Some people find it passing strange when I tell them that I am both a college English professor and a writing student. At the moment, I'm working on my dissertation to complete my Ph.D. in English composition. This Tuesday, I have a meeting coming up with both my dissertation director and a committee member, after I witness a close friend's final dissertation defense.
This is a strange place to be because of a few factors: I find writing sometimes an infuriating process, in that what I think I want to say sometimes comes out completely different than I had intended. This echoes Peter Elbow (1973) regarding "translation" of thoughts to text. Elbow suggests that our memories are quite like movies in our mind, and translating them to others is a review process that asks, "did you see that movie the way I did?" Generally people don't. In my head, I know what I am going to say, but then when I read a text, it usually isn't what I expected. I know my students go through this process a lot, too. This is generally why it's much easier to give feedback to others; we can "see" errors or mis-steps in language use, detailing, and structures in others' writing because we are seeing it for the first time. This is in opposition to working on our own texts, in which sometimes we're so familiar that we can't see the glaring issues on the page. I think the cliche here is called "not seeing the forest for the trees." We can relate this to work in a writing classroom with texts, or even extrapolate it out to life situations in which a person, like myself, pays attention to one issue without focusing on the other.
Consider this analogy: say a person is driving down the street, paying close attention to directions to get to the right place. But what they're not paying any attention to is the gas gage, which is now in the red. They won't get to their destination without both directions and enough fuel. It's unfortunate that many of us overlook the obvious (the data behind the details) when we're trying to get to our destinations. In my case, I hope I attended to enough of the structures inherent in dissertations (provided a clear methodology, enough of a literature review, and a sound thesis/issue) so that I get the "it's looking good" pep talk on Tuesday.
I sometimes think that being a teacher-student would be a benefit to my current students. Of course, I understand the anxiety of submission, of grades, of approval. I cannot tell you how many times I've left one of my professor's offices on cloud 9 simply because I got the feedback, "you're on the right track." I'm hoping to hear that this Tuesday, but part of me wonders whether this dissertation process will ever end. I suspect that this is a lot like a student in a 16-week class at about week 12. They've done quite a bit of work, and they're tired. My students might be working, with families and life situations that keep them from busy, tired, and sometimes distracted. All I can suggest now is to hang in there. At some point, this too shall pass. I thank Monique (a previous student) for that sentiment...
Reference
Elbow, Peter. Writing without Teachers. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973.
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