Ethical Issues Raised by Students' Personal Writing
1998; National Council of Teachers of English; Volume: 60; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/378560
ISSN2161-8178
Autores Tópico(s)Comics and Graphic Narratives
Resumocouple of years ago, very early in semester, one of my first-semester composition students wrote a personal narrative in which he confessed to murder. In Life on City Streets he described receiving instructions over phone and then proceeding to kill a nameless victim in cold blood. The paper disturbingly lacked remorse; student explained to me later that it was intended to show what he had had to do to survive on streets. It was way short of assigned length and very poorly written. Of course I had questions about authenticity of narrative. Also, I confess that in first, dismaying, how-do-Irespond-to-this moments after I read this paper, thought crossed my mind-as indeed it may be crossing your minds right now-that it is perfectly possible to go through an entire career without having to confront a paper such as this ... Some weeks later, when I shared this paper at a professional meeting with colleagues across my district, almost all of them thought that narrative was real, not fiction, though personally I have doubts to this day. Some advised various approaches one could take to get at the truth, while at least a couple pointed out that as an officer of college I was obligated to turn whole matter over to deans and to police. But, leaving aside that I had never thought of myself in quite that way, there was really not enough evidence to take such a step. Instead, I asked student to see me in conference, and when he finally kept his appointment, we discussed paper in more detail. He repeated several times that murder had really happened, and we negotiated a revision which would expand narrative, clarify thesis, define some terms, and provide indispensable details of context. Then we set up another conference where he would bring in a draft of revision. But, although he completed one other assignment in course, student continued to attend class only rarely, never came to a second
Referência(s)