Of our common readings this week, I was most struck by Inoue’s concept of writing as labor, as opposed to work. On the most basic level, this is a shift from a noun (readings to be done, papers to turn in) to a verb, the process of doing this work. However, on a deeper level, this shifts the attention and value from the result of one’s labor, a paper to be graded, to the actual time and degree of effort that went into said production: “Labor is, of course, work and time put into something. It often signals the quantity of time and effort put into a project or activity” (73).
This is an interesting distinction, one that feels very important, but also one that makes me a little uncomfortable. The emphasis on labor over product feels dangerously close to subjective grading. Of course, Inoue skirts this issue by employing an evaluation method that includes a grading contract, reminiscent of the collaborative grading we saw attempted in Jessica Restaino’s First Semester. Unfortunately, I don’t feel comfortable trying something that ambitious in my first outing as an E110 instructor and so am left somewhere between valuing Inoue’s concepts and providing meaningful grades that are still in some way objective. What I hope to avoid, is the type of feedback and grading that “ignores the student’s labor and, in doing so, disrespects something fundamental about what the course asks of that student and how he or she experiences that work” (73).
My implementation of Inoue’s moves then, may be somewhat abstract until I get my feet on the ground as an instructor. I very much like the idea of framing the course around labor, and this may simply take the form of conversations in the classroom that promote this idea. I think it is worth admitting that most students do not come into E110 excited about the work that will be expected of them. As Inoue points out, writing can be about “working up a sweat and getting down to painful work that can and should hurt, much like exercising muscles and feeling pain, fatigue, and then soreness; but this labor makes us stronger and better in some way for doing it” (74). Having that conversation with students I think does two things. First, it informs students that they are not deficient in some way if they have not enjoyed writing up to this point in their lives. Instead, it frames that as normal. Secondly, this attitude acknowledges and honors the labor, the blood and sweat so to speak, that goes into student writing: I see you, I hear you, and I appreciate the labor that you have put into this course.
Seminar in Teaching Composition 
Hi Jake,
I enjoyed your discussion on Inoue’s stance on labor. When teaching E110, I would also like to consider the labor that went into the student’s work and forgo solely focusing on the end product. I also wonder, however, how this process can be effectively implemented. As much as I would like to stress the process of composing an assignment, the end product still remains important. With the difficulty in mediating the desire to value the labor and the end product, I found you discussion on providing thoughtful comments very useful. I have received papers back that just have check marks, question marks, and other unhelpful comments before. These kinds of comments don’t produce the student with any kind of useful feedback because they do not really show the students what to improve, or what they did that they should continue. They also do not account for the process at all. These kinds of comments makes it appear that grader is powering through the papers, not giving them much time. Providing thoughtful comments allows the student to see that the grader is taking the time to work with their paper. This expresses to the students that their effort and engagement is being considered, yet also doesn’t negate the significance of the end product.
Best,
Sam
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Hi Jake and Sam,
Having just completed my first round of grading, I have been thinking a lot about what it means to acknowledge the labor that goes into a student’s piece of work, how to assess it, and how to provide thoughtful, and perhaps more importantly, useful comments. Sam, I too have experienced the kind of unhelpful comments that you detail, and know how frustrating they can be. However, even when a teacher or professor does provide thoughtful comments on a paper, how many times are students given the opportunity to actually respond to their comments? One solution would be to provide more extensive comments on early drafts. And yet, in my experiences, unless a grade is at stake, students can be careless in their initial drafts of an assignment. Comments then become only marginally helpful to the student. I guess the question I’m getting at is, how do we encourage students to produce thoughtful work earlier on in the stages of writing, so that we can give more insightful and helpful feedback before it is too late?
Best,
Sarah
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Jake,
I think your closing sentence is beautiful. And astute.
And I think that both Sam and Sarah are right as on target as well: Our responses to student work need to show them that we are engaged by what they have to say, and not just “laboring” through a stack of papers. And we need to offer students such responses in time for them to actually use them in revision.
My own preference is for the vocabulary of Marx, Arendt, and Restaino—which almost exactly reverses Inoue’s: We need to help students move from thinking of writing as alienated “labor” that they do for others and to see it as meaningful “work” that they control. I’m not sure I see how to do that through contracting with students for certain kinds of labor products, although I sympathize with Inoue’s desire to demystify grading. I’ll be intrigued to see where our discussion of these issues takes us in class tomorrow.
Thanks for a thoughtful and eloquent post,
Joe
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