Writing Instruction: What do you want?
Moving on from the VERY large questions of what women want, what people want, and what the purpose of education is…to the concrete particularities of how to make your education what YOU want–>
what ideas and hopes do you have about writing instruction in this class? Would you prefer to be assigned to one of us (Laura or me) as your writing instructor: to meet w/ her and get written feedback on your papers just from her? Or would you rather switch back and forth between us as respondents? Or have the choice of doing either? (just to be clear: we are NOT offering the option of both of us responding to all your papers….)
Post your thoughts about this as comments to this post, please, so they will all be collected here, and we can have a heads-up about where to go w/ this in class….
Thanks!
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I’m not really sure what to make of this choice. I guess I feel like because I don’t know anything about what kind of comments each of you give, if I picked one of you it would be arbitrary, and then I would pick the other to get a sense of reference. Given that there are only a few papers, I guess I think I wouldn’t get enough of an idea of how either of you provides feedback to have a preference.
That said, I personally might prefer having one person comment on all of my papers. That way, she would get used to my writing style, sense of humor, etc. and might have an easier time of pointing out what I need to do to improve. In a way, it might be less about how comfortable I am with the person reviewing my work, and rather about how comfortable she is with my writing. If that makes sense.
anyway. I might want to switch if I feel like the comments I get from one of you aren’t working for me. But that instance aside, I’d probably like to just pick one and then stick with that choice for the semester.
I agree–I think that it would be good to work with one responder the whole time, so that you can judge how far we’re come over the course of the semester. And that way it would easier if someone decides to re-write a paper for the portfolio–you would know what changes went into it.
I agree with Hannah and Solomon on all points- I’d prefer just one person evaluating all of my papers.
Agreed… Though I feel like it would be nice to get someone else’s opinion for at least one paper.
Perhaps we start with just one reader, and later in the semester ask if we want to switch?
I also prefer having one person read my papers. About the switching idea: if the whole class is divide into two groups, maybe the two groups can switch at the end of the semester? Of course, not everyone may want to do this…
There are good aspects of both options. I like the idea of working with one professor so that she can see the progression of my work/thinking over time, and better help me develop my ideas and writing in that way. Since I have gotten used to English/education classes with around 20 people in them, this class seems a little overwhelming to me at times, and I think it would be nice to have some continuity in terms of who reads and works with me on my actual assignments.
Of course, it would be nice to hear the perspectives/advice of both professors, so the switching-later option is tempting… but if I had to choose, I would probably still go with the one-person-reading-them-all option. Perhaps if, after the first paper, there are students whose interests actually line up better with those of the other professor, or if for some reason we or Anne and Laura think it would be beneficial for us to switch, we could leave that as a possibility?
I would prefer rotating so that both instructors can read my writing. I’d like to hear different perspectives and reactions to my writing. One important thing I’d like to get out of this course is to develop my writing skills and I think it would help to know whether I am able to get my thoughts across to both instructors.
I think I would also prefer rotating. While I understand the perspective of those who want them read by one instructor, I feel that having opinion of both instructor will help me develop my writing so it is easily understandable by a wider audience.