Individualized Diagnosis: Searching for Causes, Not Symptoms of Writing Deficiencies

Abstract

THE TRICKIEST PART of individualizing instruction in writing is to individualize it, that is, to teach not merely one student at a time, but that particular student who is sitting elbow to elbow with us. Workshop classrooms, student-teacher conferences, writing lab tutorials, and self-instruction programs all offer the student the advantage of concentrating on particular areas of study and receiving quick feedback; but the success of such instruction depends in large measure on the effectiveness of the diagnosis. For it is here that we truly begin to sort out each individual student's needs. If we rush too quickly through the diagnostic stage in our eagerness to start providing instruction, we are in danger either of doing not much more than decreasing the class size down to one or of falling prey to that tendency described in the Learning Skills Center: A CCCC Report (Urbana, Ill.: ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading and Communication Skills and CCCC, 1976) as merely handing students exercises or materials without careful inquiry as to whether that learning fits their actual (p. 16). The kind of diagnostic process which aims at preventing such a mismatch is a lengthy one, for it begins at the preparatory stage and then continues to accompany the instruction until we bid the student good-bye. It is also a complicated process, for there are at least three areas to be covered: 1) the diagnosis which identifies the deficiencies in the student's writing, 2) the on-going diagnosis during instruction which reveals what the student does not know or is confused about, and 3) the diagnosis which reveals those attitudes, apprehensions, and perhaps hostilities which can keep writers from learning what they need to know. While each of these types of diagnosis needs our careful attention, I will pause only briefly to note the place of the first two in individualized instruction. For my purpose here is to suggest a method for guiding the discussion necessary if we are to uncover those elusive attitudes and feelings of the deficient writer in need of tutorial work. The first type of diagnosis, the identification stage, is usually done by means of labeling the errors in a student's writing. To do this, we can draw on tables of correction symbols w hich decorate the end pages of most grammar texts, or we can