(no subject)
Oct. 1st, 2013 12:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickBack in high school, I was infuriated by teachers who wanted us to outline and plan and then first-draft and revise and so forth when we were writing a paper. It seemed like make-work to me but since my teachers typically required us to provide the diagrams and outlines and rough drafts as evidence that we had actually followed the work procedure that was expected of us, I had to write the paper and then generate potemkin workflow evidence to "prove" that I'd done it the right way.
These days I look at that sort of thing as a tool that may help other people (and me, very occasionally, when I don't already know what it is that I want to say) organize and straighten out their thoughts so that they can be coherent on paper. I've always written papers like other people get pregnant and have babies. Like, there's a flurry of activity at the front end and then a pretty good stretch where it looks like not much is happening and then there's a flurry of activity at the end (typically in school, this was known as the night before the paper was due) involving a substantial amount of unattractive effort (possibly with screaming) at the completion of which I produced the finished product.
The gestational phase of writing a paper does not (in my world) have a whole lot of visible evidence that it's happening. It does happen, but usually you can't see it and there is no paper trail. For a while, I thought that having to turn in outlines and rough drafts and stuff was to "prove" that you were working on the paper in the middle, gestational phase. It seemed kind of petty, because I didn't figure it was any business of the instructor how I got from A (the assignment) to B (the paper) as long as it actually happened and was my own work. (I have never turned in someone else's work as my own. Ever.)
But these days I look at the instructor's desire for a paper trail (outline, diagram, rough draft, whatever) documenting your paper production process as more a way to ensure that you are practicing the thought-organization tools that have been presented to you in class. It is not going to fly for a teacher to say, "Look, you dipshits are mouth-breathing bundles of idiocy. You can barely compose a coherent text message. In order to avoid sounding like the idiots that you really are, you need to practice using these tools to organize your thoughts and Imma make you prove to me that you are using them by demanding to see your writing process in order for you to pass the assignment." So, they don't tell you why they want you to produce workflow documentation. They just tell you to produce it. They tell everyone to produce the workflow documentation because it would not DO for them to say, "Okay. Tallie, Jeremiah, Blessing, Rlyeh, and Mary, you need to show all your process because you have no clarity of thought. David, Remington, Shaniah, and Allie, you need to meet with me and go over your outline before starting to write, but you can skip the rest of it. Trayvonne, Justinian, Maile, and Cybil, you can just go write the paper because your scary mechanical minds are already orderly enough. Shantelle, Damien, this exercise is not particularly challenging for you. Instead, I'd like you to use the research paper format for satire, your choice of subject." That sort of thing is entirely unreasonable to expect because it would lead to syllabi that read like "Students will learn as much as they can in this subject. Smarter, faster students will learn more. Dumber students or students who are not as talented at this subject will learn less. By the end of the year, EVERY student will be able to do the following skills (blah blah blah)"
And hell, if you're going down that road, then you might as well go for unschooling or similar bullshit where you have to perform competently at the end of each year to be promoted, or worse, you have to perform competently In Each Subject in order to be promoted. And that way lies anarchy.
These days I look at that sort of thing as a tool that may help other people (and me, very occasionally, when I don't already know what it is that I want to say) organize and straighten out their thoughts so that they can be coherent on paper. I've always written papers like other people get pregnant and have babies. Like, there's a flurry of activity at the front end and then a pretty good stretch where it looks like not much is happening and then there's a flurry of activity at the end (typically in school, this was known as the night before the paper was due) involving a substantial amount of unattractive effort (possibly with screaming) at the completion of which I produced the finished product.
The gestational phase of writing a paper does not (in my world) have a whole lot of visible evidence that it's happening. It does happen, but usually you can't see it and there is no paper trail. For a while, I thought that having to turn in outlines and rough drafts and stuff was to "prove" that you were working on the paper in the middle, gestational phase. It seemed kind of petty, because I didn't figure it was any business of the instructor how I got from A (the assignment) to B (the paper) as long as it actually happened and was my own work. (I have never turned in someone else's work as my own. Ever.)
But these days I look at the instructor's desire for a paper trail (outline, diagram, rough draft, whatever) documenting your paper production process as more a way to ensure that you are practicing the thought-organization tools that have been presented to you in class. It is not going to fly for a teacher to say, "Look, you dipshits are mouth-breathing bundles of idiocy. You can barely compose a coherent text message. In order to avoid sounding like the idiots that you really are, you need to practice using these tools to organize your thoughts and Imma make you prove to me that you are using them by demanding to see your writing process in order for you to pass the assignment." So, they don't tell you why they want you to produce workflow documentation. They just tell you to produce it. They tell everyone to produce the workflow documentation because it would not DO for them to say, "Okay. Tallie, Jeremiah, Blessing, Rlyeh, and Mary, you need to show all your process because you have no clarity of thought. David, Remington, Shaniah, and Allie, you need to meet with me and go over your outline before starting to write, but you can skip the rest of it. Trayvonne, Justinian, Maile, and Cybil, you can just go write the paper because your scary mechanical minds are already orderly enough. Shantelle, Damien, this exercise is not particularly challenging for you. Instead, I'd like you to use the research paper format for satire, your choice of subject." That sort of thing is entirely unreasonable to expect because it would lead to syllabi that read like "Students will learn as much as they can in this subject. Smarter, faster students will learn more. Dumber students or students who are not as talented at this subject will learn less. By the end of the year, EVERY student will be able to do the following skills (blah blah blah)"
And hell, if you're going down that road, then you might as well go for unschooling or similar bullshit where you have to perform competently at the end of each year to be promoted, or worse, you have to perform competently In Each Subject in order to be promoted. And that way lies anarchy.
