“What feedback did you receive? What advice will you take? What advice won’t you take? Why?”

I received a lot of good feedback from my fellow students. I liked the way we presented our ideas and had our class critique what they thought was working and what they thought was not working.

From what I heard back from everyone was they said it was a good idea for me to be doing observations, rather than interviews. That way, I can see a tutor in action, rather than just have them tell me what they do to help students brainstorm thesis topics. Only around two people said I should either interview the tutor or the student after the sessions, which I probably will not do. I believe I can get enough information from observing sessions.

The question I had asked the class is if I should observe “revising” sessions. My main concern is that I am not finding enough “brainstorming freshman” sessions. What I said to back it up was that a lot of freshman students would come into the writing center and have an entire paper written, but no thesis. Regardless if the student makes a session specifically for “revising,” they still might have to brainstorm a thesis. With my lack of time/sessions left to observe, four people in the class agreed with me, four had no comment, and one disagreed. I don’t see how observing revising sessions would hurt me—I can simply add it into my question. If I observe both, I will be able to have enough information to support my question. Otherwise, I do not think my project will be successful, which people in the class agree with.

So, the advice I will take is to consider observing revising appointments, in addition to observing appointments with freshman. The advice I will probably not take is interviewing a student or a tutor. I will not have enough time to do that and I want my information for my projects to be real and honest. If I do interviews, I do not know how honest people will be. And personally, if I got interviewed after an appointment, I would not know what to say as a student or as a tutor. It’s sometimes difficult to be put on the spot.

Key Concepts

I've used multiple techniques that we've discussed in class in my tutoring sessions, but what they all seem to come down to is reflection. Yancey, in her piece "On Reflection," describes reflection as a "growth of consciousness," (4). Essentially, she claims reflection (in the context of writing) is the process of both looking back at what we have accomplished, as well as looking forward towards a goal, and then putting those perspectives into conversation with each other, thus creating knowledge and insight. When I ask my students to tell me what their essay/paper/etc. is about, they are reflecting on what it is they have already written (or think they have written) by summarizing their thoughts and arguments. When we begin to read their piece aloud and catch mistakes or areas that need improvement, they are participating in another aspect of reflection: revision. When we near the end of the session, and we look at everything we've changed or fixed in the paper, we take part in reflection again as the student looks forward to how the piece will be improved after they make the necessary revisions. After the student leaves, having put their previous work and their future work into conversation with my help, they have gained knowledge about themselves as writers, as well as about their writing. If you think about it, the entire peer tutoring process consists of reflection; Yancey was definitely right on the money when she wrote, "reflection is a critical component of learning and of writing specifically" (7).

11/20

In the last tutoring session, I had three 30 minute sessions with students who were all working on the same paper. I believe their teacher required them to come to the RWC at least three times before they turned in this paper. According to the students, the structure/style of the paper didn't really matter as long as the content was strong and they answered the questions that he presented in the rubric. I spoke to each of them about whether or not he wanted them to create a thesis statement, whether he ever required them to create one in any of their previous papers, and they said no. Two of the students weren't even sure exactly how to create a thesis statement. I am so surprised by the amount of students who don't know how to create a thesis statement or have never been required to do so in any of their papers. I asked the students to describe their previous papers, what worked and what didn't work, and focused on those aspects when we discussed the new paper. Their task was to interview three different generations about food: how they acquire/acquired it, preparation, consumption, cost, etc., and to use this information to analyze how these generations interacted with food and how these interactions have changed throughout the years. I thought it was a very interesting project and one that could say a lot about our society. The students all had the same sort of plan: they wanted to interview their grandparents, parents, and friends. There would be quite a difference between the way our grandparents acquired and prepared food and the way our parents did. One of the biggest things I encouraged the students to do was ask the people they interview about the state of the economy, historical context, and how these things effected the way interact with food, how the prices of food has changed, what has been available to them throughout the years. Has the quality of a certain food improved? How often do they go out to eat? And told them Thanksgiving break would be a perfect time to ask them all of these questions. It would be interesting to ask them about past Thanksgivings and what they prepared for those meals, if they are more traditional or if the dishes change every year and why. All of the students had very good ideas and were only in the brainstorming stages of the paper but seemed to have a good grip on what was required of them. I tried to point out what I believed would be very useful to them in the rubric and what they should pay attention to. I encouraged them to keep the questions consistent for every interview in order to really see the differences between generations.

Response 11/20

The most common key concept that comes up while I’m working is reflection. I generally start every tutoring session by reading the paper or excerpt with the students. After that I ask the student “Where do you think the strengths are in your paper?” followed by “And where do you think the weaknesses are?” I like to start this way to get a general feel for the student’s awareness of their own writing and to see if the student and I are on the same page. I feel like this is a great way to start every session because the first question generally seems to improve the mood of the meeting as the student gets to reflect on their own success and may get to hear other successes they hadn’t consider before. The second question usually gets the student to talk a little more and open up about issues other than “grammar” or “this just sounds weird.” I also like to end the session with some reflection by looking at what we’ve talked about in the session and what we’ve improved/changed over the course of the session. Overall I feel that this process gets students to open up a little more during the session and to feel better about their writing.

