Week 12 Post
Before reading the creative case-study, I was pretty sure I was going to like it more than the academic one - I was right. While there is of course a place for both pieces, I found the creative one to be more helpful to my work as a writing tutor in its accessibility. It functioned much the way I think the most helpful Writing Center Class discussions do (as well as Rhetoric PDP discussions) in that it related experiences anecdotally from one's time working with a student in a way that invited commiseration and strategy building.
Because I am new to the Writing Center world, I am not going to connect to the kind of academic language around it. I have not been indoctrinated to the lingo, specific concerns, and conventions of Writing Tutor scholarship. In this way, I still feel somewhat like I am experiencing the academic case study from the outside looking in. I also am a creative writing student, so academic language hardly plays into my studies as it is. Geodde put it well in his argument with Lorraine about the relative merits of academic vs. creative writing, echoing the comment sentiment: "I think academic writing is wordy and tedious." I am not in the club of academia, and I feel it when reading such works.
That said, there is a place for such writing and it is conforming to the conventions necessary for its survival in an academic sphere. My preference is personal and informed by my own studies.
I have found mixed success with online synchronous tutoring. I met one of my students for the first time, and introducing and getting comfortable with one another was somewhat difficult from inside two tiny computer boxes (it did eventually work). I also had one student who had major technology issues that I was unable to help with, which cut out meeting short significantly. We eventually had to use a combination of Zoom and the regular online writing center session as a workaround. Aside from that, my sessions have felt more or less equally as helpful as the in-person ones when it comes to offering writing assistance on drafts and outlining assignments.
Because I am new to the Writing Center world, I am not going to connect to the kind of academic language around it. I have not been indoctrinated to the lingo, specific concerns, and conventions of Writing Tutor scholarship. In this way, I still feel somewhat like I am experiencing the academic case study from the outside looking in. I also am a creative writing student, so academic language hardly plays into my studies as it is. Geodde put it well in his argument with Lorraine about the relative merits of academic vs. creative writing, echoing the comment sentiment: "I think academic writing is wordy and tedious." I am not in the club of academia, and I feel it when reading such works.
That said, there is a place for such writing and it is conforming to the conventions necessary for its survival in an academic sphere. My preference is personal and informed by my own studies.
I have found mixed success with online synchronous tutoring. I met one of my students for the first time, and introducing and getting comfortable with one another was somewhat difficult from inside two tiny computer boxes (it did eventually work). I also had one student who had major technology issues that I was unable to help with, which cut out meeting short significantly. We eventually had to use a combination of Zoom and the regular online writing center session as a workaround. Aside from that, my sessions have felt more or less equally as helpful as the in-person ones when it comes to offering writing assistance on drafts and outlining assignments.
Sally--I know what you mean about the two tiny computer boxes in WC Online. The video part of that program makes me appreciate the big video frames we have in Zoom when we are meeting with a small group. I'm glad it worked eventually. I'm interviewing writing fellows candidates this week via that program, so I'm meeting most of the candidates for the first time too. But I already know a lot about them from reading their applications and it's a scripted interview with a clear purpose so it's not as amorphous as getting to know one another.
ReplyDeleteAcademic writing doesn't have to be boring. In fact, there was one part of our case study, the profile of Fei and her activities that actually felt more interesting and creative to me than reporting on the statistics. It felt more like the creative non-fiction I do. I guess the creativity aspect, at least for a Writing Center case study, was in the study design with both qualitative and quantitative methods. The Writing Center world is actually a lot less conventional and academic (in the sense of stiff or longwinded) than the world of literary criticism or even Composition Studies.
I would offer an amendment to Goedde's statement: "BAD academic writing is wordy and tedious." I'm impressed by Lorraine's assault on creative writing, which I think has some merits. Thinking to my own studies, the best writing seems to yearn for the other side of the lawn. The best creative writing seeks footing in data, and the best academic writing finds moments to connect its reader with the real and tangible world.
ReplyDeleteAs one of us who is entrenched in and wholly disenchanted with the "club of academia," I wholly agree with you, Sallie. I think academic writing is necessary within the academic world because, as you say, sticking to convention is "necessary for survival." As someone who has refused to stick to convention and is, consequently, not surviving, that resonated with me on a deep, personal level. The kind of level, I think, that leads to good writing. I feel myself getting repetitive every time this comes up, but my boundless frustration with academia for trying to refuse entry (or at least success) to creativity has a tendency to land me on a soapbox.
ReplyDeleteI have certainly read academic writing that is interesting, even engaging, but what it lacks is a sense of fun, of play, of adventure. It removes the person in a vain (in all senses of the word) attempt to achieve impartiality. What it overlooks, then, is that impartiality is a meaningless goal, and it could consequently benefit from embracing partiality and personal perspective in its dialogues.