The session today was fairly standard, with a student coming in, having a paper reviewed, asking a few general questions and then leaving well before the end of the hour. So I mostly talked with the fellow and asked about his experience in the English 383 clss and what he had learned from it that was particularly helping him as a tutor.
I asked him what he had been expecting when he went into 383, and it turns out that his expectations were similar to mine. He was already a strong writer and expected a course that was basically about tutoring. To his surprise and to mine, English 383 has turned out to be a course much more about writing and thinking than about tutoring, though of course tutoring is a big part of it. I suppose I should have realized that a class with “Composition Theory” in the course name would be about composition theory.
In any case, from taking this class and attending these tutoring sessions I have learned a lot about writing and about tutoring. So much goes into the act of successfully tutoring someone that is behind the scenes, not clearly visible to the tutee. I think that my main challenge in this course has been to see the limitations in my definition of “tutor.” I have come to realize that to be a tutor is to be a lot of things all at once, and that it is a balance between acting as an authority figure and being conscious of the student’s ultimate ownership over their work. It would be easy to say “change this, that, and this,” but in the end these are not our papers that we are reviewing. They belong to the tutee, and I have come to realize that a tutor does not write the paper for the tutee, even in part. The tutee writes, and the tutor’s job is to help the words come.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Apprenticeship Session 6: 4/7/08
Today a student came in with a paper for an English class. I felt like it was one of the best sessions with a writing fellow that I have witnessed.
Unlike many of the students who come in, this one had clearly used the writing center’s resources before and knew exactly what writing fellows could help him on. Unlike some I have seen, he didn’t seem surprised that grammatical issues were touched on only briefly, but immediately began to explain his problems with the paper. The tutor, after listening, came to the conclusion with the student that he was having difficulty formulating a thesis. He had his evidence and his support in the paper, but he wasn’t quite sure what he was arguing.
At this point, the tutor put the paper aside and asked the student a little about what they were learning in class. He explained about the book, and about some of the discussions that they had been having in class about it. He then talked about the points that he was making in the paper, and why he was making them; why he felt they were important, for example. Throughout this discussion, the tutor made notes about what he was hearing until he had compiled a list of topics that he felt were important to the student’s paper. Then, together, they were able to work out exactly what his argument would be, given the information already in his paper.
It was a very interesting process to watch, because I have often had the same problem in writing myself. A strategy I have used when I’m not sure what my thesis is is just to start writing my “body” paragraphs, laying out the information. When I’ve done that I can usually figure out the angle I want to argue, but what happens when you can’t figure it out even then? I think that this strategy, of helping the student to talk and explain and come to a conclusion, is very useful and not something that I would have thought of. I suppose that a tutor can sometimes act as a sounding board as well as a helper.
Unlike many of the students who come in, this one had clearly used the writing center’s resources before and knew exactly what writing fellows could help him on. Unlike some I have seen, he didn’t seem surprised that grammatical issues were touched on only briefly, but immediately began to explain his problems with the paper. The tutor, after listening, came to the conclusion with the student that he was having difficulty formulating a thesis. He had his evidence and his support in the paper, but he wasn’t quite sure what he was arguing.
At this point, the tutor put the paper aside and asked the student a little about what they were learning in class. He explained about the book, and about some of the discussions that they had been having in class about it. He then talked about the points that he was making in the paper, and why he was making them; why he felt they were important, for example. Throughout this discussion, the tutor made notes about what he was hearing until he had compiled a list of topics that he felt were important to the student’s paper. Then, together, they were able to work out exactly what his argument would be, given the information already in his paper.
It was a very interesting process to watch, because I have often had the same problem in writing myself. A strategy I have used when I’m not sure what my thesis is is just to start writing my “body” paragraphs, laying out the information. When I’ve done that I can usually figure out the angle I want to argue, but what happens when you can’t figure it out even then? I think that this strategy, of helping the student to talk and explain and come to a conclusion, is very useful and not something that I would have thought of. I suppose that a tutor can sometimes act as a sounding board as well as a helper.
Apprenticeship Session 5: 3/31/08
Again, no student showed up.
