By Sasha Graybosch
As consultants, we’re familiar with the value of asking questions to learn about the writing situation and the writer’s process, and to engage the writer in identifying issues and refining ideas. But one question I’ve been using more in my sessions, especially when it comes to the existing choices a writer has already made, is simply: “Why?”
When we encounter something that appears to be a mistake or oversight and decide it’s important enough to be addressed, we might communicate the issue directly, prompt the writer to identify it on their own, ask them to orally restate the idea, and/or provide information on a rule, convention, or concept. However, these strategies miss an opportunity to more accurately comprehend the issue and can result in a “misdiagnosis.”
“Why?” is a question that aims to consider the writer’s prior thought process before discussing what could or should happen differently. It gives writers the chance to reflect on their reasoning and intentions, and it can result in surprising discoveries that make sessions more interesting and meaningful for both writer and consultant. This type of inquiry also acknowledges that 1) perceived mistakes or deviances from a norm may be intentional, and 2) unintentional mistakes or deviances from a norm are the result of an informed logic that deserves consideration, conversation, and respect.
An example of this idea in practice comes from educator and scholar Mike Rose’s Lives on the Boundary: A Moving Account of the Struggles and Achievements of America’s Educationally Underprepared. Sarah Blazer, the Associate Director of the Writing Studio at the Fashion Institute of Technology, shared this excerpt with consultants last semester. Rose describes a session with a student named Suzette who wanted to work on sentence fragments at the recommendation of an instructor. Instead of defining complete sentences or drilling on subjects and verbs, Rose prompted the student to observe her own fragments; he asked what she noticed about them and why she wrote them that way (170). Suzette replied that she could tell there was something wrong, but she had been trying to avoid the repetition of “She was, she was, she was” (171). She thought the repetition didn’t sound like intelligent, college-level writing. Rose writes, “Many people respond to sentence fragments of the kind Suzette was making as though the writer had some little hole in that part of her brain where sentences are generated…But, Suzette didn’t have a damaged sentence generator” (172). She hadn’t yet mastered the moves that would produce the kinds of sentences she was aiming for. Realizing that Suzette’s fragments “were rooted in other causes,” Rose modeled examples of complex sentence structures and patterns she could use (171). He encourages consultants to use questions, listening, and waiting to find “the intelligence of the student’s mistake” (172). The word “intelligence” in this context strikes me as a worthy challenge to the perception that a perceived mistake necessarily implies lack of knowledge, deficiency, or carelessness.
Recently I was working with a student I’ll call Vanessa on a cover letter that deemphasized her versatility and scope of experience. Instead of immediately suggesting a course of revision, I asked why she wrote it this way. She reported that her advisor had instructed her to write about only one job, but since Vanessa found that strange, she “broke the rule,” and wrote about two. Stumped, I asked why she thought the advisor gave her that advice. Vanessa had no idea; she figured her advisor was instructing her on how all cover letters should be written. Asking for the reason behind her choice allowed Vanessa to reckon with the logic of her decision. She decided that she didn’t find it to be an effective structure, and she wanted to write a revised version and talk to her advisor. I imagine that launching into a critique of her letter would have been frustrating and confusing for Vanessa—to have taken one person’s advice only to have it challenged by someone else. Asking why doesn’t need to replace other reactions or advice, but it can work as a starting place.
I find that realizations also sink in with less resistance when writers arrive at them themselves. In an online session this semester, I prompted a student to underline and identify the main points in her paragraphs after she requested to work on organization. She did, and I asked what she noticed. She said that the underlines appeared at the end of her paragraphs and not at the beginning. I asked why—if this was an intentional choice. She said no, that she wrote a draft to find out what she thought. From there, she essentially reorganized sentences to create topic sentences on her own. I believe it fostered her confidence to hear that her first draft wasn’t a failure, but a necessary step of her process that she could use to her advantage in this paper and in the future.
“Why?” works even when a sentence-level error seems obvious. Instead of telling someone that the punctuation goes inside the quotation mark, asking why the writer put the comma outside the quotation mark could lead us to a conversation about the differences in conventions between writing in Russia and in the U.S., for example, which is more interesting and useful for us both. Along those same lines, let’s say that, with a multilingual writer, I encounter a phrase or word that I don’t understand or sense won’t work for the reader. I could deem it strange, explain how I don’t understand it, or prompt the writer to change it. Or, I could approach it with curiosity and see the “error” as a resource rather than a deficit (Olson 2). The conversation is more memorable when we are able to compare languages or discourses and position the student with a more positive, and accurate, view of herself as containing an arsenal of language practices.
It can be a challenge to remember to ask why in a session, especially if writers are stressed, short on time, or have been pressured to make a product that is error or accent-free. It is certainly more time-consuming to ask, “Why are you using commas this way?” instead of “This comma doesn’t belong here.” I sometimes struggle to slow down the pace and make time for a writer to reason through their choices, but I remember that it’s the sort of perspective I would hope a reader would offer me when reading my work. It extends to the students the benefit of the doubt that they are operating with good intentions, and that we all, for the most part, are trying to make informed choices. It presumes reason and logic, responding with a kind of generosity that I believe all writers wish from their readers.
Works Cited
Olson, Bobbi. “Rethinking Our Work with Multilingual Writers: The Ethics and Responsibility of Language Teaching in the Writing Center.” Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, vol. 10, no. 2, 2013, pp. 1-6.
Rose, Mike. Lives on the Boundary: A Moving Account of the Struggles and Achievements of America’s Educationally Underprepared. Penguin Books, 2005.
Published April 23, 2018
