Let's Cover Two Things...

I enjoyed the section about editing and it was quite timely with my job as a supplemental instructor. In our training on Friday we were discussing whether or not we should be EDITING student papers that are brought to us during tutoring. First, I think this goes back to defining what certain terms mean (like the chapter - or was it an article- we read earlier this semester about what revision means). I hadn't thought about EDITING meaning more than just helping with corrections. EDITING, it seems, has the strict definition of "fixing" every mistake in a paper. Also, I used to feel that I wasn't giving the student sufficient feedback if I wasn't editing every detail. After discussion with my boss (holla at Amanda!) I discovered that editing every mistake was actually detrimental for students as they wouldn't actually grasp WHY they were making the mistake but instead would just robotically retype what I had already corrected for them. I now only do nitty gritty edits on the introduction and (because 9/10 times students make the same mechanical errors throughout their papers) explain the mistakes and then have the student find these mistakes and correct them themselves in the rest of the essay (I realize that was a run on sentence). I was able to provide this technique as a piece of advice to another SI who was experiencing the same issue (it felt nice).

NEXT SUBJECTTTTT. As far as standardized tests go... BULL SHIT BULL SHIT BULL SHIT. As Lindenmann points out "Many researchers, however, insist that standardized tests aren't valid measures of writing performance" (223). Ummm or any performance for that matter. On the STAR testing in high school I used to draw designs because I knew I wasn't getting a grade, that my school was making money for me taking them and well I just didn't give a fuck about school, tests or ANYTHING for that matter.