On the cheerleading issue... I definitely agree that false praise is, well, annoying and unproductive. But I'm glad that the authors included praise about praise. Writing is such an intimidating thing, and an honest compliment can go a long way. On the other hand, now I'm thinking about what it's like to hang on every comment on a graded paper - how those can make or break me. That's not good either, even when it's positive feedback because I should feel proud of my hard work regardless of what anyone else has to say about it. hmm. So how do you help someone learn to feel good about her writing before anyone says anything (and without making her think she deserves that A because she wrote it)?
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
to cheer or not to cheer? (blog 1)
What would I like to learn more about? How not to do everything in chapter three. Especially how not to focus too much on editing. I think I might have a tendency to get hung up on that because I'm really comfortable talking about commas, parts of speech, and all that jazz. That stuff is concrete. For the most part, it's black and white - it's right or it's not, and I know how to tackle that. But show me an unorganized paper, and I might feel just as overwhelmed as the writer. And it can take a lot of effort to get my head around whatever it is the other person is talking (writing) about especially if he thinks it makes perfect sense.
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I think it's a good thing that you're comfortable with grammar and punctuation. However, I would hope this course will empower you to see the large picture: thesis, focus, structure, and organization. In future readings, there will be topics that split writing problems into high order concerns and low order concerns and you will see the importance and specific techniques in both that you can use so you will avoid becoming an editor and become a writing coach.
ReplyDeleteI agree that an honest compliment never hurts, but it should be accompanied by ways to improve constructively-to give a student options in their writing process.