Response 8/26/15

I want to learn to tutor mainly to improve my own writing. I've spent a lot of time learning as much as I can about writing in a concise way but I still believe that helping someone else is the best way to improve a skill. I figure the WWC is the best place to improve my own writing while helping others. I've personally only had one experience with tutoring at FSU but I remember that my tutor was a senior in the English department who explained to me her strategy for organizing her writing that I still use today. 

The writing center's best asset to the university is peer tutoring. The ability to work one on one with a student that understands all the aspects of student life and all the expectations of professors is amazing.

I didn’t consider myself as a potential writer until a professor told me that an essay of mine was incredibly well written. Clichéd yes, but after that class I began to look at earlier essays I wrote and realized I might be able to refine the skill to be useful or profitable. I started out with a surprising amount of confidence until I took an actual upper level English class and learned how atrocious my writing was in the English circle. I remember that most lessons came in the form of failing papers or losing points on dumb mistakes. My main goal with taking this class is to help other writers realize these lessons and rules early to make them better writers before they even turn in their first paper. It also doesn’t hurt that I’m already the proofreader for my friends and I find the practice to be sort of calming.  

8/26/15 response

     Even as an English major, I have often found myself in need of tutoring from the Reading and Writing Center. As a freshman, I found myself making appointments at the RWC just to keep myself on track with any essays I might have had.  Knowing that a RWC tutor was expecting work from me on a certain day and certain time ensured that I did not procrastinate.  By the time my appointment came around, I had formed a rough draft and no longer had to worry about writing the entire essay the night before it was due, something I commonly did in high school.  

      Furthermore, the RWC improves not just the piece on which a student is working, but also the student's writing.  As an English major, many of my friends ask me to proofread their papers for them.  When I simply edit the papers for them, I repeatedly find the same mistakes.  However, when I sit by them, read through, edit, and explain mistakes, I find fewer errors in later papers of theirs.  I think this mimics similar techniques to the RWC.  If students just wanted their papers edited, why not just use the spell checker?  But if a student really wants his/her writing skills to grow, he/she needs someone to actually instruct them in writing.  This is why the RWC is full of tutors, not editors.  Not everyone has the writing style of Fitzgerald, and there is nothing the RWC can do about that.  However, the RWC can ensure that every student is given the correct tools by which they can write successful papers for each of their college classes.

Attending college to pursue an English degree, I felt pressure from the get-go to find my writing voice.Writing my first research paper I felt my only option was to "fake it till I made it" so to speak, to pretend that I already knew what I was doing. Luckily, I was successful in this strategy throughout freshman year and with guidance from teachers I was able to meet college standards, and my own standards as my toughest critic. Had I known that the RWC was an option for students like me I would have been spared the anxiety of not knowing whether my writing was up to par.

Now that I've found my voice I'd love to help boost the confidence of fellow writers through constructive criticism. I can sympathize all too well with the unease of sharing writing that one is not completely confident in, and am eager to encourage them to do so anyway, in the friendly environment that the RWC provides. Not to get political, but in my experience America's education system, particularly the public school system, did not adequately provide my class as a whole with the foundation we needed to become successful writers, as a result of all the strict emphasis on the F-CAT and stem related subjects. Going into ENG3931 with this understanding, I think tutoring is an important facet to help mold a future generation of confident writers (not to mention a generation of good grammar!) With this resource, FSU will churn out future employees who can proudly attribute their success in writing resumes, and other essential documents to their helpful alma mater.

Welcome

Hi folks,

Welcome to our blog for ENG 3931: Peer Tutoring in the RWC. Here, once you've become a contributor to the blog, you will write your reading responses. The prompts of the responses will be posted each week, and you can also find them in the reading schedule.

Excited to get started,

Joe