Dylan Nice Blog Post 8


Given my advanced degree is in creative nonfiction, I should have a strong bias toward the Goedde essay on Lorraine. What was interesting, however, was how much the personalities of both Lorraine and Fan shown through, despite the pronounced difference in genre. Both students came across as confident, headstrong, and committed to their development as students and writers. Both essays, I thought, provided useful insights into the challenges of tutoring even very good students—perhaps good students bring their own set of unique challenges. Though I do find in my Writing Center tutoring that my stronger students are more well-prepared for the session, which always makes things a little easier (at the very least it allows us to be productive more quickly). 

The Goedde essay reminded me how difficult it was to teach literary writing and that I strongly prefer to teach academic writing (an unusual preference for someone with a Master of Fine Arts.) Part of why I prefer to teach and tutor academic writing is summed up nicely by Lorraine: “it is straightforward.” The aspect I appreciate most about teaching and tutoring academic writing is the greater emotional distance between the student and her work. It is easier, for instance, the tell a student that I'm having trouble parsing a thesis statement than to tell her than her essay doesn’t make me care about her grandmother.  

I appreciated that the case-study on Fan attempted to clearly measure learning. I envy math departments for their ability to show objective evidence of learning: improved scores. I wish that at the end of each semester I could show my rhetoric students what number they were when they came in versus what number they are upon semester’s end. “See?” I would tell them. “You improved by 10%.” I wouldn’t get greedy; 10% would be plenty

Comments

  1. Lucie BerjoanOctober 27, 2020 at 4:48 PM

    Such a good point about the unexpected similarities between the two pieces. I also found the depth of character shown in the academic piece to be refreshing. It's also interesting to me that you don't like teaching literary writing. I've always MUCH preferred it, but am realizing now that I've only ever taught it in a context in which everyone really, really wants to be there. I imagine this would shift a LOT in a school context, especially if it can count towards a gen ed course or something like that.

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