On "Responding to Student Writing"

Sommer’s research in “Responding to Student Writing” feels implicitly connected to the idea of “Process, not Product.” This essay has assisted in further shaping my ideal pedagogy in that it presents the student as one who is truly open to, and capable of learning, and as someone seeking guidance from the instructor. In short, teachers must change their attitudes towards students; how they view students.

I believe that part of my job as a writing teacher is to help students feel comfortable with and understand that revising is an important part of the process. A writing teacher named Ron Estes once told me, “All writing is re-writing.” And so, I can foresee incorporating revision activities, such as what Sommers suggest, where the whole class is engaged in “revising a whole text or individual paragraphs,” not so much to alleviate anxiety about reducing “a finished” product to “fragments and chaos,” but so that they begin to understand that a well written product takes time¸ and that even the best writers sometimes need to modify, correct and rework a piece of writing.

Also, in the piece by Peter Elbow in his on “Ranking, Evaluating, and Liking,” he gives alternatives to simply “ranking” student work by giving an arbitrary grade. I like the idea of a student portfolio so that students can have a body of their work to compare, see improvements or areas where improvement may be needed. The only problem I see with a portfolio is that it would be the end of the semester before a student could see the benefit of the portfolio. I created such a portfolio in an advanced creative writing class, but in a composition class, I’m not sure the student could reap the benefit early enough to improve, and well, make the grade they desired to make.