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now we're starting to talk about critique, i want to talk about the single most common mistake i see teachers make when editing student work: line editing
ive worked with so many people who have looked at student writing and said "the problem is the grammar" or "the problem is the word choice"
and this is in and of itself a statement based on race and class. and i'm fucking tired of it.
and this is in and of itself a statement based on race and class. and i'm fucking tired of it.
when editing you can—and should, if it is asked for—correct places where the sentence-level writing is detracting from your understanding, but in doing it, you have to explain WHY.
i once worked w a student whose prof had told her that she was using "if" too much, instead of "so". for no reason, failed her assignment. i looked at it and said "it doesnt matter? this makes perfect sense, this doesnt detract from your actual information."
the prof, who was her ADVISOR, had literally not even READ HER THESIS PROPOSAL, because it used "if" and "like". even though it was an incredible proposal, focused on reaching out to non-english speaking members of an immigrant community in their native language.
hadn't even read it. had just circled words. no explanation of why. and here she was, a brilliant student who happened to be EFL and from a poor background so had learned english on her own, crying in my office at 10p bc she didn't understand WHY she had been failed.
over "if".
line editing is an excuse that bad professors use to explain why they don't want to treat their students with the respect that they're due because that professor is a racist, or a misogynist, or a classist, or an ableist. it always is.
line editing is an excuse that bad professors use to explain why they don't want to treat their students with the respect that they're due because that professor is a racist, or a misogynist, or a classist, or an ableist. it always is.
now, if you're working with, say a grant proposal, this kind of thing is important. but it's not important IN DRAFTING PHASES. in drafting, the execution of the argument and the purpose of the proposal are what need clarity, not line editing.
i can think of two occasions that i've had to actually do line editing with students during drafting phases.
1: a student who did not understand the way that english paragraphs work (because they are stupid, and i hate them) and who wrote a 4pg paper made up of 1p
1: a student who did not understand the way that english paragraphs work (because they are stupid, and i hate them) and who wrote a 4pg paper made up of 1p
yeah it works in german, but not in english. what did i do? i went through with tracked changes on and broke the paragraph up, and at each break i explained WHY i had broken it there, pointing out a thematic or linguistic or argumentative shift.
in my final comment, i took him through the breaks i had made, and explained how using them in this way improved his writing—IN ENGLISH. i explicitly, constantly, explained this is an ENGLISH WRITING problem. not a german writing problem. we met one on one, discussed it.
2: a student who was having a hard time with nouns that can be both capitalized and proper and lowercase and improper. i went through, corrected all of them, and EACH TIME i corrected it, i explained why it made a difference and why it was important for his argument.
both times, neither of these made any significant impact on my grading. neither of them was involved in my main critique. neither of them was something i ever had to go back to do again with either student.
the purpose of critique is to take the good work a student has done—whatever it is, however minimal it may seem—and to say "you did this great, but it could be even better if you did this"
it's a teacher's job to encourage students to achieve, not discourage them to fail.
it's a teacher's job to encourage students to achieve, not discourage them to fail.
my dad is also a professor, and we talked about this once and he explained that he had corrected something ten times in a draft and then the student hadn't fixed it in their revision and my first question was "did you explain why you corrected it?"
he hadn't.
he hadn't.
he had just gone through and every single time it had appeared, had correct it. laboriously, because he still does things by hand. and he was so frustrated, because this would impact the grade and didnt understand why the student hadn't fixed something so simple.
and i told him "correct it once. explain it once. explain WHY you corrected it, and explain WHAT MATERIAL ADVANTAGE it will impart to correct it. don't knock it on this round, i guarantee you it'll be fixed next time."
he did it, and it was.
he's been teaching for 40+yrs
he did it, and it was.
he's been teaching for 40+yrs
we have modelled for us and are then told that the way to "fix" a "problem" is to just go fix it ourselves, but this isn't how teaching works. we teach kids by showing them why and how something will work better, not just by telling them it will. the same goes for editing &crit
i'll end by saying this: i often hear from coworkers & supervisors things like "oh, god, i hate this paper, i hate doing this class, i hate reading these, these papers are awful"&c.
nobody ever believes me when i say i've only maybe read one bad paper in my time teaching.
nobody ever believes me when i say i've only maybe read one bad paper in my time teaching.
i love reading anything my students produce, i love reading anything tht they make, no matter how difficult it is to read or how much it needs help or correcting. i am just happy to see them trying, and i am happy to work with them. becuase it's my LITERAL JOB.
and then these same people come to me and say "how do you get students to trust you, to open up to you, to come to you with their problems, to make sure they're safe? how do you have such consistently high student evals?"
here's how: i never discourage their work.
here's how: i never discourage their work.
that's it. it's that simple. i never discourage their work, because i'm so happy to see them try, to struggle, to fail, to succeed. i'm happy and excited to see what they're thinking, to engage with their work.
if you are giving critique on anything—writing, art, behavior, relationships, video games, whatever—and you aren't encouraging support, growth, and genuine happiness, your crit will fail. the more negativity (frustration, anger, distate) you have, the more it will fail.
now if you're working with someone/with something that is actively harmful, ill-intentioned, and is going to hurt people or hurt the creator, is materially detrimental, that's different. (that's the two student papers i HAVE hated.) but that's not the time for crit.
and this brings me to, at last, my final stop on this long-winded tour, which is fiction publishing.
i have seen maybe two agents, ever, who had any fucking idea what they were doing with writing they were commenting on. maybe.
i have seen maybe two agents, ever, who had any fucking idea what they were doing with writing they were commenting on. maybe.
the majority of agent comments and feedback i've seen (when personalized) has boiled down to "i just personally don't like it", and instead of saying that, they pull from the language of race, class, ability, and privilege to say "this is bad because your sentences are bad."
if you're reading this and you want to be a fiction writer, i want you to learn how to look at rejection feedback and ask yourself this question: what material action can i take based on this advice? what's one (1) thing i can do to improve via this?
this is true for schoolwork, too. or partnership critique. or being in a relationship! or art!
if you can't make A MATERIAL CORRECTION to the thing that needs improvement based off of the "critique" you were given, it's not critique! critique creates steps to improve!
if you can't make A MATERIAL CORRECTION to the thing that needs improvement based off of the "critique" you were given, it's not critique! critique creates steps to improve!
if you get commentary from someone and it says a buch of buzzwords like "clear" and "easy to read" and "dense" and "jargon" and "complicated" and "shifts ideas" and "confusing" and doesn't say anything, any one goddam thing, to correct any of those, throw the critique out.
if the person critiquing you can't tell you what, exactly, is causing the issue—can't pull it off the page, put it in front of you, and explain WHAT it is and WHY this is an issue, tbqh just toss it out. the what-ifs aren't gonna be worth the stress ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
take that critique, go to someone whose opinion and thoughts on your work you trust and value, show it to them, and ask them what they think it means, or if they've noticed something similar or how they think it could be fixed. get real help, not half-assed jackassery.
if you're a minority or you face discrimination for your identity, take that comment to someone in your community you trust. again, don't trust half-assed wordvomit: chances are, it's discrimination being disguised as ~*supportive commentary*~.
if you read this whole thread and you need help with a situation where someone has given you critique and it hurt you and you have to figure out how to respond, my dms are open and i will happily translate what it actually means to you.
