As an English teacher, I often ponder the editing process and which tool is the most optimal ways to edit? Given English as my second language, I was led to believe, when it comes to editing, there is one and only tool. The tool I’m referring to is a 1. Grammar (verb tenses, sentence structures, and spelling); 2. Organization of the paragraphs (flow of contents and presentation); and 3. Word choices (suggest different words). After reading the Sharing and Responding article, I learned there are several editing tools and techniques. For some unknown reasons, when I see and read the word, edit, it cringes my stomach and made me nervous (hands sweating) when I edit my students’ paper or when someone asks me to edit his/her paper. The tool for giving and getting feedback will enable me to provide various kinds of responses instead of limited to the tool of grammar edits, an organization of paragraphs, and sentence structures. Instead of the word I see and read (edit), this word, feedback, gives me the comfortable feeling of knowing someone is merely helping with ideas with honesty. I only can imagine my students feeling relieved if I announce them in a response to feedback instead of editing the papers. I know my students will feel much more comfortable when they see and read this word, feedback, rather than the ‘edit’ word. With the learned concept of feedback when editing, it will boost my confidence to give feedbacks more consciously. I’m reassuring myself to provide the feedback responses and with an open-minded attitude, I’ll listen to the writer/reader.
Out of these 11 response tools and techniques, I already relate my editorials, even without realizing it, to several of these response techniques and tools. I even actually use several of them when I edit my students’ papers. For example, I use the criterion-based feedback tool with my students and I can be lack of consciousness of how I provide feedback to them. If I had not provided the feedback more accuracy and cautious, they easily can put my students down.
The Movies of the Reader’s Mind technique is a deaf-friendly method because we, the Deaf readers, always picture the images in our mind while reading. There are some tools in the Movies of the Reader’s Mind I never thought of and it gives me a better idea of how to respond effectively. As for some kinds of responses I am unfamiliar with, but am willing to learn how to use them, I persuaded myself this way because Elbow and Belanoff mentioned that it is important to try all the kinds of responses depending on what kind of essay. There goes my open-minded attitude.
Since I am Deaf, the Voice technique does not apply to me because I am not familiar with sounds and how to identify those sounds to the feelings. However, I am willing to visualize the different sound tones in my mind what the paper says. It is still challenging for me because it is not natural for me. I could easily pretend to be hearing and speak in my mind as I read, but how can the reader listen to me?
The Metaphorical Descriptive tool may be one of the most difficult tools. How can I identify the feelings of each animal, shape, and/or color? As for clothing and weather, I can easily identify based on my common sense, but I am not 100% confident and familiar enough with the relationship between feelings and each of these categories. Speaking of another difficult kind of response, Skeleton feedback and Descriptive outline give me the uneasy feeling if I am to try and use this kind of response. I am not an expert at editing or giving professional feedback. It requires a lot of my confidence and experience to use that kind of response. I am not there, just yet.
What I learned a lot about the kinds of responses is that I should try to sign aloud to myself and to the reader as often as I could because I completely agreed with Elbow and Belanoff that to sign aloud does help me recognize where I want my paper to go. It is a self-criticized by nature as well as help the reader to recognize where I am going especially with my thinking and tone/voice. The idea is wonderful, yet, it is imperative to recognize that American Sign Language (ASL) and English are both different languages and I could easily overlap these languages which are a big no-no especially with grammar structures. I probably could use ASL to sign aloud to see what kind of tones and where my thoughts are at, but when it comes to the grammar structures, I will have to avoid using ASL.
