Fishing for Answers: Summer Petrey's Blog (Ghost Published)

Fishing for curriculum, easier said than done; the big question is what should be taught in college writing and Stanley Fish does just that in his article "what should colleges teach, part 3". Fish States "What is a sentence anyway? My answer has two parts: (1) A sentence is an organization of items in the world. (2) A sentence is a structure of logical relationships." His main point of the article goes over organization and touches on how high schools aren't preparing children for college and how important organization is to college writing.

Fishing for the answers

While Fish and I aren't exactly swimming in the same pond when it comes to the most important component to college writing, I do agree partially agree with his claim that is, sentence organization being the key to success. This is because after doing my own research I have come to the conclusion that Seeking Academic Assistance is the most important aspect of college writing, without assistance no one could learn anything, like how to organize a sentence properly.

Like seriously bro? Why no you even English?

How I conducted this search for the burning question was done by first putting out a survey to 25 college students to get a feel for what people thought was the most important aspect of college writing. I observed a tutor session between a student and a Peer Writing Consultant at the Ohio State University Newark Writer's studio. (https://newark.osu.edu/students/support-services/the-writers-studio/) After an interview with the Peer Writing Consultant to follow. Later on I collected three different secondary sources, such as evidence from: An journal article, college writing handbook, and The University of North Carolina Writer's Center. Lastly I had the opportunity to interview Professor Megan Boeshart, former Ohio State University Newark writers studio Peer Consultant and English major.

The one thing every source could agree on was, Seeking Academic Assistance is crucial to college level writing. From Lateral Learning and Academic Collaboration, to even catching grammatical mistakes, having an extra set of eyes makes a world of difference in the end results of college writing.

There's no I in team college writing!

Lateral Learning from peers is everlasting and has many benefits, even professionals and experts seek information from others. Fish seems to encourage the same aspects of Lateral Learning when he has his students work in groups through the entire semester to complete the sentence exercises as a team.

Academic Collaboration has students--Back at it again with the teamwork! Collaboration in college writing allows for different perspectives and new ideas. Even Professor Megan Boeshart agrees here saying "Learning to collaborate isn't just important for writing in college but it's a stepping stone for the collaboration required for many different aspects of life." Learning how to collaborate is a crucial part of growing up, as well as college writing.

Who needs grammar? Well... literally everyone, catching grammatical mistakes is so important to college writing because without proper punctuation things can get confusing. Having someone proof read isn't lame, it's too cool for school, even the professionals are doing it--it's all the rage! It's easy to look over your own mistakes and there is no worse feeling than losing a grade point over a silly mistake, so go out grab a friend to help and make a date out of it.

Being a college student in a time with such advanced technology gives students the upper hand; from peers, tutors and professors there's so much to be learned. While Stanley Fish makes a great argument on what's important to college writing, I believe seeking Academic Assistance is the most important aspect of college writing and should be encouraged. By reaching out for Assistance you are only making yourself better and more knowledgeable, which I believe is the key to success.