Twelve Little Things to Ponder While Sipping on Pina Colada During Spring Break

While the idea of having a “break” from school seemed appealing to me, I slowly began to see that this really wasn’t a break at all. I spent most of week pondering how I would approach the 12 Readers Project. I never graded a paper in my life, not in the professional sense at least. The only instances I had to rely on were my own graded papers that I dusted off and stacked on my desk. What did, and continue to help me in my journey through this project are the supplemental readings that were assigned. While Lindemann’s chapter on responding to writing speaks of setting goals for students, encouraging them the take new risks and establishing a climate of trust (233), I realized quite quickly that I didn’t have that chance with these students. I envision someday, that having a relationship with my students will be the case when I actually start my teaching career, but now the question is how do I approach showing my fictional student how to improve.

One of the articles that helped me tremendously in the formulation of my ideas is the Lumsford and Ede article. The article speaks to the writer as the audience as well as the contributor to the text. According to Lumsford theses roles are equal (158). I agree with this concept especially when I began to contemplate how I would respond to the student’s papers. Since I am still a student and have yet to tap into the teaching side, I took the stance that I would respond the way I would like for my professors to speak to me. I feel after reading some of the “professional” responses, they took on this authoritative voice that at most times became condescending. I think one should take into account when they are grading papers that the student did read their own writing so they know what it says, and with some form of certainty they deemed it acceptable to turn in. So a mere question mark after a sentence you do not agree with doesn’t help your student. With that being said, you cannot limit your responses to mere grammar and mechanics. These will hopefully iron themselves out…the meat of the critique should contain examples or comments that brings the writer closer to making effective writing. Voice or audience is a huge part in how we write. Wither it’s a fictional audience as Ong suggests or ourselves. While I am not too sure how well my responses will be received by my audience, I feel that I am closer to finding some kind of resolution. I think that a successful response would include putting myself in the writers shoes, and not removing myself from the process as a contributor to the success of the writing as well