Writing
English Essays at Home
The English
Department’s goal is for students, through an engagement with literature, to
become independent, critical thinkers, able to approach texts and assignments
with confidence in their own ideas.
Rather than
being told what to think, students stake out original interpretive positions
and develop clear lines of reasoning defending them. By doing so routinely, students come to know
themselves as particular thinkers and writers who help to advance vital
inquiries.
English
teachers, via class discussions and one-on-one conferences, strive to help
students refine their understanding of a literary work and to guide them toward
more subtle, penetrating positions on the issues raised by our reading. It is in their take-home essays that students
most carefully consider these issues.
Policy on Tutors*
We discourage
the use of tutors for out-of-class assignments.
A student seeking assistance should be referred to his or her English
teacher during the composing process. While
we recognize the benefits of certain feedback, that feedback becomes
unacceptable when it changes the content or style of an essay, thereby
absolving students of responsibility for their work and disempowering them in
the process. If a student has received
help, as evidenced, for example, by a take-home essay far more sophisticated in
style or in substance than a student has demonstrated in timed writings, then
the English Department will treat such a case as a potential Honor Code
violation.
·
Acceptable
feedback:
— proofreading for
mechanical errors or moments of awkward phrasing, but without rewriting a
sentence for a student
— helping a student clarify
his or her ideas, but without dictating an essay’s structure
— pointing out where a
student’s prose becomes unclear or confusing, but without suggesting ways to
improve it
·
Unacceptable
feedback:
— composing any sentence in
a student’s essay, in first drafts or revised drafts, including a student’s
thesis or argument claim
— changing the content of a
student’s essay in any way