Ironically, the resolve to start with the students was always at least asmuch a problem as a solution. For Shaughnessy, starting with themhad meant starting with the errors in their writing; the definition in-evitably focused on output rather than intake (on writing rather thanreading as a literacy-shaping factor), and attention to matters of formdiverted attention from matters of content (concentrating on how writ-ers wrote in terms of error control rather than thought and expression).
I don't necessarily agree with this section. There are ways to put the students first and address their needs without pointing out their errors. This is something that we talked about a lot in 560 last semester. Instead of saying, "You did this wrong." or "You need to improve.", it would be more helpful to say something along the lines of "Do you have a different perspective on this?" or something similar. Hopefully this makes sense.