Insert your own subjects of study.
These comments were sent to all my students in public university as I assessed their final portfolios. I teach “Reading, Writing & Inquiry” at Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI).
From now on, you will have much more confidence in your ability to write. Yes, each class will be different, the disciplines will change depending on your coursework, your subject of study may require a specific approach, and your professors’ view of writing (and her own ability to write) will vary. But you have demonstrated that your abilities have improved from semester’s beginning to its end.
You have discovered there is no one way to write. Experimentation is now part of your process. Sure, you will feel most confident in one form or another, in one type of genre. You have your own voice while listening to other voices which has broadened your thinking.
In this class we have been able to encourage curiosity, creativity, innovation, and reflection. You have become dauntless in the face of change. Yes, we are in the midst of a societal upheaval. But you have shown in your writing that you are willing and quite able to make shifts in your reasoning. You have become nimble in your thinking. Your preparation in this class at this time will set you on a divergent trajectory; you will not be apprehensive of negative circumstances in the future.
Getting you up out of your classroom seat to comment on other’s work has made you more confident in your own thinking. You took the ideas others gave and incorporated them into your papers. You are not afraid of critique. You respond agreeably to well-intentioned correction. You have gained a confidence in your own thinking while listening to the thoughts of others.
To see the world from another perspective may change your own views, at times, rocking your own
assumptions. My hope is that no matter the orthodoxy to which you are now committed, you have become heterodox, committed to viewpoint diversity.
I would add a few watchwords to your experience in this class.
(1) Discipline is essential to everything in life. Discipline depends on you and not another. Discipline means no excuses.
(2) Collaboration means that you take the views and words of others seriously. Collaboration assumes you have an interdependent spirit. Collaboration will serve you and others in every relationship.
(3) Growth as a person can be experienced through writing. Growth in one’s spirit is expressed through introspective process. Growth is necessary for an enhanced view of the world.
(4) Ideals are true for all people, places, times, and cultures. Ideals force a reconsideration of our humanness. Ideals are easy to recognize, hard to practice.
(5) Encouragement is the best experience we can freely give others. Encouragement does not mean that we fully agree with everything someone says, but it says I have fully heard what you have to say and am glad to hear your perspective. Encouragement is kindness in our words to each other.
(6) Questions are imperative, especially the ones we ask ourselves. Questions are not necessarily more important than answers, but answers are developed because we are willing to be inquisitive. Questions force us to recount, reflect, reimagine, revise, and reinvest.
I have the honor of teaching and bear the load of responsibility with care, nurturing young minds to own their beliefs through their words. I respect my students, the lives they live, the dedication they bring to their studies, and the whole educational enterprise to which we give ourselves. An occasional writing by Dr. Mark Eckel
Picture credits: Luke Renoe, Scopio