Continuing my thoughts from last week, I remember how in high school our teachers would occasionally have us peer-edit each others’ papers. This basically consisted of us swapping papers with the person sitting next to us, reading it, maybe adding a comma or two, and handing it back with a few vague comments. These were usually along the lines of “yeah, it’s good” and occasionally “I really liked it when you talked about . . .”
Now I am learning a very different way of tutoring, one that involves a lot more than syntax and grammar. If writing is a process, tutoring must also be a process. It is tempting to correct everything in the paper in one fell swoop, but at the same time it is very important that we not put words in the students’ mouths. There needs to be a line drawn somewhere, but how do we know where to draw it?
I think that one of the most useful ideas I have heard is trying to get a student to talk about the paper, what he or she is trying to say. I know that this certainly helps me. Sometimes I think that when I write I think too much about it. When I talk, I just want to come out and say it, and then worry about getting it right. When I write there’s a temptation to get it perfect on the very first try, which just doesn’t always happen. It can look perfect, but often it doesn’t say what I want it to. Helping a student to speak in his on words and then offering that back to him is definitely a technique that works. I think it’s a shame I didn’t learn about this earlier.
Continuing my thoughts from last week, I remember how in high school our teachers would occasionally have us peer-edit each others’ papers. This basically consisted of us swapping papers with the person sitting next to us, reading it, maybe adding a comma or two, and handing it back with a few vague comments. These were usually along the lines of “yeah, it’s good” and occasionally “I really liked it when you talked about . . .”
Now I am learning a very different way of tutoring, one that involves a lot more than syntax and grammar. If writing is a process, tutoring must also be a process. It is tempting to correct everything in the paper in one fell swoop, but at the same time it is very important that we not put words in the students’ mouths. There needs to be a line drawn somewhere, but how do we know where to draw it?
I think that one of the most useful ideas I have heard is trying to get a student to talk about the paper, what he or she is trying to say. I know that this certainly helps me. Sometimes I think that when I write I think too much about it. When I talk, I just want to come out and say it, and then worry about getting it right. When I write there’s a temptation to get it perfect on the very first try, which just doesn’t always happen. It can look perfect, but often it doesn’t say what I want it to. Helping a student to speak in his on words and then offering that back to him is definitely a technique that works. I think it’s a shame I didn’t learn about this earlier.
Apprenticeship Session 4: 3/24/08
Unfortunately no student showed up to this session, and so I spent the time talking to the writing fellows. I asked them what they thought the hardest part of tutoring a student was, and they said the most difficult thing was trying to strike a balance between being a peer and being a tutor.
That makes a lot of sense to me. As a peer of the writer, you are considered equals. You both attend the same university and have probably taken a few of the same classes. You are both smart, or you wouldn't be there. Yet being a tutor elevates you to a higher position than the student that you are tutoring. You are considered to be an authority on the subject of writing if not the subject that the student is writing about, and as an authority you are expected to have a much greater knowledge than the student.
It's a dichotomy that I feel is worth investigating. I know that when I personally talk with a writing fellow about my own writing, I feel intimidated without being intimidated. I know that we are both college students, only a year or two apart in age and education, and that we both have taken or are taking English 383 so we both have some knowledge about peer tutoring. Yet I automatically assume the submissive, respectful role that I would when speaking with a teacher.
It definitely seems to me that the hardest part of being a tutor would be in finding a balance between being a tutor and being a peer, finding the middle ground between being aggressive and being passive.
That makes a lot of sense to me. As a peer of the writer, you are considered equals. You both attend the same university and have probably taken a few of the same classes. You are both smart, or you wouldn't be there. Yet being a tutor elevates you to a higher position than the student that you are tutoring. You are considered to be an authority on the subject of writing if not the subject that the student is writing about, and as an authority you are expected to have a much greater knowledge than the student.
It's a dichotomy that I feel is worth investigating. I know that when I personally talk with a writing fellow about my own writing, I feel intimidated without being intimidated. I know that we are both college students, only a year or two apart in age and education, and that we both have taken or are taking English 383 so we both have some knowledge about peer tutoring. Yet I automatically assume the submissive, respectful role that I would when speaking with a teacher.
