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.