Learner first. Teacher Second.
Huot (2002) draws on Louise Wetherbee Phelps to answer questions about teacher response to student writing. Phelps (2000) highlights the issue that “Response is fundamentally reading, not writing” (p. 113), yet we (professors, instructors, teachers) make it about correct writing rather than meaning-making. Our comments focus on what’s right or wrong instead of how to move the learner to develop their thoughts more richly in writing.
For Huot, this means “we are limited by our ability to evaluate student writing by the process we use to make meaning of a text in the first place” (p. 113). Such an argument is striking to me only because I hadn’t before considered how my comments may be limiting my students. I work to ask questions and develop my thoughts in the margins of their work, but I wonder to what extent my comments are pointing students to evaluate and critically analyze their own writing.
In the examples of teacher response that Huot provides, she also suggests that when we read as teachers we are limiting ourselves. Drawing on Freedman (1984), Huot explains that the teacher-raters judged student writing as inappropriate when the teachers assumed the roles that the students were supposed to fill as immature writers (p. 117). First, it seems to me that a teacher should never argue that he or she is done learning or learning to read. To assume that because one is a teacher that he or she is also a master at his or her practice is a poor understanding of what a teacher does. Second, how can we cultivate a curiosity and a desire to create meaning among our students, moving them to think and write more critically, if we assume the role of knowing best? Huot’s work reminds me that as a teacher, I am committed to being a life-long learner. I argue that I am a learner first and a teacher second.
Elise, I definitely agree with your argument that as teachers we need to be “Learners first. Teachers second.” I don’t think many of us would go into this field unless we loved learning, but the love of learning may get a bit sidetracked after several years. Also, I like the notion of viewing response as a form of learning. I try to be as receptive as possible when providing feedback, and I sure do love learning from my students’ work/research when it happens. Your response also made me think about the necessity between finding a balance between correction and instructive feedback. There needs to be some middle ground in-between, which can probably be accomplished by viewing students’ writing as a form of meaning making, not just a text that follows or breaks arbitrary rules.