It definitely seems to me that the hardest part of being a tutor would be in finding a balance between being a tutor and being a peer, finding the middle ground between being aggressive and being passive.
Apprenticeship Session 3: 3/3/08
I was thinking today about what my expectations were when going into this semester. I didn't really have any idea what to expect. I knew the name of the course, and that it was going to prepare me for becoming a writing fellow, but other than that I didn't know what I was getting into. I suppose that my initial thoughts were that the class would be a lot of grammar review; getting syntax right and some strategies for being a good tutor. Now I have come to realize that being a tutor--a good tutor--means a lot more than being someone to tell you that it should be "its" instead of "it's."
A student came into the session today with a paper for a class, but seemed to be a little surprised when the tutor started discussing the content of the paper. I got the distinct impression that this student was only expecting the most basic of tutoring: instructions on spelling, punctuation, and grammar. But what I have learned from this class as well as from my apprenticeship is that writing is easy to define as a physical act but much more difficult to define on a social or an emotional level. Again and again we have discussed in class how writing is the single most powerful invention in human history--how, arguably, every single advance that human beings have made over the past 4000+ years stems from writing.
Writing, for me, is an emotional process. A composer, I believe Mozart, once said that he knew that a piece of music was finished when he knew that it did not need a single note more or less. I think that writing is similar, but more and more it has been proven to me that writing is a process. How do we know when a piece of writing is really, truly finished? Can it ever be? Especially with the advent of the internet and hypertext, when writing is no longer the result of a single person but can be edited by an infinite number of people, writing as a form is always evolving and changing. I can only hope that the student who came in today came away with at least a slightly different perspective on writing and the writing process.
A student came into the session today with a paper for a class, but seemed to be a little surprised when the tutor started discussing the content of the paper. I got the distinct impression that this student was only expecting the most basic of tutoring: instructions on spelling, punctuation, and grammar. But what I have learned from this class as well as from my apprenticeship is that writing is easy to define as a physical act but much more difficult to define on a social or an emotional level. Again and again we have discussed in class how writing is the single most powerful invention in human history--how, arguably, every single advance that human beings have made over the past 4000+ years stems from writing.
Writing, for me, is an emotional process. A composer, I believe Mozart, once said that he knew that a piece of music was finished when he knew that it did not need a single note more or less. I think that writing is similar, but more and more it has been proven to me that writing is a process. How do we know when a piece of writing is really, truly finished? Can it ever be? Especially with the advent of the internet and hypertext, when writing is no longer the result of a single person but can be edited by an infinite number of people, writing as a form is always evolving and changing. I can only hope that the student who came in today came away with at least a slightly different perspective on writing and the writing process.
Apprenticeship Session 2: 2/25/08
Today was my second session shadowing a writing fellow. Today a student came in with a paper for CORE, which she wanted some help with. The assignment was different than anything I have done in my own CORE class, so on the one hand it was interesting just to see the different assignments that teachers with different teaching styles give to their students. On the other hand, it got me thinking about what I consider to be some of the downsides of academic writing.
Early in this semester, my CORE professor, Dr. Essid, gave our class an essay topic in which we chose the two texts from the first semester which we felt had influenced us most over the year, or the texts that had resonated most deeply with us. The closest thing to that essay that I have written would be my college admission essay, mainly because Dr. Essid allowed us to draw upon our personal experiences in our papers, and to use the first person.
While I understand that academic writing does not support the use of first person, I feel that the "style" of academic writing is a little too strict. It is very easy for a writer to write a paper that sounds academic without actually saying very much. I am guilty of this myself. I know how to make a paper sound like I know what I'm talking about without actually making much in the way of an argument, and while the final result may look acceptable at first glance it does not help my grade and I do not take much away from the assignment. I wonder if there is a way to encourage students to drawn more on personal experience, or to make their papers more personal, simply to help them engage more in the paper. I feel that, as tutors, if we can help students and writers put more of themselves into their papers while maintaining the standard of academic writing, the resulting papers would almost certainly be stronger. It is so much easier to write and to argue a point convincingly if one cares about the subject matter or is invested in it in some way. I think that if tutors can find a way to connect the paper to the student, both the paper and the writer would benefit.
