RE: Big Yes for Formulaic Writing

[Katherine Fischer <kfischer@keller.clarke.edu>]

Robin,
I don't think I'd suggest to a client that s/he purposely take the writing
and go against the teacher's dictate.  But let's say the client (let's
call her Anne), let's say Anne comes in with a good strong piece of
writing.  She's been told to write a research essay for her sociology
class about absentee fathers.  Her essay is a dialog between a persona and
her own father, thinly disguised masks for the writer and her father.
Let's say she has documented research within the text of the dialog.
Let's say she's persuasive even if she's not using Aristotlean logic.
Let's say she brings in all kinds of arguments and raises all kinds of
questions and never quite concludes becasue the complexity of the issue
is, after all, inconcludable.  Would I, as tutor or trainer of tutors,
tell Anne she'd better drum up a thesis and whip this into essay form?  No
way.  I'd be pleased to suggest she visit with her teacher about the
essay, pleased to make a call on her behalf and the essay's way of
launching acceptable, albeit alternative, research discourse.  We are
student advocates, after all, si?

And we can give workshops across the curriculum.

We can mingle.

We can question.

Katie

On Mon, 1 Jun 1998, Robin R Wright wrote:

> Everyone,
> This discussion is both fascinating and disturbing.  Personally, I abhor
> the 5P theme and spend a great deal of time when teaching 101 and 102
> trying to dissuade my students from using it.  However, if they must they
> must, and if the content is adequate, I don't fault them for it (although
> I do cry into my pillow at night).
> 
> I agree with most of you who argue against teaching the 5P.  However,
> since we work in writing centers, our job is to teach the student whatever
> his/her instructor wants, isn't it?  As much as we'd love for students to
> write for the love of expression, what they really want is a good grade,
> right?
> 
> The most difficult part of running the writing center, for me, is dealing
> with assignments from the 150 teachers in our English dept. who all
> require different things.  We in the center have to learn which
> instructors teach the 5P, persuasive format, modes (ugh!!), etc and help
> the student accordingly. I often feel I'm selling out my personal
> pedagogical ideals in the process, but I need to give the student what the
> student needs.  They depend on that.  Can we afford to proffer our own
> teaching methods in the center at the expense of the student?  Many
> instructors make me cringe and pull my hair out by the roots, but my job
> is to keep the student from seeing the pain I feel when I read over their
> writing assignment.
> 
> OK, so I'm venting.  I just wanted to see what everyone REALLY DOES in the
> center when the various formulas are presented as the only way to
> write-not by students but by their instructors.
> 
> Your colleague and self-confessed sell-out,
> Robin Wright
> Writing Center
> Athletics Department  
> University of Tennessee
> 
>