Reporting

[COBLENTZ@DT3.DT.UH.EDU]

I hate to beat a dead thread, but in trying to clear out my account, I
discovered that I have an opinion or at least a point of view about
the conference notes we write at the end of our conferences to send
to instructors.

In my fyc classes in particular, I am intensely interested in my writers'
processes.  They always hand in a process folder with all their formative
work in it.  I add the conference notes to that folder.  Sometimes they 
are irrelevant, but sometimes they pinpoint the place where the writing and
writer changed courses, sometime for the better, sometimes for the worse.
KNowing tutoring as I do, I rarely confront myself when I discover that the
paper went south in the writing center.  If I decide that that's what happened,
the conference note makes me read the paper again with different eyes.  
The notes give me a peek at a part of the process that I rarely see:  the
reasons a writer made a decision about writing.  

I give credit to others who teach writing or require writing in their classes
for wanting to know about how their writers produced the product.  I think 
that I use the information to help my students, and I hope that others do, too.
I learn a lot about the way students use feedback and thus a lot about their
sense of ownership of their writing.  With a portfolio, the decision making
takes on even greater importance, and I need as much insight as I can get to
make sure it's happening.

Linda Coblentz
UH-Downtown
coblentz@dt.uh.edu