Hierarchical POV: Get that 'Voice' out of my head

In his last discussion, Tom comments that the student’s writing lacks “individuality”, that he is writing in a “pastiche” of children’s stories and promotes a question based learning in the revision process until he finds his “voice”. His comments seem to be similar to those of the Voicists (academics looking for a personal voice between the words of a text) who when examining student writing and professional texts often prefer narratives with a personal outlook[1]. As William Coles points out, the essays that receive the most positive attention from them include narratives, colourful description and impassioned belief[2]. Here we can see a conflict between the subjective and objective forms of creative and academic writing, as Voicists seem to prefer texts with dramatic/personal conventions. Ultimately if we concentrate on the idea of ‘voice’ I fear we may confuse the writer into not making the difference between the personal and the objective. We should abandon any idea of a Rousseausesque “natural language”, which suggests that words offer us direct access to the truth or a personal voice[3]. Jacques Derrida rightly points out that the words we use are not ours but exist before us. We should acknowledge David Bartholomae’s point that the “struggle of the student writer is not the struggle to bring out that which is within; it is the struggle to carry out those ritual activities that grant one entrance into a closed society”[4]. Individuality is important but ultimately what’s more important is that the student has to learn to enter into the discourse of University academia. Once this student understands these ‘rituals’ they can then manoeuvre them slightly to fit their opinion. Commenting that this writer’s writing is a “pastiche” seems odd as since students only have a 13 week period to write it and analysis it what do you expect? Surely 'pastiche' shows an awareness of the conventions of childrens writing? The problem is with their writing not the finding the voice as that has to be learnt. ‘Voice’ is a technique used to give the illusion of confidence and a student can only apply such a technique after they learnt the basics through co-operative, hierarchical and other disciplines of learning. Particular things need to be concentrated on first, such as proper academic referencing (I think its an attempt at Harvard referencing) and paragraph structure. Once these conventions have been mastered then we can worry about ‘voice’.I

In thinking about how to respond to this student’s problems, if we mark it as part of a group of work we would have to think carefully about any phrasing we would use. I believe that some standards of marking by some teachers do not benefit hierarchical systems of good writing in giving a good response. Roz Luanic, Ronny Clark and Rachel Rimmershaw in their study of Tutor’s comments on student work criticise the common use of the phrase, ‘Not sure what you mean here’ (which I have had written on my assignments many times)[5]. The problem with such a comment is that it is a one-sided dialogue as by asking what the student means the tutor is leaving it open to interpretation. Luanic, Clark and Rimmershaw suggest it would preferable to make corrections based on an assumption of what you think it means or point out if it contradicts the text. I will now use an example from our set assignment:

“Even thought children could probably cope with things like heads being chopped off, adults wanted them to be changed to protect the children. This tale has been adapted because children wouldn’t be able to understand the period of time.”

I will concentrate on the phrase ‘period of time’ here as I think it is confusing for the reader and would warrant a 'Not sure what you mean here' type comment. An example of a more suitable comment would be the following:

“Are you suggesting that children wouldn’t understand the genre of fairytales, the language in which they were written or the social conditions of the period of history its based? I assume you are talking about the period of time in which it was written but it’s not clear”.

In my example I am offering up different avenues of choice for the reader and have elaborated my problem with that comment. Through such exposition the tutor can help students improve their writing. Hierarchical/Co-operative systems only work when there is a clear flux of information from tutor to student.
Bibliography
[1] Darsie Bowden, ‘The Rise of the Metaphor; “Voice” in Composition Pedagogy’ in Rhetoric Review, Vol 1,(US:Depaul University: 1995) in Journal Storage,p.183 < http://www.jstor.org/view/07350198/ap020028/02a00100/0?searchUrl=http%3a//www.jstor.org/search/BasicResults%3fhp%3d25%26si%3d1%26Query%3dAuthorial%2bvoice&frame=noframe¤tResult=07350198%2bap020028%2b02a00100%2b0%2cEFFF01&userID=86dc3c2e@wlv.ac.uk/01cce4401e0050bdec7&dpi=3&config=jstor> [Accessed 18th May 2006]

[2] Bowden, p.183.
[3] David Bartholomae, ‘Writing Assignment: Where writing begins” in Writing on the Margins: Essays on Composition and Teaching, (USA:Palgrave Macmillian, 2005), pp.177-192 (p.185)
[4] Bartholomae, p.178.
[5] Ronny Clark, Roz Luanic, Rachel Rimmershaw, ‘What Am I supposed to Make of this? The messages conveyed to students by tutors written comments’ in Student Writing in Higher Education, (Suffolk: The Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press, 2000), pp.47-65. (p.58.)