writer's memo

I loved Sommers' piece about the Writer's Memo. I can think of times when I would have liked to explain things about my paper to my teacher, but there was no such opportunity. With the memo, everything is included. Not only can students clarify to the teacher what they mean, and then get some good, useful feedback, but they also have a chance to really examine what they are doing with their work. It becomes a lot easier to put a paper together if you have a plan for it and know what it is you are trying to argue. The memo helps teachers "become collaborators rather than judges" because they are in on what is going on in the student's head. If the student is stuck somwhere, the writer's memo can help indicate where exactly the problem is.
Not only does the memo guide the teacher in what to look for in the student's essay, it also helps guide the student when it asks for audience and purpose. These questions are important to keep in mind and will help drive the student's writing. A lot of the time papers can seem pointless, but if students are reminded of a purpose, they are more motivated to write. And if they keep their audience in mind this helps with the style that they will write in. Also, audience determines how a topic will be approached. If the audience is well versed on the paper topic, then the writer won't need to establish a lot of background. Having an audience in mind accounts for a lot of the choices one makes in writing, and it's important to keep students aware of this. When they know why they've made certain choices, they can more easily remedy a problem. It's a lot of extra work to think about one's rhetorical choices if one has never done it before, but I think it would be worth it, especially in long, in-depth papers.