Re: Comments on Student Papers

[amoser@ruacad.ac.runet.edu]

As WC director, I would try to help him from this point, using the errors 
and problems displayed in this paper to teach him about writing and get 
him in touch with his own writing process.  Somewhere in this, I would 
tell him over and over that readers will have different reactions to his 
writing, that some of us are more irritated by errors than others, some 
of more acid-penned than others.  But I would try to cut to the chase as 
quickly as possible.  I have found out through bitter experience that I 
can't do much to soften the blows that others dole out.  This student 
obviously needs help.  I would spend my time doing that.  Help him to 
develop a thicker skin too.

Also I agree with the responder just before me.  If you think Greg has 
possibilities, and your experience will tell you that, let him know.  
Best luck.  May I use your example with my tutors?  Their reactions to 
situations like this have at times put us (the Writing Center) in the 
middle of a battlefield.  I guess their own experience is painfully 
recent.  I look forward to hearing other comments.
> 
> How would you or your institution handle this case, which dropped in my 
> lap half an hour ago?
> 
> Greg is a 29-year old Native student who was admitted to the University 
> on "probation" because he never graduated from high school (he attended a 
> tiny school in the bush). He came to my attention when the head of his 
> department ask me to help him turn his point form mid-term into essay 
> answers. She said he was one of the most committed students in her 
> program, that he was a real leader, that his ideas were good, but that he 
> simply had to learn standard academic format. This was not as simple as 
> it seemed. Although Greg was earnest and a delight to work with, his 
> knowledge of the content was more emotional than intellectual, he had 
> difficulty seeing organization patterns, he overvalued inflated 
> "politician's language" as he called it, and, when reading his prose 
> aloud, he routinely inserted words that he had omitted in the writing 
> (and sometimes could not see that the word was missing even when I 
> pointed it out to him).
> 
> Yesterday Greg received his final exam back from his first year 
> English (not composition) course. His long, take-home essay received 
> 10/50, an F. A huge chunk at the first was an extended quotation (without 
> quotation marks) ending with Greg's own citations form: [Cited in the 
> book etc. . .] The last half of the essay was error-ridden analyses of 
> poetry. Many technical errors were corrected; marginal comments were 
> "silly," "nonsense," etc. The only extended comment came at the end:
> "Where this isn't totally illiterate, it's copied from a book. There is 
> an argument somewhere in here, but the whole reads like a child's attempt 
> at speech."
> 
> How would you and/or your institution handle this?
> 
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