“It seems clear that we have been better trained to spot comma splices and fragments and other syntactic slips than to notice when students take risks” (161).
For class this week, we read about working one-to-one with writers (Harris), setting an agenda early on to direct the conference (Newkirk), and the importance of offering praise (Daiker). I’m going to focus on the last point for this blog post because it can be a controversial (and yet often overlooked) method.
When I revisited Daiker’s piece, what really stood out to me was the idea that, ideologically, we view assessing writing as an act of identifying what’s missing rather than identifying what’s present (154).
https://giphy.com/embed/26ufdipQqU2lhNA4g
This sounds simple, but it was (as Dr. Jimes Tooper suggests in that GIF) a pretty mind-blowing realization for me. I had never thought about the issue in terms that were so simple before.
When I think about my own method of assessing writing, whether for my students or in the writing center, I have to admit that I, too, focus on what’s missing. While I make a point to offer deliberate, specific praise (particularly for less-confident writers), I think I approach papers with a mindset that prioritizes focusing on what could be better. In the writing center, this comes in part from the situation: the writer is usually coming in to learn how to improve. But when I’m grading students in my own classes, is this mindset actually helping my students? Ideally, I think that I’m offering them strategies that will help them do better on future papers in my class and others. But if what Daiker quotes Diederich as saying is true and praising students does more to improve their writing than “any kind or amount of correction,” shouldn’t I be offering way more praise than correction (qtd. in Daiker 155)?
On the other hand, as I’m sure we’ll discuss in class, I also deeply feel that praise is entirely dependent on the writer’s abilities, confidence, and experience. (For example, when I think about the feedback I received from Dr. Azima on a recent rough draft, I appreciated the praise but I focused more on the suggestions because I wanted to improve the draft.) I think all writers benefit from at least a little bit of praise, but some writers are aware of what’s working well in the draft and need to have a conversation about what’s not working as well in order to understand what they can do to improve.
Writing Center/Writing Charlotte 
I really appreciate that you’re taking multiple viewpoints on the topics that we’re analyzing. I currently have a teacher that is so fine tuned to grammar, he’s missing the fact that I’m already improving my writing and it is really starting to be discouraging. From the perspective of a student responding to someone in a teaching position like yourself, I think it’s always important to let a student know where they can improve and to make it as constructive as possible. Throwing in compliments throughout really helps to identify behaviors/writing you want to see again and raises the student’s self-esteem. In the writing center, people primarily come for help and are expecting criticism, but in my own experience, the students greatly appreciate when the feedback is constructive and when I drop compliments throughout the consultation.
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I appreciate you showing us your multiple viewpoints on the topic at hand. I am currently struggling with a teacher who only acknowledges areas where I’ve failed. After a while, writing in that class has become tiresome and I feel unmotivated because no matter what I’ve worked on, I get graded harshly. I think throwing in constructive criticism is really what helps build writers, inside and outside of class. Knowing when something is wrong and why is the best way to learn, and of course when the paper is spotted with comments of praise and acknowledgment, the overall feeling of the paper goes up for the writing. I think keeping feedback constructive and including notes of praise where they’re deserved is the best way to help a student work towards being a better writer inside the class or in the writing center.
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