What I'm Discovering

“Sternglass carefully analyzes various comments that teachers wrote on the papers of the students in her study and finds that the more pedagogically-oriented the comment, the more likely the student was to improve his or her writing” (23).


I’m sensing a theme emerging from what I’m reading in my basic writing class. In “Braiding…” Gunter says we should incorporate student’s language into their writing. In “Facts…” I was inspired by the teacher’s careful attention to discuss errors rather than fix them for the student as well as the various other texts we had on revision. The way we answer our student’s paper will force them to make changes that causes them to think. How we want them to make those changes can start in how we answer their work. “Facts” talked about an automated response to revision, going through lists of known rules to apply to the paper the teacher is reading. The basic instinct is to fix what is broken.
However, in this class I’ve discovered that this isn’t always the best way to teach a student. I’ve used what I’ve learned at the writing center this semester. Instead of automatically fixing the sentence or a grammar issue I asked the student why they made that particular choice in their writing. This opens up a dialogue that is directly geared to how the student looks at their language choices. It is when I understand how they see it, I can explain how a comma, semi-colon, or quotes are used. “Sternglass concludes that teacher comments are important in the development of students’ writing skills…”(23). And as a writing consultant I can see why. There’s an ownership of knowledge and of learning the student takes on when responding to the questions on a returned paper. Some students come into the center traumatized by a professor’s comments unsure of how to move on. I find that talking about errors with student is more effective in fostering understanding than correcting it with little to no explanation they could use on their own.