The second key concept that comes up the most in my sessions is the rhetorical canon. I like to take time to ask about the specifics of the class (what are the key terms used, what’s the general attitude of the professor, did the professor emphasize anything). I take time to remind the student that they’re writing to both their professor and possibly to the community of the school of academics the particular class falls in. I then shift focus to talk about their overall argument (I usually ask “what’s your point in writing this essay”) and then I check this against their thesis statement and overall essay to see if the two line up. Finally we talk about any other issues that may have come up during the session until about the last 5 minutes where I stop and ask if they had anything else that we haven’t looked at that they want me to give a quick look at.  

11/19 response

A key concept that always comes into my head at the end of every tutoring session is reflection. I find that one can reflect over a paper at basically any stage of the writing process. It’s necessary to reflect in the beginning to make sure you know what your process will be or what your goal is. In the middle of your paper, it is important to reflect on the work that has already been done; do you like the work so far? is it getting you towards achieving your goal? And of course, at the end of the paper reflection is necessary to make sure your work meets your standards and can be presented to the audience in a way that they would understand it. 

I think along with reflection, observation is an important concept. It can almost relate back to reflection because they have some similarities. Observing can help a writer find those places where some extra work needs to be done. I think its important for multiple people to observe my paper and my writing process. I, alone, cannot catch mistakes that I have made; they can be caught with the help of a couple of other eyes. 

As a tutor, I feel like I have spent most of my tutoring hours helping ESL students. For the most part, they all come in wanting specific help. I try to focus on that help they ask for- usually it something like spelling or grammar. Sometimes I find further problems. I’m also glad students come into the writing center and learn that there are other problems in their writing than what they see. It’s interesting when they find the problems even before I bring them up. The important term seen in all students is the need for conversation. Conversation allows students to share their goals with the tutors, help students find their audience, and make sure that their message as writers is getting across. 

11/19 Response

conversation- I may not always know what to say to a student to help their writing, but writing is a conversation, and I need to keep the conversation going.  It's ok to ask questions to keep the conversation going.  When the student answers your question, the tutor learns something and most of the time, so does the student
reading backwards- I got the idea for this from the reverse outline.  I started to realize that I wasn't really able to make thoughtful comments on a student's project just by looking at it.  Most of the time I had to read through each paragraph and understand the meaning.  Once I've read through everything, I start making sense of each paragraph, starting with the last one.  I have the student clarify what they meant, and make comments.  By the time we get up to the top, most of the time the student has a clearer idea of what they're paper is actually about, and consequently, what their thesis should really state.  Once we've figured out what the whole paper says, we can sum it up nicely in the thesis.
critical incident- A student is always going to hear what you want them to hear.  A lot of times, they are going to hear what they want to hear.  I am also guilty of this.  Sometimes, no matter how expertly you deliver advice to the student, the student will not take it.  Sometimes a light bulb has to go off within the student's head for any real change to occur.
reflection- On some days I hate reflecting on my work, but on others, I love it.  Reflection is proven to be helpful, but the trick is you also have to leave time for reflection.  Writing can't be a one and done process.  If you finish your first draft the night before the paper is due and consider a quick read through for grammar issues to be your reflection, reflection is never going to get you anywhere.  For reflection to be meaningful, you've got to let your writing sit and marinate for a little while.  You've got to come back to it when you're a little less attached.  If a writer is too attached, they won't be willing to make the necessary changes.  I appreciate it when students come into the RWC multiple times because this shows they really planned out a time table for their writing.

Key Concepts

Two main concepts that I have found to be extremely helpful in my tutoring thus far are the idea of reading aloud and writing as a conversation. It was surprising to me that the majority of  students that I worked with had never read their papers out loud to themselves or someone else. A practice that seemed so commonplace in my writing experience is in reality, not so common. So many students come in the RWC looking for "grammar help" and "line editing" although that is not the primary purpose of a Reading and Writing Center, by just reading the paper aloud, many of the grammatical errors that students seemed so overwhelmingly concerned with are easily solved.

The second concept that I find to be recurring in my sessions is the idea of conversation and writing as a social aspect. In the beginning of my tutoring sessions I try to ask the student what their understanding of the prompt is and then compare that to my understanding as well as what content they have already written. Often times just transferring the information the student has written on paper into a conversation where they put into words their ideas clarifies their thesis as well as the rest of their paper. In this way it also helps to check if their spoken ideas match what they have written down. I find these two practices to be extremely helpful in the tutoring process so that students better understand how to approach their own writing and also learn concepts they can use on their own to review and revise their work.