Student Writers and Personal Writing
Hi! After fighting with my passwords, here goes.
I read The Performance of Self in Student Writing by Thomas Newkirk. It it, the author explores the ways that student writers (at the college level) present themselves in academic writing. He says that they are not actually expressing their personal views, experiences, or opinions as much as they are inventing their presentation of themselves according to the text they are responding to or within their interpretations of the assignment or target audience.
Newkirk draws from his observations of his own college freshmen’s writing projects, and the dialogs and analyses were interesting. But what interested me most was the chapter “Composition Wars and the Place of Personal Writing.” Often, it seems that college students are told that there is no place for themselves in their academic work. Expressions of emotion, care, expressions of curiosity are looked upon as too sentimental for the academy. Even my own students sometimes tell me that they were told that they must not use “I” or “me” in their essays.
I think that some academic writing might not be appropriate for expressions of self–a lab report, for example–but I’ve noticed that many of the studies I’ve read in educational journals do include the human behind the writing. I think it works well, and I ask my students to bring their own experiences and observations into their academic work.
So what do you think? I know that helping students learn to write by letting them write what they feel and know is a great way to get them writing and learning the traits. But must they move away from the personal once they enter college? Is the prohibition against personal writing in the academy a just fading phase? (I remember being taught in college never to say “I think” or “I believe” because if I wrote it, the instructor would know that i thought it or believed it, and then being told later in college that I must because it was more honest.) Can academic writing be just as effective when the writer makes an appearance there? Does personal expression have any place in a research paper or a literary response?
For my money, I’d rather read student writing–any writing, really–with a bit of the writer in it.
Dawnne
Again, I’m trying this another way and hope it sticks!!!
1.
I too was taught to never use “I” in formal writing and one of my professors told our class that if we must insist on giving our opinion or thoughts on our research to put it in an addendum so he could be sure NOT to have to read it. Because of this experience, I have taught my students to always state their opinions as facts and then give specific evidence to support it.
However, I am also questioning this approach. Education is about discovery, especially self-discovery. Students often discover through their writing, while sharing that discovery with others. So why not use “I” and tell me what you think and believe? I still want the evidence and support or you probably won’t convince me of much, but go ahead and be human and let your hair down a bit. I’m more apt to read writing that I can connect with than writing that is devoid of life. I’m finding that more Professional Journal articles (at least Education Journals) have allowed the forbidden I to creep back in, but I’m not sure how other academic fields feel about this.
Robert
rob1777 — September 10, 2008 @ 5:12 pm