TED video clip:
The video clip called "The Urgency of Intersectionality" by TED inspired me. TED is one very useful resource. I am thankful that their videos are closed-captioned. The video clip has put me in a speechless position after Kimberly Crenshaw mentioned the names of these people that I am not familiar with. When Ms. Crenshaw asked the audience to stand up if they know who these names are, I was surprised to see many people know who they are. I feel awful that I didn’t even know one of them! After she identified who they are, I was floored. Yes, I do recognize these kids from the media, but I didn’t know their names. I was awed even more when many of this audience knew the black boys and none of them knew the black girls who were killed by the police. I was appalled by Ms. Crenshaw’s activity in all her workshops, most of the workshop participants had recognized the black boys’ names, not the names of these black girls. I told myself, “Wow, that is a serious problem! We need to realize how we think and how we choose to remember.” When she mentioned that White women and Black men are far more recognized than Black women, I was floored again. How can people simply forget this particular group? What about Rosa Parks? Everyone knows Rosa Parks. It does not make any sense to me.
After listening to Ms. Crenshaw, I looked into my attitudes and thoughts as a White, Deaf woman. I simply followed what others were doing for years. Now, after many workshops on cultural diversity and reading this article, I’m much more aware of my own surroundings and be more conscious of those people I follow.
Hi Deba!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post! I also find the concept of intersectionality really fascinating and important; I don't have much experience with content that falls within that field of study but I hope to learn more as I think it could be really beneficial to understand as a teacher.
I liked that you mentioned "hands sweating" in referring to the way you feel when it comes to editing. I can't agree more, and I also relate because I too get sweaty hands when it comes to situations like this. I liked reading this weeks text because it helped me understand the different ways to approach giving feedback. I think I get so nervous when I need to give it because I don't believe I know enough to be giving it in the first place. Maybe you feel a similar way? It's hard. Also, getting feedback or being told to "edit" as you described is really difficult as well. Sometimes I just don't want to hear 'whats wrong' with my writing so I try to avoid editing. Although, I think this weeks authors offered some great ways to get over this feeling.
Hi Deba,
ReplyDeleteI really love that you fully explain your experiences using ASL and writing. Having small experience with ASL, I can understand how when it comes to writing it is difficult to use ASL. Like you mentioned, grammar and sentence structure are completely different! Which a common misconception is that ASL is exactly like English. No way! I also love how you said you cringe when you see the word 'edit'. I can remember being in classes in high school and once the teacher said to get ready to peer edit in class, a groan would wave over the classroom. For some reason it has a negative experience tied to it that we need to find new ways to break. I really enjoyed your post, it was very relatable!
Hi Deba,
ReplyDeleteI found your take on this week's reading to be very informative and different from the rest of ours. As someone who is actively teaching writing, you're having real experiences with people that reflect what we're being taught and that's great. With ASL being your first language, I understand what you mean when you say that voice is a difficult way for you to examine feedback. In the case of writing though I don't think voice has to be super literal. Most of the time when writers are talking about voice, they don't mean how the words sound when they're spoken. Yes, that's part of it, but the more critical focus area means dissecting word choices and noticing the patterns that make each person's writing unique. I know that in your paper you said that vocabulary is something that's been difficult for you in your own writing though, so that may just be something that doesn't work for you. I'll get into more detail about what I enjoyed about your paper when I officially comment, but I'll just say that it was definitely an emotional roller-coaster.
I also found it interesting that you said metaphorical descriptions were something that troubled you since I talk in metaphors all the time. I did a lot of it when we were in class giving feedback on papers even when that wasn't the feedback technique we were using. (It was much more centered on pointing and gravity.) It seems like visualization-geared stuff is where you feel comfortable and you should definitely stick to that until you feel like you've had enough practice to try other approaches that feel scary to you.
Deba, I agree with Maddy when she says she likes what you said when you referenced "hands sweating" when you think of editing. It's funny because I always get nervous when I'm editing someone else's work. I feel as though I need to be 100% accurate and on point. I CAN NOT make a mistake when editing or it will make me look SO bad! Just a small thing I've felt a lot!
ReplyDeleteI love when you talk about ASL because I think it's so important for us all to remember that English is not always someone's first language. Today, I was in a ESL classroom and I was in the outs because I did not know what they were saying in Spanish (except when one of them called me a bitch- THAT word I do know!) I also like when you discuss ASL because I feel like I'm learning a lot about it, through you. I thank you for that, and for your blog post!