Don't Ask, Don't Tell

So I woke up early last Saturday (like 5:30 AM early) thinking about some pre-writing that I had read the day before. My mind was trying to make sense of the process that seemed to be represented in that work. The writers had gotten an assignment from me that asked them to imagine a project and outline how they would proceed and how they would use the reading and writing they had completed already. Most of them completed the assignment. (No complaints there.) But I finished the batch of pre writes uninspired. In only a few of them did I hear a writer using writing to figure out her or his path. In most cases, I heard a student fulfilling an assignment.

Maybe I’m the cause (I gave the assignment). Maybe the writers I’m working with don’t use writing to figure out what they are doing. Whatever is going on, I woke up anxious about the drafts that will come in next week. If these writers aren’t planning their work, what am I going to get? What can I offer in response to writing that is unplanned? What are the chances that a writer who doesn’t plan drafting will plan rewriting and revising? If there’s little planning and reflecting, how will the writers begin to write differently?

And when will I start sleeping better?

I guess what I’m working toward here is a concern about how my students see their work as writers and how they might. Early this term, this bunch read a piece by writing teacher Nancy Sommers; they encountered her claim that writers have to be their own sources have to “bring to bear” judgment and interpretation. The pre writes I read largely avoided that sort of commitment. I didn’t see many “connections” (another word Sommers uses) made between what writers wanted to do and what they had read.

Is it unreasonable to expect first-year college writing students to play the role of writer (and especially the role of academic research writer) with some seriousness? What is the cost of their choosing not to play? It is as if a lot of students in a first-year writing courses are willing to pay tuition and even to do the work (and concede that first-year writing courses are important): they are prepared to be student writers. But do they want to be writers and researchers, individuals who take on the obligation of making connections and offering their interpretations and judgments to others? Why might someone even want to do that?

And when will I start sleeping better?