Chapters 14, 15 & 17 Reflection

I will never forget when I was a junior in high school and I was in some writing/literature class. I honestly cannot remember the name of the class or the teacher, but I vividly remember one event that occurred in her class. The class, myself included, had completed a paper assigned to us. She returned them all without grades saying we all failed and she was going to give us an "opportunity" to redo them. I was appalled that every single person in the class had gotten an F on a paper, especially me (haha I considered myself a decent enough writer to at least pass a paper I worked hard on). I went up to her in class and asked if we could talk about what I needed to do to fix my paper. She literally said I had a weak thesis statement and needed to fix a few passive verbs (because those are absolutely never allowed in writing according to this teacher). I sat there thinking "you have GOT to be kidding me. She could not give me any more guidance than THAT on a FAILING paper?!?" It was ridiculous. The paper was not F material, she was just either lazy or incompetent, I think maybe both. I literally changed my thesis statement and a few passive verbs to active and "magically" got an A.

This horrifying display of "lack-of-conference" or any productive criticism for that matter is in direct contrast to chapter 14 on conferences. I think if you are a teacher (especially a high school literature and writing teacher) and you will be grading students' papers, you need to know why you are giving them the grade they are receiving and what exactly they can do to improve the paper. My freshmen (in college) literature professor understood this well and would meet with each students over coffee at least once in the middle of the semester to talk about our papers and what we could do to improve. I am sure this took a lot of her time, but it was far more productive to us students as developing writers, even at the college level. Like the book said, it not only helps us (or our students) grow as writers when we confer, it shows them that we care about them and take their work seriously.

In chapter 15 I love what is says about why we need to talk about our writing. It shows the students that their writing is valuable and it is encouraging to hear student responses as we develop a piece of writing. It is so true that the students have so much to learn from each other. So many times I will think I am hitting the nail on the head with a writing assignment (or any assignment for that matter) and as soon as I share with others and hear about their work, I realize I need to tweak something, or am inspired to change something of mine. I have to admit that even when I am slightly timid to share what I write sometimes, I also tend to get excited at the prospect of getting feedback and support from my classmates.

I cannot tell you how many times I am in the classroom during writing time and a student will raise their hand, I will come over and they will just look up at me, then at their paper and sit there. At first I was confused but now I realize they just want me to read what they have written and tell them what I think. They are even open for corrections. I love this because it shows they are not afraid of their mistakes and are proud of their work.

In chapter 17 I love the idea of asking our students questions we don’t necessarily already know the answer to in order to show them that they have the answers and we take them seriously as writers and as students. I love this quote from page 213, "You have questioned the student into believing he has an answer to this, and when you get behind the answer, the student is able to build an identity for himself around this answer". Haha so cool, I never thought about it this way!

As a last note, I agree that it is important to have the teacher, classmates and the writer him or herself evaluate the writing of each individual. While students do know their writing the best, as instructors it is our job to keep them in the right direction and we know where their writing should be. As for the peers, it is good for them to see other writing at their level and learn to give positive criticism.