Roskelley's "The Cupped Hand and the Open Palm"

I like how Roskelly discusses the classroom culture and its implications on student attitudes and behaviors in class, and in particular on student work and writers workshops. She says that at a very young age one is taught to compete, to be solitary, and to be wary of cheaters who simply want to copy from you. However, she argues that people do not learn in isolation, but rather by “engaging in the world,” and this mean by interacting with others and through a spirit of cooperation. I agree with her, but I don’t know if I would go as far as have students write a collaborative essay as she did. But I did like how her students (of course) used “we” and “our”.  I suppose that’s better than the dreaded “I”.  This exercise also seems to be an exercise in rhetorical flexibility, which we have been discussing in our classes. Roskelly says: “There’s a sense of commitment, interest, and investment in the task” (148).  However, it does not end there, because she also stresses that this group exercise “removed or alleviated some of the most debilitating fears about writing for the freshman writers in my class” (148). From the way Roskelly poses it, group and collaborative work are a help (“the open palm”)  rather than a hindrance (“the cupped hand”).