Writing+Processes+and+Practices+-+Clark+&+Ivanic

Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000167 EndHTML:0000003415 StartFragment:0000000457 EndFragment:0000003399

Earlier today, I posted a link to my personal blog, because I noticed something that I felt pertained to the article. In our Writing Center, there are a few sketches/drawings of the writing process per some of the students that have visited the center. I thought these drawings were a great way to introduce the idea of writing as a process to first-year writing students. On page 82, the authors state that, “Practices are not just what people do, but what they make of what they do, and how it constructs them as social subjects” and I think the illustrations that I provided on my blog articulate this very well.

There are only a few brain-storming elements that I captured with the camera on my phone, but there are at least 8-10 drawings on the wall in the center. There are a few that resemble one another in theory, but for the most part, one can see that the students all have their own perspective of what //they// feel the writing process consist of. I think this is a good representation of the differences in students' ability to compose. No two students are alike, ergo no two students text or the processes that accompany that text are alike. With that in mind, the drawings evince that students compose more according to behavior and less through a “prescribed” skill-set, just as the article argues (84). The sketches demonstrate that students see themselves composing in specific ways, but these characteristics are not meant to be adopted and utilized as a model for the composition community as a whole. If they were, then one student could have created their version of the composition process, xeroxed it, and taped the same copy to the wall, several times over.

It seems to me that the xerox example I mention above is the way in which we are assessing our students, and this is a mistake and I would argue that Clark & Ivanic agree, because the prescriptive model is bound to cause “pain and panic” for students who do not or cannot organize their thinking process in such a manner. Thus, these students are marginalized of we use the same assessments for them, that we do for students who //do// utilize a more prescriptive model of prewriting.We cannot assume that because one structured way of composing has worked for some students, it is an automatic indicator that it works for all of us. I think the sketches are also a great initial segway for instructors to determine where their students fall along the academic continuum and also provides the student with a resource for reflection. Students have the impetus for improvement, when we provide them with the steps to identify the improvement, and these prewriting process sketches are a great way to do this.