DialogueAroundWrittenWork

=Dialogue around Written Work=

Written and spoken comments on each installment of a project and successive revision in response, which allows the advisor (instructor) to accumulate a portfolio for you as advisee (student) that facilitates generative interactions even when your advisor is not an expert in your project's topic. "Generative” can be taken to mean that as researchers you bring to the surface, form, and articulate your ideas.

From the instructor to student (advisor to the advisee): > I try to create a dialogue with each student around written work, that is, around your writing, my responses, and your responses in turn. For each assignment I make comments on a cover page that aim to show you your voice has been heard and to reflect back to you where you were taking me. After the overall comments I make specific suggestions for how to clarify and extend the impact on readers of what was written. I usually ask you to revise and resubmit the assignment. The idea is not that you make changes to please me as the teacher or to meet some unstated standard, but that you as a writer use the eye of others to develop your own thinking and make it work better on readers. I may continue to request revision when I judge that the interaction can still yield significant learning. Such a request does not mean your (re)submission was "bad." Even when the first submissions of written assignments are excellent, angles for learning through dialogue are always opened up.

> I hope my comments capture where you were taking me and that my suggestions help you see how to clarify and extend the impact on readers of what you have written. After letting my comments sink in, you may conclude that I have missed your point. In that case, my misreading may stimulate you to revise so as to help readers avoid mistaking the intended point. However, if you do not understand the directions I saw in your work or those I suggest for the revision, a face-to-face or phone conversation is the obvious next step. This is because written comments have definite limitations when writers and readers want to appreciate and learn from what each other is saying and thinking. Please arrange to meet with me without delay if you do not see how you are benefiting from the whole "Revise and resubmit" process. I recognize that this process departs from most students' expectations of "produce a product one time only and receive a grade." And I know that most students at first are uncomfortable exposing their work and engaging in extended dialogue over it. So I continue to look for ways to engage students in this process that take into account your various backgrounds and dispositions and my own.