[Bkn-english-646-fall-2009] Assignment 6 from Yani

[yani29 at aol.com]

The dreaded red pen…



To
some the red pen symbolizes the destruction of one’s words and work yet to
others it could represent the opportunity for improvement and greatness. I
personally don’t feel as bad about the red as some of my peers do. I actually
appreciated that the teacher/professor took the time to point out my mistakes
and what I needed to work on. What if teachers never wrote on our papers and we
went through writing life making the same comma, or verb tense mistake and it
wasn’t until we were professional writers that an editor so gracefully
embarrassed us in a staff meeting and all we could say was, “I never knew”. I
know I took it to the extreme but seriously I think teacher comments can help
students strengthen their writing in the long run. 



Now,
I do understand the point about having ownership being removed from the writer
but let’s just say it is temporary. Ultimately, it is our words and our ideas
and concepts the professor is merely editing. I have students on both sides of
the fence. Some feel absolutely horrible and further fall into their, “I’m a
bad writer” slump after receiving a paper filled with marks. Then there are the
students who take the corrections and try to see why they made those mistakes
and how they could fix them. The latter tends to be a bit more with ESL students.  They come in and want to go over all the
grammatical errors first and then content. Which is an interesting observation,
is it that since they are still learning the language they appreciate this type
of correction versus native speakers who tend to feel slightly frustrated
having their grammar corrected? 




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