My main office hours visitor this semester was an insecure freshman – a nursing major – with very low confidence in her writing abilities, a strong work ethic, and a desperate drive to earn an “A.” After each rough draft was due, she would visit me to discuss how to revise her work. I would hand back her paper with edits and suggestions. Many comments were abstract, such as “This needs more explanation,” or “Why is this claim relevant?” that I hoped would prompt some reflection and meditation on her paper before diving back in.

But students don’t want abstract advice. They want concrete tips and assurance that a specific edit will fulfill the requirements of “good writing.” So in response to my suggestion that the student explain the connection between a certain paragraph and her thesis, my students asked, “So I could just add a sentence here explaining that having a target audience is related to social campaigns because campaigns use advertising?” (or something of the sort).

“There are many different ways you could create the connection. An extra sentence is an option.”

“Well do you think it would work?”

“Probably, depending on how you word it.”

“What about this sentence? Is this right?”

“Sure.” Sigh.

“Is this right?” is one of the most frustrating questions in writing, because it elicits the (likely equally frustrating to students) response “There is no ‘right’ way to do this. Figure out what works for you.”

Students are used to their writing being objectively evaluated by teachers and standardized testing. From their perspective, grades are handed down from an all-knowing writing deity, and not on any subjective basis. Therefore, they begin to see writing as falling into “right” and “wrong” categories. But we know that grades and even general opinions on writing ability are highly subjective. Keats, Whitman and Bronte received scathing reviews in their time, and are now celebrated as “classic” writers. On some level, grading is doing a disservice to students by quantifying the possibilities of “good writing.” Beyond the ability to compose a decent thesis statement, I hope my students become self-aware writers, and this is something that can only be taught so much in the classroom.

I can’t tell how many students will carry their newly acquired writing skills with them, or if they’ll drop them the second they pick up their grade. But as long as a grade is at stake, I’m certain “Is this right?” will stick around.

Many people have posted about how other universities have different FYC programs that focus on a specific topic, and then the student can choose a topic in which they are interested. To be honest, I naively thought that’s how our classes were going to work. I come from a university whose FYC program is freely and loosely defined in its implementation. Instructors can take on whatever role they wish and can use whatever materials they want to use to teach the class. It allows for differing classes, such as “Hollywood of Poetry,” “Film,” and others ranging from medical novels to an entire semester on Pride and Prejudice (nothing against Jane Austen or those who like the book, but that just sounds like torture). Needless to say, my idea of my job before coming here was much more exciting than it is now.

I believe it better to allow instructors to teach what and the way they wish. Then you can have students identify, like in SPOTs, strengths, weaknesses, and teaching styles, along with content, that the instructor adheres to. Then incoming students can choose a class based off topic and teaching style. It allows the student to get the most out of the class.

Trying to work with this model a bit along with the idea that students should lead the classroom and the role of the teacher is the necessary mentor (expressivism), I often ask students how they wish the class would change, and then I do in fact change along those guidelines. However, I believe this only benefits the most outspoken members of the class.

As Danielle mentioned in an earlier post, formatting continues to be an issue that students refuse to bother to put any effort into. I’ve had one student that has not once had a correct citation on his paper nor turned in a paper without extremely large spacing between his lines. No matter what I say to him or write on his paper, it never changes. One of the most common questions I get asked in regards to this is “Why do we have to format it this way?” Granted, I honestly have no answer for that. Because it’s the way the organization set it up and the university decides to follow it? I honestly cannot answer why we format things the way we do, but I’m sure that if their boss at their job, if or when they have one, asks them to do things a certain way, they aren’t going to put their hands on their hips and ask “Why?” Lest anybody give these types of questions any sort of philosophical importance, the students are just trying to find ways to expand their papers to reach the page limit.

In trying to have students understand formatting, I’ve gone over it multiple times in class. I’ve even had them use sources in their free writing, such as a quote from a family member or friend, and then try to document that source in a Works Cited page. We’ve created citations together in class. I’ve done everything I basically can except hit them over the head with the MLA handbook, hoping that somehow information can be transferred in such a manner. This sounds like a somewhat personal rant, and it is. Formatting is by far the easiest points to receive full credit in, and those points are consistently blown or regarded as useless.

To borrow Natalie’s terminology, I’ve used the Yoga Teacher and Yoga Student approach, pushing them to understand. So, here’s my white flag waving in the wind and white towel strewn at my feet. Help here would be appreciated because I’ve no idea how to handle this.