1) I found Pat Belanoff's conversation on grading and assessment very interesting. In the article, Belanoff described grading students as going hand in hand with teaching them how to conform.I think this was an excellent example when thinking of the counter-intuitive approach of evaluating writing using a hierarchical approach. I want to ask Belanoff what he thinks would be a better way to prepare students for the kind of assessment they receive in composition classes. As established, composition requires a more subjective system of assessment, thus how can we deprogram students' expectations or tendency to compare themselves with one another. I know in my own experience student's love to compare themselves to others, how can we put these experiences in context if we are talking about writing?
2) When looking over the Richard Straub piece and his conversation on teacher response as conversation, I think that Straub highlights important misconceptions about composition. Often times students carry a misconception that good writing is a perfect process. For example, students might think that a "good writer" is someone immersed in the field of English who understands all the rules of grammar and produces polished papers over the course of a couple of hours. Straub breaks down this process by pointing out the value in beginning writing that the shitty has value because of how the experience develops "young writers." I would like to ask Straub how we can extend this conversation to include other aspects of composition. How can build confident writings from the beginning? Is this a process that can be encourage from high school or is it required for college students to be the only "mature-enough" writers that can see the professor as someone to engage in a conversation with and see as mentor?
As I admitted in my own questions, I do tend to compare students’ work to each other as a reflection on my effectiveness as an educator. I also want to see growth in them individually. But the comparison I think helps me as well to frame something so subjective as writing. I do believe the satisfactory versus unsatisfactory grading that Belanoff mentions could help to "deprogram" some of that competition, or at least direct it into a more creative means. At the same time (and maybe it does not belong in early composition and that is the whole point), competition can lead to better and stronger work. As usual, a clear answer is not so easily found.
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