Handling A Writer with Offensive Views

During our discussion of Sherzel's paper we talked about how to handle a consultation with a writer who wrote a paper with very harsh or offensive views. I thought this was very interesting because I had never really thought about what to do if someone comes in with a paper that I find offensive or too harsh. We discussed whether or not we are responsible to tell them that this kind of an argument might offend their teacher and suggest that they make their argument less harsh so as to earn a better grade. Sherzel's paper focused on a particular instance in which a student absolutely refused to change or remove any of the opinions he presented in the paper. I have to admit I am not entirely sure how to handle this. I don't necessarily think that as writing consultant's it is our place to tell a writer that his or her opinion is wrong or offensive, but it is our place to help a writer do as well as he or she can on a particular paper, and a paper with an offensive tone probably won't get a very good grade. I pointed out during our discussion that you would assume that someone who writes something like that would know that it is offensive but wants to take that risk and we can't really stop them but one of my classmates pointed out that maybe they don't know it is offensive. In that case, maybe you should say something to them so that they don't get a bad grade because they didn't know that they had said anything offensive. I really don't know. I came to the conclusion that for situations like this there isn't really one particular reaction that we should have that is right. We need to assess the situation and asses the person and decide whether or not we think it is best to point out that their argument might be offensive. If we decide that we should point this out, I think it is extremely important that we respect the person and do not make them feel uncomfortable coming to the writing center and talking to us about their paper.