Second Day of Tutoring: December 1st 3 pm and 4 pm

Today was my second day of tutoring, I didn’t feel as nauseous and I did on my first day, actually today I was very excited. I felt a little more prepared what was in store for me because I had the tutees email me their papers before hand. One tutee actually emailed me several drafts.

My three o’clock appointment arrived and since I already saw his paper I thought this session was going to be a very good one. This too turned out to be a disaster, I learned from this session that although it would be more beneficial to myself and the tutees if I received their papers before hand I probably should not make any writings on them. I now understand why Sarah did not show the tutee any markup copy but read the paper before hand got a good idea of what they were talking about and their weak spots but only had the unmarked up version with her. I also realized that having a markup version and just talking about what I saw in addition to their request could go against what the writing center stands for, FACILTATIVE TUTORING NOT DIRECTIVE TUTORING. So that was the first mistake. After he saw my markup version of his paper, he produced another draft that he had just finished and requested that I go over that version instead. I noticed in this version he did catch most of what I had noticed and his argument was much clearer in the presented draft. I also noticed something that one of my fellow writing apprentices talked about in class, I can not remember her name but she talked about gendered tutoring. I wished I had gone over her reading handout again before having this session because there was most certainly tension in the room and it was not coming from me. We went over our session by five minutes and I was upset that I didn’t pace myself properly, I must remember to do that with each session especially with tutees who have 10 pages or more. After the session was over I went over to get my next appointment and noticed him talking to a friend and did not seem to pleased or relieved just more frustrated. I wish we did follow up surveys to see if I was helpful to him. He did not have specific concerned or didn’t interpret me when I was speaking and did asked him a lot of questions on his paper when I found something confusing. I think he took offense to this, he did look taken aback when asked him questions about his paper. I was trying to be facilitative but it doesn’t look like I did a great job at this.

In my next session, 4 pm, I have to honestly say that I was very relieved that my next appointment was a woman and international, someone I could relate to. This session when must better than the first session. We went over her draft for her geography paper and then since we had thirty minutes left I helped her brainstormed for her CORE paper. She asked a lot of questions and I asked her a lot of questions although I knew I was supposed to be more directive with an international/ ESL student but in this case I think it was an exception because she went to an American High in her country and she did not seem taken aback by my questions but found it helpful to her paper. Because of the horrible session I had the hour before I asked her if I was helpful at all to see if I didn’t overstep boundaries and was understandable. Her response was yes although I do this it would be better if we had follow anonymous surveys

FIRST DAY OF TUTORING: November 24th 3 pm and 4pm

Today was so nerve wreaking! It was my first day of tutoring, all I could think of was I hope that I could help these students with their writing. I didn’t know that I had any tutees; I was on the writing center’s website and noticed that my timeslots were filled. I had to email Ms. Boylan to find out if I actually had appointments and why I didn’t get any emails for those appointments. Turns out my name was misspelled, but it’s fixed now. I was mostly nervous because I didn’t get a chance to ask the tutees to email me their papers so I could look at them before our session. And I wasn’t sure how helping someone with their writing while they were looking over your shoulder would work out.

My three o’clock appointment didn’t want any specific help in any area; he just wanted someone to look over his paper. I did and he really did not any thing particularly weak about his writing otherwise than rearranging a few of his paragraphs his paper was fine.

When the time came for my second appointment of the day, I was pumped. I had gotten rid of my tutoring jitters and I was ready to help. However my Four O’clock appointment did not go so well. My tutee came in with a prompt for her paper that she did not understand had not brothered to ask the professor to explain the prompt to her. And according to our reading this is usually the case for ESL and international students but my tutee was American so I was little confused on why she didn’t ask. To make matters worse she did not have a draft or an outline. And she wanted me to give her a thesis for her paper. And she wanted me to explain the films that she saw for her class and her readings to her. I had no idea what those films were nor her readings and I was most certainly was not going to give her, her thesis. Instead I wondered if in such a case it would be okay to turn her away until she could produce at least an outline. Since I wasn’t sure I worked on getting her to write an outline with my help. After I explained what her professor was asking for, I had her explain the films to me and come up with a common theme and then had her relate the theme to the prompt. After which I asked what was the theme saying about American culture was and the way society saw women. After having a discussion on this commentary she was able to come up with a workable thesis from which she gave me several incidents from the different films and readings to back it up. I’m very thrilled I was about to help her but I hope this does not happen too often. It is hard to help someone when they are unprepared

Eighth Shadowing

Shadowing Sarah on November 24^th at 11 am

Sarah’s second appointment of the day was a business student and who came in with a cover letter. There is nothing much we could have done to help with since it is a formatted style of writing. Aren’t they supposed to go to the Career Development Center for things like that? We just edited for grammar and organization and left her go. There was no room to be creative and no way for to use our collaborative training, directive was the best approach.

