Elbow’s article explores the importance of liking. He suggests that teachers make an effort to get to know and like their students. Doing so will make it easier to evaluate and offer meaningful, constructive comments. When we like our students, we approach their essays as a willing, friendly, reader who will offer genuine advice. He notes: “If I like a piece, I don’t have to pussyfoot around my criticism. It’s when I don’t like their writing that I find myself tiptoeing: trying to find something nice to say—and usually sounding fake, often unclear.” I’ve had this experience while grading papers. For papers that I struggle to get through, I always try to start off my end comment with something positive (“You have some really great ideas here…”). This is often difficult, and I’m sure I sound insincere to my students. In this sense, I am not the receptive reader that the student needs to like his or her own writing.
While it is important that teachers like student writing (and therefore are able to criticize it better) it is equally (perhaps, more?) important for students to like their own writing. They are more motivated to revise and rework a paper if they actually care about it and what they have to say. This makes sense. However, as we have all noted in class, in the office, and in colloquium, students are completely burned out on the topic of technology. They never showed much interest in the topic in the first place, so three essays in and their passion for the topic is nonexistent. In this case, I’m not sure how to get them to “like” their work when they care so little about the topic. While I can work on “liking” my students/student writings, I can only hope that they’ll be more invested in the next theme, thus allowing them to grow as writers and critical thinkers.