Harsh

"They appear very rarely—only, it seems, when the teacher is sufficiently frustrated with the level of

work represented by the paper to abandon worries about harming the student's

selfesteem. For example, one teacher wrote, "The poor quality of the ideas, style,

and proofreading tells me that you didn't spend much time on this paper."" - Straub

In our discussion of end comments a few weeks back we focused mostly on overly positive or watered down end comments made by teachers on papers. Yet this week at the Writing Center I encountered a paper with quite the opposite type of end comment. A senior brought in a rough draft of a paper for a senior seminar that his professor required him to bring to the Writing Center. This paper contained the professor's comments, which were some of the harshest if not the harshest I have encountered in my academic experience. Fully in the "judging" genre, the professor in short stated that the paper was in no way appropriate for a senior seminar, that it made no sense, that there were an unacceptable amount of mistakes, that he was a horrible student in the class itself, and that if he didn't change then he would fail the class. After reading these comments, I was almost scared to see what the student would be like - I expected someone sullen and unresponsive, or someone unintelligent (stereotypes I regret taking a part in). Yet when he came into the appointment he came with an open mind and very responsive attitude. He asked questions, took notes, marked on his paper, and was extremely active in the meeting. He seemed to genuinely want to write a good paper, and when prompted by the writing consultant seemed interested in what he was writing about.

The student painted by the professor in the end comment and the student I encountered were completely at odds with each other. Granted, while the student was very good at expressing himself vocally, when prompted by the consultant to write down what he just said he always lost something in translation between vocal and writing. Yet the entire experience made me question the end comment itself. Was the harshness the cause of a turn around, did it scare the student out of his passivity? Or was it too harsh, too judging? I'm not sure if there's any way that I can judge the comment since I have had no experience with the student in class, yet an end comment that brutal cannot be beneficial in my mind.