Tuesday, April 20, 2010
"Fix-Up Shop"
Today my friend completed the first draft of a paper, and told me he was thinking about going to the Writing Center. He asked me what a session was like, and I explained that they will help him organize his thoughts and develop his paper. Of course, I noted that the purpose of the Writing Center is not to serve as a "fix-up shop" for papers. He seemed disappointed, and a little deterred, by this fact. I encouraged him to give it a try, and told him that I could guarantee that he would leave the Writing Center with more confidence in his paper. It troubles me that this is such a common and widespread misconception of Writing Centers.
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I feel like that the misconception about Writing Centers goes back to our early years of schooling. During those years we would go to teachers and have them look at our papers. The teacher would read the paper then correct any errors they found, after that they would tell us things that they think we should do to make our paper better. Obviously, the student is going to follow the teacher’s advice because they want to receive a good grade. Therefore when people hear of a writing center when they enter college, they immediately think of their past experiences with people looking at their papers.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I agree with Chris. It was pounded into my head in high school that the teacher would correct your paper with little input. Besides red marks, we got very little feedback.
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