These two articles honestly had me at a standstill about what to say and all I could think about was the discussions in my classes. I think some of my classmates would agree with the argument Mark Wiley makes in “The Popularity of Formulaic Writing (And Why We Need to Resist)” while at the same time there would be students like me who find the argument interesting but honestly never really thought about it the way the author discussed. Some statements did stand out to me though. For example, the statement Connors and Lunsford make that “teachers do not have to spend a lot of time writing terminal comments to justify a grade, which is often the purpose of our teacherly remarks on student work” (qtd. in Wiley 63). This quotation goes against what I thought responses were for or the goal of responses, and I feel like it goes against some of our previous readings. Continuing, I also felt some type of way about the quote “the method imposes—a simple solution for sequencing a writing curriculum, but one based on what’s easy for teachers and not necessarily what’s best for students” (Wiley 63). I think both of these quotes just make some teachers look really bad and demonstrate how some teachers fail to focus on what’s more important. I think this article does a great job convincing their audience or just making them think in general about their viewpoint or their position on the topic discussed.

Furthermore, “Why the ‘Research Paper’ Isn’t Working” by Barbara Fister made me think about a comment made in my writing center class by my professor Dr. Kathryn L Inskeep. One class period we were talking about citation styles and she said, “Why should anyone listen to what you have to say if you can’t follow the rules?” I never really thought about it that way, but my professor made a great point. We further discussed in class how a lot the rules we have to follow are to “prepare us.” I think it is interesting that Mark Wiley’s article makes you question whether you were truly prepared.