Vandermeulen, Carl. The Double Bind and Stumbling Blocks: A Case Study as an Argument for Authority-conscious Pedagogy. Power and Identity ...

Vandermeulen is yet another professor who has a shared background in both creative writing and composition. He says he shares Wendy Bishop's position that "learning to write involves a change in the person, in the way the person sees, thinks, feels, reads, even in the person's identity, not just in how she or he writes and revises" (49). It is difficult for a teacher who invests in this philosophy, then, to exert authority in the classroom because we don't feel comfortable ranking "by means of a grade" a student's ability to become not just a writer, but also an artist and practitioner of art.

"Much of the recent history of composition theory can be understood as a deliberate limiting of the teacher's authority in order to create a safe place in which students can develop their own authority as authors" (49-50). Teachers can help to move along this premise by waiting to assign grades until revision is done, and also by offering student writers an opportunity to write a "memo" addressing where the work came from, where they think it is going, and what guidance they might need from the teacher -- which will address the process of writing as much as the work itself. In workshops, Vandermeulen encourages using a technique Peter Elbow defines as a "descriptive response: pointing to particulars of detail or style that catch (the students') attention, summarizing, saying what is 'almost said' in the piece, and saying what, for them, is the center of gravity. Elbow's idea is that responders should read with the writer at first, saving reading against for final drafts" (50). This allows the teacher to share authority with the students, and gives them a comfort zone in which they can begin to understand what works -- and what might not work -- in a piece of writing, making them better critics, and also helps to support and praise the student whose work is being critiqued.

The pedagogy can have its faults. For instance, even if a teacher tries to diminish the importance of grades, students still find them important (51). Trying to diminish our own authority as teachers seems to contradict our need to assign grades. Also, the student will look to us for guidance -- there is a reason we are in front of the classroom -- and they can become confused as to how much stock to put into our comments if we are forever stepping on ourselves to diminish our authority.

Also, because often creative writing comes based on an emotional response to a writer's situation, Vandermeulen says he sometimes finds himself in a "double bind between empathetic understanding and academic standards" (56). A critique of a student work can be taken to heart, sometimes too much to heart, and it can be misinterpreted by a student who feels his work has been taken apart by a teacher who strives to be considered as an equal in the classroom.