A student walks into a writing center. She is a drop-in student. She asks you to "look at" her essay. You "look at" it. You make some suggestions. She says thank you and goes away. What is missing?
What is missing here is the assignment. What is it? Because if the assignment was to explain why honest news reporting is fundamental to the continuance of a democracy, and she wrote a fine essay about gender roles in television commercials, then she is not responding to the assignment. And right at the top of any requirement for a writing assignment is that it must respond to the assignment.
May I gently remind us all: ask about the assignment. Ask to read the handout (and hope there is one). And if the student doesn't have a handout, doesn't know the assignment, or can't clearly explain it, remember to explain to her that, while she may have written a very fine essay that maybe just needs a little work on the conclusion, that you can't really speak to whether or not she has satisfied that most essential element.
Ask other questions, too, before you "look at" a paper. Ask about the topic, about the writing process, and about the paper (even though you plan to read it in about five minutes!). If you make the student talk about her writing before you read, you will probably learn some things, like what she's most worried about, or what she's confident about, or what she doesn't know, or what she hopes to gain from working with you. When a student asks me to "look at" a paper, for instance, I often ask, "To what purpose? What work do you hope to get done?" I usually learn something useful to the session.
You make a very good point! I've had people come in without a prompt and, after working together awhile, they leave thinking they have a great essay in hand. They come back three days later wondering why they have a "C" and the teacher comments show that they didn't "understand the topic." It's amazing how many students do this. It's a good lesson to learn early, before wasting your time.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the assignment for the essay is extremely important to have when going over a students essay. Most of the time the teacher will map out all the structures that they want in the students essay. This helps for when we tell a student that they are missing information we can back our reasoning with the teachers own rubric.
ReplyDeleteI always ask for the prompt; However, most of the time the student doesn't have the promt with them. I do forget to inform the student that it might not be the essay the professor is looking for because of not having the prompt. This is a great reminder to have. I will have to remind myself to inform students that it might not address the assignment.
ReplyDeleteI have also noticed that many students come in and don't have a prompt with them. If I ask for the prompt and they say that they don't have it... I tell them that I will look at their paper, but they should come back with the prompt and have the paper looked over again (to make sure that is is on track).
ReplyDeleteI usually refuse to work on an assignment if the student does not have a prompt, or at least some notes written down from the day in class when the teacher went over the assignment. The other day, I worked with a student who insisted that her teacher did not give her a prompt--but I knew better because I am familiar with the teacher's practices. I kept on asking questions, and it turned out that the teacher had posted the prompt on blackboard instead of handing it out in class--this is happening more and more in recent months as our printing budget has been slashed.
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