by Max Barnhart
I’d like to think of myself as a good writer and a good writing instructor. Although I don’t engage with long-form student writing regularly in my position as a biology laboratory teaching assistant, I do spend a substantial amount of time each week reading and editing writing from graduate students in my role as Editor-in-Chief of the Athens Science Observer (ASO). Many of the lessons I’ve learned through this experience can certainly be applied to more traditional undergraduate writing instruction. Perhaps the most substantial lesson I’ve learned to this point is that it is unrealistic to expect perfection from everybody.
Perhaps the most substantial lesson I’ve learned to this point is that it is unrealistic to expect perfection from everybody.
Some of the writers I work with are exceptionally talented, producing first drafts that are nearly publication quality. However, most writers need a bit more guidance throughout the drafting process; their ideas are great, but often they lack the experience or natural ability to write in the specific narrative style we publish in ASO. For these less experienced writers, the final product may not seem as polished as those created by writers who do have more experience. We don’t grade writing in ASO, but we do assess whether or not writing meets our quality standards to the point where we feel comfortable posting it on our website. So when there is a consistent disparity in quality between our writers, how can we feel good about all the writing we end up posting?
I believe the key is to manage expectations about what the quality of writing should be, especially within the context of teaching. It’s easy to look at the best writing and think of that as the standard by which all other writing should be judged by, but that’s unrealistic. The difference in the quality of work produced by different writers is unimportant. Rather, we need to judge writers based upon how much they’ve improved during the instructional and drafting process. For the writers of ASO, the reward for their efforts is getting to see their work published online and promoted by our organization. For us editors (and instructors), success is measured by how much we improved our writers’ ability to communicate their ideas.
In the biology lab I teach, there is exactly one long form writing piece students are assigned, the research paper. This is a group project, with four students taking their ideas and results from an experiment they designed and writing it into a paper that conforms to the traditional scientific journal format. These students only submit one rough draft and then a revised final draft with the combination of these two assignments accounting for over 25% of the grade for the class. Up until this point, students get absolutely no feedback on their writing because the class hasn’t required that they produce any substantial writing prior to the research paper. Naturally, this semester I received some rough drafts that were, well, rough…. However, knowing that writing a research paper was completely new to these students meant that even though the quality of many of these papers was subpar, these results weren’t in conflict with my expectations.
I expected, at the bare minimum, a solid effort from my students. We had a rubric for the paper, and so long as it was clear the students gave writing the paper a good ol’ college try, I gave them good grades. Other TAs for this class have expected more from their students at this point, and that just doesn’t seem fair to me. Who learns without making mistakes? Why should students be punished for not being able to write a great research paper on their first try? Again, success should be gauged by how much student writing improves. To this point, I also spent more time than I ever had grading other assignments giving these students as much feedback as possible so that they could learn about themselves and their writing.
At the time of writing, I have yet to receive the final versions of my students’ research papers. I am not expecting perfection, but I am expecting that each paper is better than it was beforehand. If that’s the case, then I will have made the impact I strive for as an instructor.
Max Barnhart is a TA for writing-intensive introductory biology lab classes.