Insights from the Readings

The book says:




Recognize that every text and every writer is a work in progress. Writers progress at different rates, but they do progress - in part because they acquire greater intellectual maturity, and in part because writing is an ongoing learning experience. Writers learn to be better writers by striving to improve. The issue is not whether they will make mistakes - because they will; the issue is whether they will learn from those mistakes or be defeated by them. Here the tutor can be instrumental. As a supportive ally and a candid critic, a tutor can encourage progress by fostering potential. (20)





Well, I can't relate to this as a tutor, because we haven't had any repeat business in the writing center. However, I have had a great experience with the process described above as a student. Last fall, I took a Advanced Creative Writing at USCS with Dr. Knight, one of my favorite professors there. She's been a great help to me and was instrumental in cheering me on to graduate school. I took the class just for fun and it was one of the most beneficial courses I've ever taken.



The creative writing class really improved my writing. In fact, it set me on the course to where I am today. We wrote short stories, passed out copies to the class, then read the story in class and everyone responded to the stories and we discussed them in class. We also had to turn in a written response to each story.



It was great for me because people pointed out errors I hadn't even noticed. I have a tendency to state the same thing repeatedly in my stories (and undoubtedly in every other area of my life) without noticing it. People also pointed out errors in continuity, suggested ideas for my stories, questioned my plot holes, and told me what they liked.



Working with a live audience in this way improved my writing at warp speed. I went into that class completely unbelieving in my ability to write short fiction, and came out believing that with more practice I could be good at it. It was like a light bulb went off in my head.



John Trimbur says:

One of the central tasks that [cultural studies] sets for radical intellectuals is to point out that the relatively autonomous areas of public and private life where human agency can mediate between the material conditions of the dominant order and the lived experience and aspirations of the popular masses. (59)

Some scholars see writing tutors as "organic intellectuals" and "radical intellectuals." Radical intellectual is insulting and organic intellectual sounds goofy. But I do understand what organic intellectual means. The academic world moves in cycles. First, a group of ambitious rapscallions overturn the established order. Then they become the established order. After that, a new band of scamps has arisen to overthrow the establishment. Germans say that life punishes revolutionaries by making them dress up in all their medals and attend awards ceremonies when they're old.

I've just been noticing the transition in my life right now, as I enter into graduate school after having been out of school for a while. It's weird. Not bad or anything, just odd.

Finally, Postcolonialism and the Idea of a Writing Center (79) discusses working with multi-cultural students (this could mean more than ESL students). By teaching them how to write in the way that is accepted by the university, aren't we sort of stifling them? Or, is it our job to hold up a standard and see that everyone else strives to follow it? And if so, what purpose does this serve? I think that holding up a certain standard no matter what is putting the cart before the horse. People change language to suit themselves and is there anything that can be done to stop this?

Personally, I think that the type As and type Bs of the world serve as natural checks on the other's power, and we work together in symbiosis to keep the language progressing, but at a slow enough pace.