[Bkn-english-646-fall-2009] Assignment 4

[tony iantosca]

Because the listserv seems to have an aversion to my email address, you all may not have received my post for this week.  But one thing I said (which relates to Rajul's and Rachel's response) is that often I find scientific minds work better with writing when it's presented to them as a science. In my opinion, this would be the only justification for the meticulous mapping and organizing presented in this chapter. Many of my students are in the health sciences, so it seems they've already got a knack for systematic thinking. 

 

Personally, though, I do not find these methods helpful. Maybe because I like writing in the first place it doesn't bother me if it takes a long time to arrive at a finished, organized product. 

 

It has certainly been difficult for me as well to avoid being a grammarian. I've gotten much better about it, and I'm trying now to focus more on organizational issues and the quality of ideas, hoping that the "correctness" of sentences will in fact naturally follow. 

 

-Tony 
 


Date: Wed, 7 Oct 2009 10:47:58 -0700
From: rajul_punjabi at yahoo.com
To: bkn-english-646-fall-2009 at lists-1.liu.edu
Subject: [Bkn-english-646-fall-2009] Assignment 4







Assignment 4:
When tutoring someone, I can’t help but offer them tips on organization that I use to get my writing coherent and clean, because it’s all over the place sometimes.  The “thinking aloud” technique really stuck out to me the most because the most thought-provoking and paper-building ideas seem to come around through live and active conversation. Students who are getting tutored often come in to the writing center and look at it as a technical workshop, a place to construct something articulate. I believe that’s only part of the battle, and the main concern should be the content.
Apologies for the late response, but I’m kind of glad I’m writing now because a lot of the class has provoked ideas and questions for me. To Rachel’s comment on how students need to talk out a topic before getting on the computer and typing – I feel like that’s a strong tool when it comes to tutoring because a topic becomes so much more accessible and easier to handle once words spill out of one’s mouth rather than directly onto a Word document. I go so hard with the grammatical errors too! It’s the damn editor in me. I’m learning that that’s supposed to come later, after carefully working through the content.
As for Christine & Co. who hate graphic organizers, I’m right there with you. I feel like its suffocating for a writer to try and categorize their style. This is random, but it’s in the same vein is how I feel about getting graded on poetry. How can you tell someone that the way they’re spilling out their soul is in the correct format or not?
Last but not least, I love outlines. They take discipline but can curb that natural ADD that occurs when trying to get thoughts onto paper.

-Rajul 
 		 	   		  
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