Tobin: Own Voice

On page 334, Tobin writes, "My discomfort grew as I began to see how much her whole argument echoed my ideas — I, also, believe that a student should be allowed to write in her own voice, that she should be able to choose topics, that writing is a mode of thinking, and so on — all ideas to which I have a strong ideological and personal commitment." The first part of her beliefs — "that a student should be allowed to write in her own voice" — forced me to ask a question: "If a student isn't writing in her own voice, then what's the point?" Next, I asked myself, "If she's not writing in her own voice, whose voice is she writing in?" Writing has always been about personal expression for me and I don't understand or know how/why a person would write in anything other than their own voice. I have the information, but I don't know how I feel about that information. Writing allows me to analyze and create opinions based on knowledge. I don't know how I could or would come to these conclusions if I was writing in someone else's voice. This is why I agree with Tobin and why I allow students to have the creative freedom to write what they want to write. I assign topics, but from there the students have the ability to write whatever they want. If a student submits an idea that doesn't seem to address the topic, I don't tell them no. Instead, I ask them to explain how they see their angle and its relation to the topic. If they can explain the idea and support their pitch, I let them write because my job is not to tell students what to write.

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