Final Reflection

My question for the research project regarding resistance in the writing center received lots of varying feedback. Some students suggested drawing many comparisons from my literature review. There are those who mentioned questioning who was required to come to the reading and writing center, but considering that was one of the special topic suggestions from project two, I likely won’t consider that suggestion as much. One of the suggestions I enjoyed most was recognizing patterns, though this wouldn’t quite illuminate on resistance as a whole, I think it might work in terms of identifying different resistance responses. I’m not sure who wrote this specific suggestion, but one student emphasized the recognition of resistance as more important than techniques. I agree most with this suggestion because we have reviewed a multiplicity of techniques to counter resistance in class, and a more interesting paper would draw upon how tutors recognize the initial responses. Some people wrote comments about imploring body language questions further, which I do plan to do. I’m not sure if I will get a significant amount of feedback from those whom I interview on body language, because I personally haven’t paid much attention to my own while tutoring, but I do hope that there will be some information as I think it will be an intriguing subtopic. All together I enjoyed the feedback I received from my classmates, it gave me good insight on topics that would be most interesting to people, and those which have been covered time and time again and would likely result in a boring paper. I’m really looking forward to begin analyzing my data, I think I will likely interview three people rather than two, because I would prefer a wider range of results as far as tutors personal observations. I will be looking into further research about body language and it’s role in tutoring, especially it’s role in countering resistance. I think most of my annotations were well done so I plan to integrate that research into my questions, and keep most of that information in mind before my interviews, so that I can make coherent comparisons and contrasts to the works.

Feedback

I thought the feedback I received was very helpful. I find myself to be sort of struggling with the direction I’m going with as my topic of resumes. I also found it kind of difficult to decide what my concentration was going to be. One idea I will use as I continue with my project is to go to the career center to see what they do that the writing center does not or things that they do have in common. The employees at the career center are trained to help students on specific topics such as creating a resume. I’m not sure if there are tutors that are specifically trained to do the same. 

Something many students in class thought would be interesting to know was the background knowledge of the tutors I will be interviewing. I have included that as a question in my interview to know more about their own experiences with professional writing. Someone mentioned maybe speaking to multiple tutors (possibly through a survey) to find out how many tutors have been approached with this particular session. I don’t think I will take this last piece of advice because that doesn’t really help me solve my research question, but maybe I can find out how many people have come in just by looking at client reports online. 

I’m interested to do more research and see what answers I can find. I’m hoping that the interviews don’t contradict each other and help me answer my questions.

Feedback

There wasn't much of a variance to my feedback in that they all pretty much stated the same thing. However, a lot of it was positive in regards to the data and my analysis of it. Since I didn't have to go out and collect the data, because it was provided by you, I am able to do a more thorough analysis of it. I have the time to really sit and compare studios and find trends  within the data. As I stated during  my presentation, I did not have a main question that I wanted to answer. Maybe it was because my tactic was opposite of everyone else's that they were unable to help much with that part, I don't know. I just know that I was kind of left off where I started, without much advice on how to move forward.

Although I didn't get much help in the way of my essential question, at least I know I am on some kind of track. My data was clear and showed obvious signs of trends. I was able to deduce which majors were visiting the digital studio, for which projects, using which programs, and even in some cases, for which professors. In some of my feedback, people raised questions about what this means for the digital studio and for the students-- that is the question I am essentially trying to answer. Other feedback were about my question in regards to why we don't see a lot of returning students. The only returning students that I was able to find were those who were working on a post card research project with a professor. I think that this may be part of the larger question that I want to answer.

Feedback Response

Overall, I received a lot of positive feedback about the direction of my project. From everyone's comments and suggestions, I feel very confident about my observations and my thesis. Many people noted that they liked my idea of comparing and contrasting the two tutoring styles that I divulged from my data. I was hesitant at first to include that in my paper because the names and concepts were of my own creation but according to my feedback I should include it in my paper. Another student suggested that I draw comparisons from my literature review write about how they measure up to the actually tutoring sessions that I observed. There are many theories that I've read about concerning working with student athletes but not all those on paper turn out to be efficient in practice and I think that would be an interest concept to unpack.

In regards to the advice that I probably won't take, someone suggested that I ask the student athletes specific questions about their opinions about working as a registered student. I originally included that idea in my data collection but I didn't want to overwhelm myself with subjects and so I wanted to focus on my personal observations only. If I interviewed actual students that could provide valuable information for a different angle.  Another difficulty with interviewing students would be biases, as a registered student they are required to come visit the RWC and so many of their attitudes about the center itself might already be less than stellar. If they happen to have a personal vendetta against a specific tutor that could come out in the interview. My data is to strictly focus on the physical aspect of the tutoring session and different methods that are used as well as their actual effectiveness. The majority of the feedback that I received confirmed the direction that my project is going and I plan to continue and hopefully produce an effective research paper.

“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.