Week 4, Assignment 1 Part 2

1.) Identify the article or "text" and author(s) that you read. Why did you choose the article/"text"? What about it captured your attention?

                I chose “Sometimes it’s Okay to Meddle, Or How to Encourage First-Year Students to Visit the Writing Center” by Valerie Pexton. I chose this because, even as a third year college student, I sometimes feel that my inventions in discovering arguments through research can get muddled, like I can’t distinguish one decision from another. I chose it because I can relate, and because meddling is something I also have the habit of doing.

As I read, I began to understand how close that her first example of Captain Kirk in Star Trek was to The Doctor in Doctor Who. The Doctor meddles. It’s just what he does. The premise of this program is a “Time Lord” that lives in a blue box with a companion and travels throughout time to explore, and also land himself in some mind-boggling situations. The different dimensions that he travels to always have something distinctly wrong with them (to create an episode) and we watch how he progresses through the situation and come to a conclusion, then a solution on how to fix this problem.

I use this example because hers was based off of “meddling in student affairs”, and although I don’t agree that an instructor would “meddle” with the prospective future of a student (isn’t that their career?), I do understand how that word could catch our attention and lead us to read the rest of this entry.

                What most interested me in the body of the text was that even through success of the Writing Center’s program, the writing counselors discovered problems;   some people might not detect that there are any non-successes in successes, and I appreciated this as a writing student. They cared to dig a little deeper and find out why first-year students were not attending the offered Writing Center, and what they could do to assist those students.

2.) Briefly summarize the article/"text" that you read. Why do you think it is important to the field of rhetoric and composition? Explain its significance and value to the profession.

                Valerie Pexton discussed the decrease in first year composition students participating in the writing center. She pointed out possible explanations, including the upward trend of International Students and their ability to seek out more resources than native Wyoming first year students; then, that first year students (typically straight out of high school) are overwhelmed with college course-work and come to the writing center too late, or don’t prioritize their time correctly and end up not making it at all. The International students promptly made appointments with the Writing Center for a 30-minute one-on-one tutoring session and booked the Writing Center out for the whole term, effectively cutting out the rest of the students that also might need help. This was no fault of international students, it just was.

                She then went on to explain her plan of attack. Within months, she had devised a new program focused solely on freshmen incoming students that allowed for walk-in appointments and team efforts. It can be extremely helpful to discuss writing prompts, thesis’, the results of research with fellow students because they are all in the same boat. Discussion often leads to discovery, and from there, students can develop a clear topic, position and body of a paper with the help of the experts standing by in case of trouble or confusion.

                I saw rhetoric helpful in her article because even though she was not a student working on a project, rhetoric assisted her in day-to-day activities as a tutor or instructor. She assessed the problem beyond the supposed success of the writing-center (probably with added feedback from the student-population), and figured out a way to not cut them out of the system, making sure everyone got at least a few minutes at a time of one-on-one discussion with someone who chose composition and writing as a profession. She even mentioned that students came in just in case they needed help, using the quiet and presence of expertise as reassurance while forming their papers.