Gender Influences

Reading Student Texts

Author: Donnalee Rubin
Secondary Author: Conference on College Composition and Communication (U.S.)
ISBN: 0809318660

Donnalee Rubin examines the responses of thirty-one freshman composition teachers to student writing and shows the negative effects of gender bias on assessment to prove that gender perceptions and expectations can influence assessment decisions that seem neutral on the surface. Arguing that certain pedagogies are more likely to minimize gender bias than others, Rubin believes that teachers are more likely to overcome the influence of gender bias on their teaching if they adopt a process-based method and work intimately with their students through nondirective, supportive conferences. Rubin characterizes the conference/process-centered class as the type of environment in which maternal teaching can be cultivated. She stresses that maternal can describe any teacher, male or female, who exhibits the nurturing and supportive qualities that the conference/process approach embodies. With a primary focus on the student’s well-being and development as a person and a writer, the maternal te

Publisher: SIU Press
Publish Date: 1993

Subjects: Language Arts & Disciplines / General, Language Arts & Disciplines / Rhetoric, Social Science / Gender Studies

This book is available in the following Community Centers: Women's Center (Location: Women in Academia)