Response to Brannon and Knoblauch

I agree with the authors that any pedagogical change implies a great deal of attitudinal change. However, while reading the following sentence
“Student writers, then, are put into the awkward position of having to accommodate, not only the personal intentions that guide their choice-making, but also the teacher-reader expectations about how the assignment should be completed” (p. 158).
I was wondering: Do not any writing demands this from the authors? Yes. But maybe writing in the classroom exaggerates this. However, other kinds of writing also pose this kind of demands on the writers. Take for example academic writing. Even if you are a consecrated scholar, you will have to adjust to the ideal text of the reviewers. And this is even more noticeable with second language writers, since many times papers are rejected not because they communicate bad research but because they communicate it in a “bad” way. My point is, many times readers determine “what the writing will be about, the form it will take, and the criteria that will determine its success” (p. 158). With this I don’t want to communicate the message: the world is not an easy place and school has to prepare you for it by treating you in a bad way in order to toughen you up. What I wanna say here is that this depends on what we set as an objective for the composition course.
On the other hand, I do agree that teacher feedback should be based in negotiation and that teachers should care more for what the students are intending to communicate to be able to guide them better in the composing process. Sometimes, I found that the negotiation process with my students appears only when I don’t understand what they are trying to say, taking as something given that I understood the rest. I also found myself giving them form-centered feedback.
Another thing that I would like to add is that the model the authors are trying to go against is, as they say, deeply rooted in pedagogical assumptions about the teacher and students role that it is really hard to change. For example, when I was reading this phrase:“what might be regarded as “errors” on a single-draft assignment may be seen as opportunities to clarify or refine relationships between intention and effect” (p. 162) the following image came to my mind: how much some students hate to scratch what they wrote and reformulate it. I think this is rooted in a linear conception about writing that it is deeply embedded in our culture. So, as the authors say: “attitudes are more important than methods”, and I think it is there where our most deep assumptions about writing and writing pedagogy have to be changed. Not an easy task.