At the end of last class, Professor Dolson posed a very interesting question. She said,
"If most people are coming into the writing center in order to get an A on their paper, what is our role as consultants?"
After she asked this question, I wrote it down and thought about it for awhile before actually writing this post. The following day I asked a friend of mine who works in the writing center what she thought the answer to the question was. She said that all too often students come in who are somewhat reluctant to be there and could not care less about how their writing changes but more about the grade they receive. She did say though that there are students out there who go to the writing center in the hopes of achieving more than just a grade, and that's what makes working the writing center worthwhile.
Once I heard her say that, I was brought back to my initial thoughts in class on Wednesday. For me, as a writing consultant, I will always try and help the writer as much as possible. The way I think of it, the paper that we edit is merely a medium through which we change the writer. Those kind of changes make it worthwhile for people to visit the writing center not only because of the grade they receive but also because of the improvement in the actual process of writing.
I have been thinking about this too, Emma. So often I feel like students are just concern with getting good grades in general and not about the broader education. Haven't you heard a student say "Well that class sounds really interesting, but I hear the professor is really hard so I'm not going to take it"? I wish that there wasn't such an emphasis on grades and more on the learning process. If students had that mindset they would be much more willing to take that challenging class and learn a lot. This goes right a long with students taking risks with their writing. If students were not so concerned with their grades they might take a creative leap!
ReplyDeleteI deffinately agree with you, Allie. I think that there is a big difference between writing what you know you're comfortable with and then writing what you would love to write if you wouldnt be feeling the academic consequences. I think that you can read an "A" paper and a "C" paper and probably not always know which one is which... grades seem to be so random and subjective but everyone spends all thier time worrying about them.. I wonder what kind of work we could produce if it were consquence free!
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