Early in this semester, my CORE professor, Dr. Essid, gave our class an essay topic in which we chose the two texts from the first semester which we felt had influenced us most over the year, or the texts that had resonated most deeply with us. The closest thing to that essay that I have written would be my college admission essay, mainly because Dr. Essid allowed us to draw upon our personal experiences in our papers, and to use the first person.
While I understand that academic writing does not support the use of first person, I feel that the "style" of academic writing is a little too strict. It is very easy for a writer to write a paper that sounds academic without actually saying very much. I am guilty of this myself. I know how to make a paper sound like I know what I'm talking about without actually making much in the way of an argument, and while the final result may look acceptable at first glance it does not help my grade and I do not take much away from the assignment. I wonder if there is a way to encourage students to drawn more on personal experience, or to make their papers more personal, simply to help them engage more in the paper. I feel that, as tutors, if we can help students and writers put more of themselves into their papers while maintaining the standard of academic writing, the resulting papers would almost certainly be stronger. It is so much easier to write and to argue a point convincingly if one cares about the subject matter or is invested in it in some way. I think that if tutors can find a way to connect the paper to the student, both the paper and the writer would benefit.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Apprenticeship Session 1: 02/18/08
Today I attended my first session shadowing writing fellow Taylor Hull. He was working with a student from Argentina who came in with a short paper for a Group Dynamics class. Most of what Taylor mentioned on the paper was grammar and formatting issues; I was reminded of an article I read entitled "Creating a Common Ground With ESL Students" (Mosher, Granroth, & Hicks, abstract available on the Writing Fellowship wikispace) that, among other things, discussed the differences between academic writing in the US and in other countries.
Taylor had some experience with Spanish, and sometimes he was able to ask the student which verb she would have used in Spanish and find a more fitting translation for the word in English to help her clarify herself. I also speak enough Spanish to be able to do this, but I wonder what one does when confronted with a language one knows nothing about. If a French student wanted help getting his ideas into English, I would have no idea where to start if there was a word he was unable to translate. I suppose that you just try to find a definition in English, but I would be interested to see some of the methods that fellows and tutors use.
Sometimes when I read or hear another person's writing, I come across a word or phrase that I find a little jarring simply because my style of writing is different. I would have used a different word or phrase. Just from this one session, it seems to me that one of the most difficult jobs for a writing fellow is to help students with their work without imposing their own voices. I know that you can offer options, saying something like "this sentence is a little awkward, but you could say this or this instead." You want to help the student find his own voice, but as writers we find our voices through reading what other people have written. This is how native speakers learn their first languages. Native English speakers know that "focused on" is used instead of "focused in." We might not know the grammar specifics behind it, but we say "focused on" simply because that is what our ear is used to hearing. Others have created these rules through their own writing. How do you help without being overbearing? Just a little food for thought.
Taylor had some experience with Spanish, and sometimes he was able to ask the student which verb she would have used in Spanish and find a more fitting translation for the word in English to help her clarify herself. I also speak enough Spanish to be able to do this, but I wonder what one does when confronted with a language one knows nothing about. If a French student wanted help getting his ideas into English, I would have no idea where to start if there was a word he was unable to translate. I suppose that you just try to find a definition in English, but I would be interested to see some of the methods that fellows and tutors use.
Sometimes when I read or hear another person's writing, I come across a word or phrase that I find a little jarring simply because my style of writing is different. I would have used a different word or phrase. Just from this one session, it seems to me that one of the most difficult jobs for a writing fellow is to help students with their work without imposing their own voices. I know that you can offer options, saying something like "this sentence is a little awkward, but you could say this or this instead." You want to help the student find his own voice, but as writers we find our voices through reading what other people have written. This is how native speakers learn their first languages. Native English speakers know that "focused on" is used instead of "focused in." We might not know the grammar specifics behind it, but we say "focused on" simply because that is what our ear is used to hearing. Others have created these rules through their own writing. How do you help without being overbearing? Just a little food for thought.
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