Seventh Shadowing

Shadowing Sarah on November 24^th at 10 am (canceled and walk in)

Today I shadowed Sarah however her first appointment canceled on her thirty minutes before the appointment. What an utter disregard for other people’s time, it is got that the tutee thought that coming in would have been a waste of the tutor’s time and his/her own time but it would have been nice to know a little earlier. I’m sure students do not do the same to the professor, although our approach to writing is different and we are not seen as authoritative figures, our time should still be respected.

However, I got to see one of the rare specialties of the writing center, a walk-in, while we were waiting for the next appointment a guy walked in hoping for some help. And because we were free we took him. His concerns like the many I’ve seen in my shadowing were grammatical errors and organizational flow. I really am going to try the reading aloud approach it seems to help the students a lot.

Reading Presentation

“Centering in the Borderlands: Lessons from Hispanic Student Writers.”

-Written by Beatrice Mendez-Newman

-First Appeared in The Writing Center Journal in 2003

Borderland Hispanic Student: Students that lack facility in Spanish and English, they acquire formal language for the first time when they start going to school, problems with the English language persists because Spanish is the main language that is spoken at home. (261)

Argument:

The writing center is the medium for the Borderland Hispanic student; it serves as an agency to their understanding and link into academia discourse.

· Hispanic students at borderland institutions have been overlooked due to the lack of knowledge of this specific type of student. It is important to understand that home-life, culture, and native language spoken outside of the university affects the student’s academic experience. “Strong cultural and familial ties “interfere” with academic expectations and situate them in borderland institutions within driving distance of their homes…the family creates a special type of on-going “interference” with their assimilation into the academy.” (253)

· The writing center is “an agent of access to the institution and to the avenues of success and acceptance an institution of higher education represents.” (254) After the social expectations and regulations of the life of a borderland Hispanic student.

· The writing center is more welcoming because it does not have an authoritative feel to the environment. Hispanic students do not ask questions in class because they are afraid that they may appear to be resisting authority. And do not approach professors during their office hours because they do not want to appear intrusive. (260)

Solution:

· Inspire confidence in the borderland student so he or she becomes an independent writer

· The writing center is the one place where the student will not be criticized or penalized for putting family first. In this situation tutoring via internet has to become an option.

· Visual deconstruction may be useless to some cases

Guidelines:

· Deconstruct the student’s writing to show and help the student get to a higher level of literacy. Keep in mind that borderland students only use English for school so being literate in English is low.

· Unlike tutoring native English speaking students, it is suggested that when tutoring Borderline Hispanic students a directive approach is best because they do not respond to non-directive tutoring. Asking facilitative questions would only leave the student more frustrated and make it appear as though the tutor is “withholding information on grammar and writing” (264)

· Most problems are caused by the family therefore strategies are essential to the writing process with these students

I think every writing fellow and tutor should read this article. As I was reading it I realized that this article applied to myself as well. Although I am not Hispanic and not a Borderland student, I am from a different country and from a completely different culture. And because this I remember I found it very offensive when the tutor during my first writing tutoring experience used the facilitative method with me. I couldn’t understand why he kept asking me more questions than instead of giving me answers or being more directive. I remember leaving the session more frustrated than I was before I did not go back to the writing center afterwards I just had my friends who were writing tutors edit my papers for me, it was much easier and I made it clear to them that I preferred them to be direct in their approach to editing my paper. It is also true that I found asking a teacher to look at draft in addition to everything that they did more of a hassle than actually helpful to me. However I have adapted to this practice and have no problem doing this now after-all teachers are here to help me reach my full potential.

ESL Students

“Cultural Conflicts in the Writing Center: Expectations and Assumptions of ESL students” ~ Muriel Harris

Muriel states, “ESL students tend to see a tutor as someone whose primary role is to answer questions and solve problems. ESL students often do not expect a tutor to ask them questions aimed at facilitating collaboration or returning the burden of problem solving to the students, and these conflicting expectations can impede learning.” When it comes to ESL students it very hard to use the facilitative approach because they find this as offensive and it may actually discourage them from using the writing center again. “Collaboration is viewed as empowering because it returns ownership of the piece writing and responsibility for learning to the writer. Tutors are there to guide, ask questions. As tutors we would be more helpful to them when we are more directive. This argument is also stated for Borderland students, I will elaborate further in my next blog. It contains similar arguments made for ESL students and it is my presentation piece.

Sixth Shadowing

Shadowing with Kathleen on November 23 at 5 pm

Today the tutee was a CORE student; her main concerns were grammatical errors. I noticed so far students have been coming in for help with grammar, it’s hard to focus on the creative process when the main concern is only on the mechanics of writing.