Blogging each week has helped me to discover new things about what I would like my teaching philosophy to be. Practically speaking, I have been able to look back at previous blogs in order to extract information about my teaching philosophy, which I did not know was there. For example, after completing the 12 Readers Project, I have formed a new awareness about responding to student writing. In combination to what Sommers and Lindemann have to say about it, I found that I was one of those teachers whose perspective was limited when it came to responding to student writing. I did not usually look for the things that were good, and in most cases, I was so focused on correcting a students' paper, rather than giving them the opportunity to become involved in the revision process themselves. In short, I have evolved.
I have been thinking about what I would like to discuss in the few remaining weeks. One of the things that I would like to discuss is how do you deal with overlapping information that students say they receive when they are taught by different English instructors. This discussion is in no way to undermine an instructor, but to understand how and why students (at least the ones that I have tutored at CSUDH) get locked into this notion that if they were taught to write a certain way, that there is no room for further instruction, or that your instruction is "simply wrong." Before I give an example of this, I have thought about the why of this question. Students become paralyzed when they fear that further instruction will diminish what they have previously learned, because it means they may have to revise more, or think of alternative ways to write outside of the restrictions of the five paragraph essay, that I will be discussing as part of my Prospectus.
I was previously working with a third year undergraduate student (CSUDH). He asked me to look at his paper, and upon making some suggestions, he immediately said, "That is not how my teacher taught me." In that moment, I thought two things to myself: First, "Then, why are you wasting my time asking for my help" and "What do you mean that is not how your teacher said to do it." The suggestion was about subject verb agreement, comma use, and lack of transition. I explained to him that perhaps you misunderstood your teacher, because there is not much to refute when it comes to subject verb agreement. In the context of a sentence that I looked at with him, I explained, "That you cannot have a plural subject and use a singular verb. And you should have a comma after this introductory clause"-- I also said, "You may think about using a transitional phrase." Needless to say, he lost it. He couldn't believe that he was being told something new and different, at least the way he understood it. Obviously I do not believe that his instructor gave him this information, but that he clearly did not grasp the information. My point is: Students' can sometimes get trapped in this box, and often times (at least from my experience) they are not teachable because they fear learning something new will somehow inhibit their ability to write successfully. They hold on to what they have been previously taught as gospel, and it leaves very little room for them to enhance their writing. Writing is a process, and in my experience you are able to reach new heights by mastering the stages prior to it, but having writers' block and simply being "stuck in limited thinking" are pitfalls that some students cannot get out of. The example that I described is just to name one that is quite common. I have had more complex discussions with students that surpass mechanical issues, to discussions about semantics and absence of a thesis.
At any rate.... Although I understand you can only teach a student who wants to learn, I would like to know how to deal with those students who want to go the distance with me, to truly understand why the process that they previously used in which to write, could perhaps be viewed from an alternative perspective.
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