My name is Aaron Nieves and I was born and raised in NYC. I am Puerto Rican and Cuban. I am currently a Professional and Technical Writing major here at City Tech. At the moment, I currently work as a paraprofessional at an elementary school. Working with special needs kids is something that I really enjoy doing. It can really fill you with this sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. Ultimately, I would love to become a Special Education teacher.
I chose the following quote: “Shaughnessy’s insight is utterly simple and vitally important: we cannot teach students to write by looking only at what they have written. We must also understand how that product came into being, and why it assumed the form that it did. We have to try to understand what goes on during the internal act of writing and we have to intervene during the act of writing if we want to affect its outcome. We have to do the hard thing, examine the intangible process, rather than the easy thing, evaluate the tangible product.” The author had mentioned earlier that when writing teachers revise papers they follow an old paradigm which does not improve the students’ writing. The old paradigm focuses on finding the errors. Shaughnessy states that we cannot just look at the end product. Instead, we have to examine the entire process of writing so we can become better writers. This made me think and feel more aware about my own writing process and what are some things that my professors can do to help me become a better writer. Some suggestions are not just looking at my grammar but to look at my writing as a whole. For instance, did it fulfill my intention and did it meet the audience’s needs?
