Prose That Beats the Pros: Student Writing as Classroom Text

Slade, John R., Jr. (2010) The student-authored essay as a teaching tool. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 10 (3) (Nov.), 31-40.

       How do students feel about reading student-authored essays, as opposed to professional essays, in the writing class?  

      This is the question driving this research article by John R. Slade, a professor at North Carolina A&T State University. To find out, he surveyed 84 FYC students in five Critical Writing classes over two semesters from fall 2008 and spring 2009. The class of freshmen in these classes came from a broad range of backgrounds, educationally speaking: 45% ranked in the top two-fifths of their high school class and 47% in the bottom three-fifths. If these students' training left them ill-prepared for university, this was reflected in their self-confidence in academia. For example, when Wabash College did a study of 27 institutions on student attitudes, NC A&T students ranked 26^th when asked if they were willing to work hard to earn superior grades.  
      The article's thesis is “to measure how students perceive two types of writing models in a foundation-writing course,” either professional or student-written essays.  Slade's argument says students prefer student writing because they can relate to it and because they can understand it better than professional writing, all of which builds their self-confidence as writers. Evidence for this article comes primarily from the survey, and partly from sundry student replies to more open-ended questions, the details of which are not clear. The survey, derived from students' replies to three key survey questions, addresses essays – both professional and student-authored – from the classroom text, Critical Thinking, Reading and Writing by Sylvan Barnett and Hugo Bedau. 
      Respondents were asked a) if they preferred student or professional essays, b) which sort they “referenced” more frequently in their own writing, and c) which type of essay they would recommend to a colleague in a Critical Writing course.  Most notably, Slade's research found that, compared to professional essays, students preferred student-authored texts by nearly 3 to 1. Less clear was what they meant when they said they “referenced” student essays more than professional essays (51% vs 45%; 3% were neutral). The writer admits that the respondents were likely confused about the verb “reference” in this context. (Some considered “referencing” to be any time the teacher himself called a student text to their attention, which was often, according to Slade, since they appeared to avoid professional essays, except for homework.) When asked which variety of essay students would recommend to a colleague, professional essays received zero votes, while student-authored essays got only 13%; the most popular response was “both professional and student essays,” with 83%.

       Though he offers no detailed student responses to more open-ended questions, Slade seems moved by what he found. “Students writers,” he says, “long for instruction and instructional tools that emphasize immediate and practical uses.” (37)  Such replies led the author to conclude that students prefer student-authored essays because they provide simple models that follow the espoused mechanical parameters of composition, contrasted to professional essays, which more frequently break the rules that composition classes uphold. Slade uses this information, ancillary though it may be to the primary interests of the survey, to support an extended defense of “formula” essays – that is, simple rule-based models with strong topic sentences – for the FYC classroom. 
     The article concludes that student-authored essays bear the best fruit in foundational writing courses, especially for marginal writers, since “professional writers often stylize their prose with techniques too advanced for the average. . . writer to imitate.” The paper's strongest point, though, is that student writing is less intimidating and; young writers' confidence “seems to receive a boost from exposure to writing by their peers.” (39)

       Slade's argument is generally strong and, for the most part, it holds water. Certainly, for struggling writers who are admittedly poor or reluctant readers, it's not surprising that they lean toward student-essays. After all, they can't seem to relate to anything they deem professional. In fact, Slade at some point experimented with student texts from his own class, and the general response was even more positive than when using student-authored essays from the course textbook. Clearly, students felt that anything published professionally was a sign of perfection – a perfection that they couldn't hope to achieve in their own writing.

       If there's a weak spot in to Slade's article – aside from the fact that the replies to his third question are far from conclusive (see above) – it comes from his conclusion, drawn less from the survey than from replies to ancillary notes students included, that students prefer student essays because they embody the compositional structure promoted in class better. If the author found such information so impressive, then why not detail them? For example, how many students remarked that they were “longing” for practical models? Why not supply a quote or two? Personally, I wonder how much of Slade's defense of simple, rule-bound essay models was derived from student survey responses and how much was derived from hunches based on anecdotal remarks from personal encounters with an unspecified group of students. Not that hunches are invalid; they have their place. But I think we can agree that they need to be made explicit in a research paper.

       Of course, in his efforts to teach writing, Slade seems to have overlooked an important and very relevant point. Research shows that students who read better write better, which lends support for integrated reading and writing, and for the notion of exposing them to more complex readings by accomplished writers. Slade's conclusion holds little quarter for challenging students as readers, only as writers; in fact at no point does he mention the power of integrating reading and writing. I would submit that an apt scaffolding is needed for such marginal writers. Like Bartholomae and Petrosky in Facts, Artifacts and Counterfacts, Slade might do well to work with student texts exclusively early on, especially with writings of his own students, then later bring students to challenge themselves with more difficult readings by professionals, if it comes to that.