Monday, November 7, 2011

Teaching: Unpacking writing


One of my students writes a response paper with the sentence, 
For example there was a story in the end where his brother says that to help your sick mother you must feed some of your flesh and the narrator remembered this at the time of his sister’s death and believed that his brother had eaten her and was sad because maybe he wasn’t full and was wanting to eat someone else, and that this world is kind of like survival of the fittest."
The student is being a bit lazy, writing quickly, mangling syntax. Worst of all, they make a weak gesture at an idea "survival of the fittest" that is complex and even intriguing. 


Nevertheless, the response is basically correct. So the role of the teacher then, is to make them slow down, take more time, and expand on their answer, right? I offered: 
This is a really good thought, but I'd like you to expand it a bit: how does the first part of this sentence, up to "eat someone else," make us feel that the world ensures the "survival of the fittest?"

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