One of my responsibilities as the Grad Assistant for the Writing Center is to meet with First Year Orientation Experience students. Up until this point, I've met with 17 classes; that's approximately 425 freshmen. That's a whole lot of freshmen.
As a part of FOrE, the first-year students make their way around campus, getting to know the services Adelphi offers. The Writing Center happens to be one of the hot spots, if not the hottest (cough cough), the students visit during the semester.
During their visit, it's my job to tell the students about the WC and, my favorite part of our session, talk with them about writing. This is when things get interesting. We talk about it all: the writing process, what they feel to be the "I want to pull my hair out!" and "That was a cinch!" part of writing, and their feelings about writing - their very honest feelings.
By the end of our 50-minute session together, I try to get a few things across to my little freshmen (okay, so most of them are taller than me...and look older than me, but I was born first, so ha!). First, we're all writers. Second, it's important to develop your writing; it's a process and takes practice, so revise, revise, revise! And, third, of course, the Writing Center is here to help. That's my spiel.
Well, guess who had a paper due this Sunday and didn't "revise, revise, revise!"? Guilty. That would be me. I just revised. But, it's not that I didn't want to revise multiple times, I swear. I really did, but I just didn't have the time. That's the case for so many students and will be for most of the freshmen students I've been meeting with; they have other responsibilities, things going on at home, etc.
So, what's my point? As teachers, we have to realize that students don't always have that extra hour to invest in their writing. Although it is their responsibility as students to find the time, we can help them by walking them through the writing process, too, having them submit first and second drafts and having peer workshops in class. Writing is a process, and we have to do our best to help them develop theirs. Then they'll understand the art and craft of writing. (Get it? That's a class freshmen have to take. Bad joke? Okay - won't do it again.)
As a part of FOrE, the first-year students make their way around campus, getting to know the services Adelphi offers. The Writing Center happens to be one of the hot spots, if not the hottest (cough cough), the students visit during the semester.
During their visit, it's my job to tell the students about the WC and, my favorite part of our session, talk with them about writing. This is when things get interesting. We talk about it all: the writing process, what they feel to be the "I want to pull my hair out!" and "That was a cinch!" part of writing, and their feelings about writing - their very honest feelings.
By the end of our 50-minute session together, I try to get a few things across to my little freshmen (okay, so most of them are taller than me...and look older than me, but I was born first, so ha!). First, we're all writers. Second, it's important to develop your writing; it's a process and takes practice, so revise, revise, revise! And, third, of course, the Writing Center is here to help. That's my spiel.
Well, guess who had a paper due this Sunday and didn't "revise, revise, revise!"? Guilty. That would be me. I just revised. But, it's not that I didn't want to revise multiple times, I swear. I really did, but I just didn't have the time. That's the case for so many students and will be for most of the freshmen students I've been meeting with; they have other responsibilities, things going on at home, etc.
So, what's my point? As teachers, we have to realize that students don't always have that extra hour to invest in their writing. Although it is their responsibility as students to find the time, we can help them by walking them through the writing process, too, having them submit first and second drafts and having peer workshops in class. Writing is a process, and we have to do our best to help them develop theirs. Then they'll understand the art and craft of writing. (Get it? That's a class freshmen have to take. Bad joke? Okay - won't do it again.)
Yes, we absolutely need to give our students time to write in class. During major paper assignments, I always took my students to the computer labs at least 2 consecutive days so that they could write and have me there to bounce ideas off of if they wanted to. This also gave them the time that I required of them to write quality work.
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