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Week 2 |
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Response 1
Murray’s article bought about many “light bulb” moments. The idea that writing should be taught as a process made perfect sense and when I thought more about that idea, I was taught writing as a process. Draft after draft for weeks and then all of a sudden I had a final copy. How closely the professor looked at the drafts is up for debate. For all I know is that the checkmark really meant that I just did the work and he did not read the draft. The idea that, as teachers, we are looking for the student’s voice made complete sense. Too many times I wanted to write to please the teaching; I looked for the big words, complex sentences and yet I still did not have a paper I was proud of until I wrote to sound like myself. Though, how do we teach students to find their voice? Charney also had ideas similar to Murray’s. Charney suggested that students can learn by their peers when introduced to their writing process. I would never have learned how I write if it was not for listening to how other students wrote when I worked in the Writing Center. I just wrote, the idea that I had a process was unknown to me until I was presented with other ways people write. I was so interested in the different approaches that students took, and how students jumped when I suggested they could approach their paper for a different venue. Flower and Hayes’ article was interesting in that it made me think about paper topics. The article suggested student goals, which I even do without even realizing it. If students are setting goals for themselves, no matter how simple or complex, does it matter if the paper’s topic is specific or abstract? Will students set different goals for themselves if they are left to interpret the topic or will students strive better if the topic is concrete?
Response 2
I am having a hard time putting to words what I am thinking about with writing process currently. I am trying to figure out how I want to bring process into the classroom, how I want to help students develop their process (as talked in class), how I am going to balance my process with grading the students process? Am I going to unknowingly approach grading a paper differently because the rewrites or drafts are not as I would do them? I thought I had a handle on the writing process after the first batch of articles, which I do from the articles, but now I am questioning how to apply this in the classroom. What is the practical application? How am I going to differ in the application because of my interpretation of the process? Daniell’s article interested me in a sense that I wondered how many students are going to write an essay that will turn into an emotional release to an experience. I remember working with a student in the Writing Center who wrote about her abusive-drug using husband. Her paper had nothing to do with the class assignment but refused to alter her paper to fit the topic. She said her professor would understand and would be able to tell her writing ability from her paper. I do not know what happened to her paper. My initial gut feeling was that she would fail the paper and be told to do it again, this time following the topic. Her paper did not match the assignment. Will students try to alter topics to fit what they “feel” they want to write about? And then I am brought back to a previous question I asked myself, how abstract do I want my topic to be? Do I want students to be able to bring their emotion into a paper?
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