Thoughts

Multiple articles we’ve read have presented the idea of focusing on the student rather than the paper in a writing center session. In the article “Minimalist Tutoring: Making the Student Do All the Work,” Brooks seems to be taking this concept to the extreme. Although I agree that making students take initiative in the process of revision is very important, I also know through my own experiences in the writing center that getting actual feedback on a paper can be helpful. I don’t think I’ve ever had a session where the advisor actually had no response to my paper and tried to make me come up with critiques entirely on my own. Still, these theories about minimalist tutoring bring me back to North’s statement, “our job is to produce better writers, not better writing,” which, as some of us have mentioned previously, can be a little misleading/inappropriate. Discussing the particular paper at hand and helping the writer to find ways to improve it can help the writer make mental notes of how to improve his or her writing in the future. I am not sure if it would even be possible to “produce better writers” if we did not help the writers see what is needed to produce “better writing.”

The issue of students who come to the writing center hoping to get a good grade on a paper is hard to criticize. The structure of schooling since we were young has encouraged this outlook, and in some cases the students who care about their grade also care more about their work than others do (I’m not talking about those who merely wish to avoid failing a class—that presents a very different problem). As an example, I will present my own case.

I have been guilty of avidly following this reward system of grades and grade point averages since I was in elementary school. I’ve always been a straight-A student to a fault—I recall an occasion in seventh grade when I received a B+ in a class and didn’t know how to handle it. I am embarrassed by this past obsession now, although I habitually continue to strive for As. I truly do enjoy learning, though. The problem with this high-achieving standard for grades is that it draws the focus away from the learning process itself and instead leads students to relentlessly struggle along this ranking system that supposedly has some correlation to success in the world beyond. It’s quite disheartening for me to think about—many people seem to miss what is truly important. Anyway, the point of this rant is that I do care tremendously about learning and improving my own skills, but I also am a member of a society that has led me to care about my grades. I know there are many other students like me who come to the writing center, and I don’t think they should be viewed in a negative light for caring about how their work will be received according to the reward system that affects us all.