The Rhetoric of APA

As we enter into the mid-semester, I find myself struggling with the idea of grading a student. Before I undertook the responsibilities of a TA, I had a firmer view of grading. To be frank, I believed I would easily hand out a failing grade. As a student, I had a stringent understanding of responsibility, success, and academics. Considering my background, my grades essentially denoted my ability to self-actualize. While I understood any form of self-actualization did not rely on perfect grades, the ability to self-actualize relied on reaching an environment fitted for fostering such growth. Meaning, my ability to self-actualize relied on attending university, successfully earning a degree, and finding a well-paying job. But, I could not successfully meet my goals without reducing myself to grades. 

I believed in a meritocracy. I find it difficult to rewire the sort of thinking that only serves to oppress my students. Although I often diminished my abilities to perform as a successful student, instructors frequently and willingly pushed through self-imposed limits. While I can not quantify their attention as good or bad, there was a specific focus on enhancing my skills and proficiencies as a student. I had the privilege of attention. 

My 3010 students recently turned in their first set of abstracts. For most students, this is their first time fully embracing APA and using all of the writing rules. A few students received grades well below their expectations. As I marked their pages of writing, I felt burdened with the reality of the situation. Increasingly, each new mark fueled an overwhelming frustration with myself and the students. I wondered why they had not taken my advice and looked over their writing. Why were my students still violating simple rules of point of view and anthropomorphism? Memories of my own time in 3010 only served to alienate my relationship and empathy with students. Fassett and Warren (2007) argued, "being a critical scholar is about always being accountable for not only what you intend but what kinds of effects you put into motion. It is about holding yourself responsible even when privilege tells you are not, about listening to others even though you feel you are entitled to speak. (88)" 

Fasset and Warren noted, “writing this narrative was the most significant part of this essay for me - doing so called on my own need to examine the mundane enactments of how privilege was embedded in my own body.” (108) How can I hold every student to the same standard, across the board, without taking into account their own starting points? How is there justification in reducing a student to a numerical grade? Without my own doubt on the inherent connection to subjective terms excellent, great, average, or below average. I know there is no clear answer to the problem. No magic solution in fixing a historically faulty system. My silent challenge to the system reflects on how I present my own position of their work in person. Reinforcing their own power as a scholar to grow and create work that reflects their positionality. Perhaps I cannot challenge the expectations of writing style and form, but I can 

negotiate why their writing matters. I recall their writing is #ForThem and I position myself as a resource to conceptualize their own possibilities within the discipline. 

Fassett, D. L., & Warren, J. T.  (2007). Critical communication pedagogy.  Thousand Oaks, CA:  Sage.