Student, interrupted: A tale of two would-be writers  

Oleh:

Blanton, Linda Lonon

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Journal of Second Language Writing (Full Text) vol. 14 no. 2 (Jun. 2005), page 105-121.
Fulltext: Blanton_Linda_Lonon, p. 105-121.pdf (153.29KB)

Isi artikel

What I learned recently brings to mind the saga played out in the book Girl, Interrupted in which a mental patient nears a catastrophic breakdown as forces in her life conflate and collide. While no single force determines her fate, altogether—like an avalanche that starts with one small stone—they threaten to overtake her. In somewhat the same way, forces, some set in motion years ago, menace the course of two ESL students whose writing difficulties I set out to understand.1 While a full report of the study can wait, I want here to explain an aspect that I find especially instructive—and troubling. Let me say at the outset that, jokes aside, I am not analogizing the psychiatric setting of the story, whose title I mirror, either to the students or schools they attended. Still, certain parallels apply. Looking back, as with the girl, no one foresaw that the students’ progression—in particular, their literacy development—would go so badly awry. Nor, as with the girl, was the damage done all at once but, rather, resulted from an entwining of circumstances over time. As with the girl, the students’ predicament severely limits current options and jeopardizes future possibilities. Also, as in the girl’s case, in the lives of these students, well-meaning individuals—in their case, mostly teachers—contributed to and even participated in shaping their present situation, seemingly unaware of the students’ inexorable slide toward the institutional edge. But first some background.

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