in her paper. I learned a lot about her topic, and I learned even more about the way she thought about the world.


Now on to a slacker subject: I love politics. And it has been fascinating to watch the post-election process on both sides of the aisle. The state constitutional amendments, the senate and house races and now the new power dynamics, Palin's political future, Obama's positions. All so fascinating.

In other news, over the past year, I've been entreated to drop my childhood dream of going to an "ivy league trade school" and instead join the gallant ranks of professorship. Not long ago, one of my poly sci professors asked me to go to his office so he could ask me a few questions. After we'd completed the business at hand, I was surprised to hear what is now a familiar question "Have you ever considered grad school?." I'm not opposed to grad school; indeed, I know I'm just masochistic enough to enjoy it. But I'm fascinated by law and it really has been my childhood dream to go to law school.

Up until a few weeks ago it had only been professors who pushed the idea of grad school. Then, a certain professor who shall not be named here, jokingly recruited a friend of mine to recruit me to grad school. I introduced him to the possibilities that exist with a law degree, showed him a few programs that offer a joint degree in law and French, and watched as his future transformed. I blog about this because Michael and I joke that we really should tell Dr. Rogers that I convinced Michael to go to law school - that is, unless he bombs the LSAT - instead of the other way around.

Extrapolating Meaning and Using Sources

I have been working with a student in one of my classes that needs help with complicating her thesis and research. I encouraged her to come to the writing center, and now we are working away on this issue.

I made progress yesterday in helping her to understand how to use sources. When I mentioned her lack of sources because our class is a bibliography class, she looked at me puzzled and said, "But I quoted all the books." She was referring to My Antonia, Pride and Prejudice, and The Age of Innocence. It was then I realized that we had a disconnect. She did not know that she needed to use secondary sources. So, we spent a good ten minutes going to the library website and searching JSTOR, the MLA Bibliography, and Project Muse. I explained the difference between primary and secondary sources. She thanked me profusely and explained that whole new world had opened up to her. She was also relieved that finding journal articles did not mean spending hours searching through books in the library. (She is an older, nontraditional student who once did research this way.)

As to complicating the thesis, I am not sure if she is understanding that part of it yet. We will keep working on it. However, so far I have tried to explain that a thesis cannot just be a theme. We have talked about how she must extrapolate meaning from that theme. In other words, there must be a point. She nods and thanks me for this advice, but then later in our conversations mentions that she just needs a theme and then she can write forever. So, I cannot yet tell if she has understood what I am trying to convey. In our next session, I will try what most of you mentioned in class: asking questions. If I engage her into some sort of dialogue about her theme, maybe we can extract a point, and because it will be her idea, she may latch onto it more readily.

It has been enjoyable to work with this student. I am finding satisfaction in helping her to understand how to write analytically. It is nice not to focus on spelling, commas, or grammar, but instead content and organization. The part of writing that intrigues me is the process of thought. Helping her to find a thesis and stick with it is fun!

Memory...all alone in the moonlight...my attempts at a slacker prompt

Slacker prompt…hmm…slacker prompt…hmm… I could probably go five hundred words doing just that, couldn’t I? Actually, I guess I’ll take this time and space to reflect on my experience in college and with tutoring in the writing center so far. This time last year I was busy filling out college applications and applying for scholarships. It’s so funny how long ago that seems now. I remember that I was planning on going to the U of U and that college seemed so far away to me at that time. Probably just like everyone as a senior in high school, I really didn’t think it would ever happen, that I would really graduate and actually have to go through the motions of starting at a (gasp) university. But I have and I did. And I pretty much love it.
I was so ready to graduate by about December of last year that the rest of the spring semester felt like a total waste. I focused on my academic classes mostly as well as applying and competing for scholarships, which eventually got me to where I am today. Now that I look back on it, those two things were really the only things that mattered within the confines of my incredibly busy high school experience, but at the time, like every confused teenager, my priorities were usually a little skewed. However, although I entered my university experience with, what I thought, was a taste for what college classes were going to be like, I realized that I had a good part of it wrong. For example, this bibliographic essay is something unlike anything I have ever done before. That is probably why its makeup seems to foreign to me as I write it and why I feel so unsure of what I’m doing…but hopefully it will start to feel better as I go. I always seem to feel that way at the start of every class I take, but what is so interesting about the college schedule is that we already completely switch classes when it comes to January. That will probably be an adjustment for me too.
Anyways, the writing center has been a really good experience for me, once again as it is completely different from anything other tutoring job I have had. It is very interesting when students come in toting their children with them, sit down, and ask me to help them with their paper for their medical class. The tutoring is not the same as the kind I did last year, mainly in the fact that I am not at least four years older than the people I am helping. In fact, I’m usually younger than my “tutees” or at the very best the same age. The Athletic Study Hall is a whole different matter where I feel completely swamped by the eighty big guys who are in there. However, that certainly requires more effort to keep them focused on my part, unlike tutoring in the writing center which is often used by students who genuinely want help and are not forced to be there (with the exception of the 1010 professors who require their students to get help). But, overall, I enjoy both jobs just as much as I enjoyed my very different tutoring experiences that I had last year.
Well, I’ll stop the nostalgic spill now, but it was a slacker prompt after all….

Teaching Students To Think Analytically

I wish we had read this chapter about five weeks ago, or maybe even at the beginning of the semester. (I know that has been documented, but I just wanted to re-enforce the idea). The concepts in Rafoth's article are essential to tutoring students. I had a student come in at the beginning of the semester and most of her paper was one gigantic quote. It was kind of funny. We began reading her paper and she led into a quote. I thought, "this is good, she knows she needs some backup information." But then she kept reading and reading and I kept looking for the ending quotation marks and they did not come until the end of the page. The whole page was a quote! I tried explaining to her that usually quotes are smaller and should only be used to supplement her own words. By the end of the third page, when I kept telling her she would have to cut out most of the quote and re-write she was becoming a little hostile. I don't know if explaining the idea of quotes to her as a backup singer would have worked, but maybe the metaphor would have helped her understand. I kept trying to gently suggest she use her own words, but she didn't understand why, when the quote she had copied and pasted sounded great and was exactly what she wanted to say. I would like to try the session again and use the words, "backup singers" to see if that strikes her fancy. She may understand that quotes are used to support her own ideas, not negate her own ideas. At least she put quote marks around it and did not pass it off as her own writing. We're all grateful for small favors sometimes.

I also liked the explanation of complicating a person's thesis. I had another student come in who had a thesis which did encompass her paper, but it was similar to the thesis "This is bull." She said she had gotten some feedback about her thesis and that it needed to be expanded, so I read it and then tried to explain why her thesis was okay, but could use some work. We read her whole paper and I gave her some suggestions for complicating the thesis, but at the time I did not know how to talk about complicating the thesis. I knew it needed to happen, but I wasn't sure how to explain the concept to the student. I guess it's much like grammar. We all know how to use the language and it makes sense to us, but we often lack the tools to talk about grammar or language rules. She seemed to understand my suggestions, so let's hope her thesis improved slightly and she did well on her paper.

While I do not propose that we have even more reading at the beginning of this class, some of these readings would be helpful to have right off so we can be given the tools to talk about the things we are trying to teach the students. The more comfortable we feel talking about writing the more comfortable we will feel helping students with their papers.

Slacker Prompt

Apologies for the delay in getting a prompt up, folks.  Call this week a slacker prompt and write about what you will.

Or.

You might describe for me how you go about getting students to make their arguments more complicated.  I'm sure you know what I mean.  You have a student whose thesis is "Gun control is stupid" and who doesn't seem to push the argument much beyond that.  How do you approach it?