As a writing teacher and a lover of language, there are always things that are the earmarks of problematic writing. Any writing educator will tell you that you cannot correct or even point out every single wrong in a paper or it would crush the already fragile confidence of a standard student. Especially the community college student in an entry-level writing course. These students have been told they can’t write for so long that they will write a two page essay explaining how they can’t write and be completely unaware of the irony of that.
So, we learn to address the bigger issues, target some of the smaller ones, and take it in small doses and move slower than the writer and perfectionist in us wants to move. There are some big ticket items that I’m sure most (if not all) writing teachers will address, of course. We would be remiss if we did not talk about thesis statements and transitions, for instance; additionally, many of us probably address sentence level things such as run-ons and fragments. Beyond that, however, I would imagine that many of us have our ‘pet peeves’ – the things that fall under the more minor errors (in the big scheme of things) that we always seem to gravitate towards when working on feedback for a student. Comma splices, dangling participles, passive voice, and the like are nails on a chalkboard and we hone in on them as if fixing this one small thing will open countless doors for students as they move deeper into the academic world. And who knows, honestly...perhaps it will.
One of these items for me is the use of second person. It’s my own personal crusade to rid student writing of inappropriate uses of the word ‘you’. Note I say inappropriate – there are times when it’s a great writing device, but the problem is that students were taught to never, ever, under penalty of agony and pain, use ‘I’ in an academic paper. So, where they would say “there is no greater joy than to hold my son” becomes “there is no greater joy than to hold your son.” Now, as previously discussed in this blog, I don’t have children and, at this point in my life, I don’t plan to ever have them. Now, it isn’t exactly insulting, but it’s not a very appropriate comment to make about someone whom you don’t know very well. I am a fairly happy person and I’ve experienced heart-deep joy in my time – and it wasn’t with the child I don’t have. Students do this all the time – one of the most telling moments for me was when a student wrote a paper arguing for stricter drunk driving laws and he told me how I would feel as a victim of such a driver – and he was wrong. What he described did not fit my situation, and I had been there. It only took the introduction for the student to alienate me and irritate me. It was not my most comfortable grading moment. Most uses of it are fairly innocuous, however, with students telling me what I expect when I read a story or what I see when I walk into their bedroom (Don’t panic – I’ve only seen this in a paper where they explore identity by describing a place).
For these more light-hearted uses, I’ve been known to write things in the margins like “I DO think that? How do you know?!” or “Should I be worried that you can read my mind?” and I’m not sure that this is tremendously right of me to do, but my tendency towards sarcasm gets the better of me. If it’s any consolation, though, I add a smiley afterwards. And let’s be honest, my students expect sarcasm from me at this point...
There are also uses of it beyond the classroom and I tend to employ a healthy dose of sarcasm then, too. It happens all the time in everyday speech. Listen to those around you, and I’m sure you’ll find you’re doing all sorts of things of which you weren’t aware. “When you walk into the store,” ”When you order at McDonald’s,” “If you hold your iPhone in a certain way, “You should get your first prostate exam when you are 40” and all sorts of fun things that, quite frankly, don’t apply to you.
Or is that me?
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