Response Blog: Hesse

This Hesse article was kind of a reminder of last semester. It reminded me of our pleasant little berating at the beginning of last semester. So I read this Hesse with having an open mind in mind. But maybe I read it with too much of an open mind, since I don’t really know what I think about the article. Being in the “reflexive position” that Hesse points out is hard to imagine as being so “wonderfully reflexive” while I am in the middle of it. I guess I need to think about my students more as I read this article. What do they want or need from me? Do they really want me to help them make informed decisions about writing, are the ideas about writing that I bring to the tutoring table the same ideas I bring to the Composition classroom?
So as not to pursue this questioning of my own validity as a teacher of writing, maybe I should switch gears and talk about how I am trying to build up the self-concepts of validity of my students. I now begin class by saying, “Hello, writers!” The first time I did this, on last Wednesday, one of my students from last semester said, “Writers?” and sort of looked around like he might be among a secret group of writers who could at any time attack him with writing. “You’re all writers,” I said. “We are all writers.” I went on to explain how I thought (since Practicum Fall Semester, I didn’t tell them that part) that all writing was valid and useful in its own context, and I led a discussion about different genres of writing and the different conventions used in different genres.
I am thinking that as I do the readings along with the students, I will have a very much informed idea of what Hesse means when he refers to the “wonderfully reflexive position.” We have to have material to write about in Composition. And we are working with materials that share the common theme of fear. Reading the materials while the students read will give me a decent view from the inside like Hesse mentions. Maybe I should have already told the students how difficult some of the readings may be at first, but I haven’t really made up my mind on that one. Maybe they need to just crash and burn on the first assignment, so that they’ll start taking the work seriously. But then I think that is kind of mean to let them struggle, when I could have just given them a preview/warning. I think if I suggest reading study groups, then plagiaristic collaboration wouldn’t be too far away, so I don’t think I will do that. It’s going to be an interesting semester, for sure.

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