Tobin

        I think many writing instructors and tutors share and have shared Tobin’s experiences in reading the adventures or mis-adventures of the stereotypical male student.  I know I have.   I’m aware of my own biases and I try not to let those biases interfere with my reading of any student essay and I always try delve into their essays with an open mind.  Some of the more interesting essays I’ve read were from males students who fit in Tobin’s classification.

I distinctly remember a student who had a passion for tagging which is what Tobin would call “embarrassingly male”.  What intrigued me about the essay is that it gave me a small glimpse of a world I’ve never seen before through a tagger’s perspective.   I often see tagging in places where one would think is almost impossible to get to such as at the very edge of a freeway over pass.  You’d be surprised in how innovative these guys can get in order to reach those kinds of places.  Anyway, according to him, his essay really wan’t just about tagging; for him, it was more about an artistic release.  But as I read on, I deduced that there may have been some familial issues he trying to deal with hinted through some paragraphs that weren’t as developed as the rest.  I’m no psychologist, but like Tobin, I found myself trying to pry.  I was really more interested in why he considered tagging to be an art and the process/rituals of tagging, but I did ask him why he included some paragraphs of his family.  Despite being open with me about his hobby, he really couldn’t answer the question.  He just said he’d think about why he mentioned them.  Unfortunately, I never got to see his revision.  

I think Tobin, in his conclusion, was right about addressing our own biases or else we’ll tend to overlook these “types” of students rather than guide them and even learn from them.