1. In Sommers' article she talks about how her students where reluctant to use the words "Revision" and "rewriting." I personally did not quite understand the reasoning behind this that Sommers was detailing, so, does this lexical aspect really matter for the mindset of students? Do you think we should think about the words we are using when teaching during this writing process?
2. Bishop articles addresses grammar and the different ways how to teach it and how grammar is dealt with as a part of writing. As a writing center tutor, the number one thing that most students usually want help with is grammar. And it just seems that grammar as an institution is fading as many teachers do not seem to focus on it when it comes to grading. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Should there be more of a focus on teaching grammar, or is it fine because it can be considered as that quick fix stage and is not the most important point of writing?
Antonio, I am too perplexed by the fading aspect of grammar in the classroom as Bishop suggests. I do however understand her emphasis of content over grammar. I see her argument being relative because if students use just a little of the power of MS Word, they can be grammatically savvy. Mind you, that I do not place MS Word higher than a solid grammar background, but I do think that as college instructors by utilizing the technology at hand within MS Word we can focus on bigger issues like content, organization, argument, genre, etc. So I neither see this as a good thing or a bad thing but I see this as something to think about and be wary of.
ReplyDeleteHi Antonio - I did find it interesting that the words choices used by the students denote a level of understanding of their revision process. I think it does play an important role in how they understand that particular process. I specifically found "redoing" to be a little disturbing because it was as though that student regards the writing as either right or wrong indicating this level of "first draft perfection" mentality. Some of the students used "reviewing" as a means of saying that any changes needed were specifically at the word or microscopic level instead of any necessary global changes. Sorry for the rambling but I do feel as though the words that we use or more importantly, the words that students use can give us an understanding of how they view that process which allows us to better impact that understanding.
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