Ken Macrorie in “Telling Writing” encourages us to write unselfconsciously. He advocates uninhibited creativity and authenticity. He cares about the discovery of “some kind of truth” when we write in the sense of “a connection between the things written about, the words used in writing, and the author’s experience in a world she knows well” (300). In a writing class, his instructional emphasis would clearly be Romantic.
This week, I found myself sympathizing with his views. A close friend of mine who is a relationship counselor once told me that there is no such thing as “constructive criticism.” She said that criticism can’t be constructive because people can’t take it impersonally. It puts us on the defensive, at least a little, which doesn’t make us receptive to learning. To me, that thought seems closely related to the idea that a teacher can’t directly impart knowledge to a student (something we can see by looking at the shortcomings of the pipeline model). What a good teacher actually does is lead a student to discover a truth on her own. That is the way real learning occurs. In my first blog entry I wrote about struggling to tutor my brother for his English classes. Melissa K commented on it, writing that “[i]nstead of correcting people, it's important to have them correct themselves. That's where we come in more as a guide than a teacher.” I think she was saying the same thing there that I am saying now in a more long-winded way. A good teacher act as a “guide” to her students as they come to make their own discoveries.
Now, I'm not committing myself to complete agreement with Macrorie. I also do not know if I completely believe that there is no such thing as constructive criticism. I just think that there is truth in this worth considering— a truth, that is, and not the truth, because no one “knows surely what that is” (300).
This is great. After a bit of consideration, I agree with this idea that constructive criticism, even at it's most "constructive," is hard to take impersonally. However, if there is no such thing as constructive criticism, that doesn't mean it has no place in education at all. This argument reminds me of the argument about the structure of writing classes we've had in our own class. Because the syllabus might be vague or whatever else, it still provides a standard for a course with an otherwise wild standard. It might also provide a good quick sketch of what we see as effective writing and, if kept as a fluid standard, can become more and more effective with each revision (for, as we've seen, the state of writing standards can change a lot). I made that point to make this point: simply because criticism cannot be taken impersonally doesn't mean that it should be thrown out. It also doesn't mean that school should always be impersonal. Education is a very intimate thing, and perhaps a reanalysis of this will change how we criticize students in the future. This intimacy may also guide us to teach writing with the "Romanticism" of free-writing and the critical nature of academic writing.
ReplyDeleteI think you both have great points. It's difficult to be so critical of these students because we don't have the ability to develop a more intimate relationship with them inside the classroom. This might be a reason why many of us feel as though something is a little off with our way of doing things. When teachers can instruct a student and see the work as it happens, they can be more interactive. Because of the discrepancy between teachers and the people who review the work in our program, I sometimes feel as though students who are trying very hard and not receiving the attention or instruction that they need just fall through the cracks. I wonder if there's anyway to remedy this.
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