Re: Wild Lunatic Meandering

[":)" <prvanhai@SVSU.edu>]

Richard,

> What is the experience of writing center tutors?  Do students come in
> with assignments from teachers who expect a very rigid, formulaic
> response?  

Yes, I see students come into the Writing Center with assignments
that expect rigid, formulaic responses.  But more than that, I see students 
come in to the Writing Center with assignments that give them
room to determine their own structure, but who are baffled and sometimes
even angry because their instructors "won't tell them what to do."  They
don't want to take the time to experiment and figure things out (because
often that's not what's going to be rewarded in the classroom). From the
perspective of a tutor in the Writing Center, I don't see the problem
of formulaic responses as perpetuated by rigid formulaic assignments.
Instead, I see the problem perpetuated by the way instructors correct and
grade assignments.  They write "good" and "bad,"
or sometimes don't write much of anything, but they don't take the time to
say "why" something is good or bad.  So students assume, and eventually
develop a mind set, that there is a good and a bad way to write.  If
students are going to understand that what works in writing is based largely
on the rhetorical context of what's being written, and if they are going
to see their writing as a series of rhetorical choices instead of an
adherence to rules about good and bad writing, then instructors need to
show this to the students when they evaluate assignments. 

>What should tutors do when they know that an essay written
> under such expectations will probably turn out less truthful, less
> insightful, less rewarding for the writer than an essay written with
> more elastic expectations?

I try to communicate to the students what I said above about writing
being a series of rhetorical choices based on the context.  Sometimes,
their context will be a rigid assignment.  So _the student_ is left with
the choice and responsibility of how he/she is going to write in that
situation.  I of course discuss the costs and rewards of making certain
rhetorical choices with students, but ultimately, I care more about them
developing into a writer aware of rhetorical choices than I do about them
acing a particular assignment because they mindlessly followed a rigid
guideline without taking the time to think about it.  

> Are writing-center tutors sometimes forced, knowlingly, to teach >
"failure"?

Not that I'm aware of.  I certainly hope not.

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Pam VanHaitsma
Saginaw Valley State University
prvanhai@tardis.svsu.edu

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