Reflection on Responding-to-Student-Writing Readings

Reflection on Responding-to-Student-Writing Readings

Today, I have a problem with words.

WORD # 1: CONTEXT

The word “context” seems to me the refuge that most researchers often resort to. Teaching methods are context-based, “goodness”, “badness”, “effectiveness” just to name a few as far as writing is concerned are also context-based. And now, responding to or rating student writing is also contextualized. This is true insofar as what works for a writing classroom does not necessarily work another.

WORD # 2: HOLISTIC

The word “holistic” is scary for me both as a teacher and as a student. I have always felt it is the teacher’s responsibility to explain in detail a given piece of writing of mine. “I need to know why I have got 8 out of 10.” My classmates used to make fun of me and say: “It is great that you got 8 out 10, so why do you want to open the door of the devil, Devil is in the detail”. The TOEFL’s essay part is rated holistically by an average of two raters. A holistic scoring system, as stated, is a closed system, and this is very “true”. It is so closed –and maybe rigid– that no creativity permeates and no flexibility occurs. However, for other researchers the more comments there are in a teacher’s feedback, the more discouraging things become for students.

WORD # 3: DIAGNOSTIC

The word “diagnostic” is a medical term. In responding to writing, “diagnostic” refers to the idea, as it appears to me, that teachers taking formalist models (grammar-, spelling-, and punctuation-oriented) are nothing but “good” diagnosticians who see or hunt for whatever problems there are in a student’s piece of writing. When writing teachers are diagnosticians, they become error “huggers” and hunters interested in nothing but mechanics.

WORD @ 4: GRAMMAR

What is grammar? How far should responding-to-writing practices be grammar-based? Can we abandon and delete grammar from our responding-to-writing dictionaries? Is it better to talk about grammars rather than grammar? Grammar is a mechanics-based issue, a form-oriented issue, how can we separate it from content? Does better grammar mean better writing? Does grammar instruction help develop students’ writing skills? Form sometimes shapes the content, mechanics (e.g. spelling) may sometimes alter the meaning altogether, right? I guess so. :) In short, grammar, or mechanics in general, support, enhance but can replace neither the entire writing process students get engaged in nor the entire responding-to-writing process teachers get involved in.