New Final Copy with Corrections made!!
11 months ago
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Monday, December 8, 2008
Final Essay (Not Really..still want to revise it)
Angela Castillo
December 8, 2008
Eng 4070: Peer Tutoring
Final Essay: How a Student's Attitude Affects a Tutor's Enthusiasm
There are a variety of different reasons why students set up appointments with their tutors. In some cases, a student has taken it upon his or herself to take their work to a writing center. In other cases, a professor may have required a student to take his or her paper to a writing center. Regardless, students go into tutoring sessions with hopes of either “fixing their papers” or “getting their papers fixed”. How the tutor expresses in interest and enthusiasm in the student’s work can greatly affect the student’s motivation to write during a session, in the same respect, the way the student first speaks to the tutor, can greatly affect the tutor’s enthusiasm towards the student’s subject.
In Newkirk’s essay “The first five minutes”, he states that the beginning of a session is “. . . important in giving the conference direction- they act as a kind of lead.” This can be true in many scenarios. For example, if a student comes into a session with a sarcastic tone of voice, and impatient attitude, the tutor may feel disrespected and may even be reluctant in showing interest and enthusiasm towards the students work. This was depicted in one of my observations of Frank and Eve.
Frank and Eve , When a Student is in a Rush
Frank and Eve were familiar with each other. They have worked with each other in the past. Frank and Eve greeted each other as Eve put her belongings down. She reached in her bag and pulled out to papers. She handed it to Frank. Eve sat next to Frank and looked at him. Frank was reading her paper. As he read he started to make a few marks on the paper. She sat and waited for Frank to finish. He leaned forward and said “Pretty Good’. He read the paper and looked at the punctuation marks. She then nodded her head and continued to look ever him.
He said “You can use a semicolon here. I made this past tense for you.”
She then said “Okay”.
He also told her to “Capitalize the P in Party”. He then told her to do that throughout the paper. He then continued to point out words in the essay that she could change.
He then said, “ instead of using the world pleasurable, use enlightening.” He then looked at her and said, “Okay, here’s a preposition”. She said “Okay”. He then continued to read and she said “thank you”. He handed her the paper with the corrections.
Afterwards, she then handed him another paper. He said “Now what is this?” She handed him another paper to read. She said “I’m going to focus on the social network with Obama’s Campaign”. They exchanged papers, he gave her back her old essay he just read and corrected, while she gave him the new essay about Obama. She then read his comments and he wrote on the other sheet. Looking up at her after about five minutes he said, “So I see here that you’re a student ambassador? she said “yes”. He said “Cool, I didn’t know that”. She didn’t continue to speak to him. Instead he looked up at her after reading a page and said. He read each sentence and commented on certain paragraphs by marking them with a pen. He looked at her as she read her old paper. He said, “you know if you have any questions or don’t understand anything then pleas elect me know and I’ll be happy to go over it again: He finished correcting her paper and he held it in front of her. He then corrected her grammatical errors.
As he made the corrections, he looked up at her and continued. He said “Not too many problems going on. He handed it to her and she said “Thank You” .He replied and said “Come back if you need anything. Have a great thanksgiving”.
When I asked her to fill out my survey, she took a deep sigh. She looked like she was in a rush. Based on her results, she felt that the tutoring session was effective and that the tutor was very friendly, clear and easy to talk to.
Despite the fact that the tutor basically edited her paper for her and was willing to explain the changes he made, the student still believed that he was a great tutor. This could have been because she went into the session with a different expectation of what a writing center should and shouldn’t be. She may have also acted this way because she wanted to just get her paper “fixed”.
North claimed that writers came to writing centers in order to be engaged and want to learn to be better writers. North’s idealistic views were far from what happened in this tutoring session. In reality many students just want a better paper, not necessarily want to become a better writers. According to Newkirk, the student’s contributions in these opening minutes need to be used to give the conference a mutually agreeable and mutually understood direction”. Since the tutor and student have already worked with each other in the past, it’s possible to conclude that the tutor and student have had sessions like this before. Despite greeting each other during the very beginning of the session, neither the tutor nor the student really spoke about the expectations for the essay. It seemed as though the student and tutor have already established a mutual agreement as to what was expected of each other during the tutoring session.
This type of tutoring session, although highly criticized in North’s essay, is very common among writing centers. This very type of session is the reason why many people think that tutoring is a time to just have their drafts “fixed”.
I can recall a session I recently had with one of my students. She arrived into the writing center exactly at the time that her appointment was scheduled. As she stood outside my room, she noticed that I was still with a student. I asked her if I could just have a few minutes to wrap up the session. She looked at me and said “Well, I got here at 7:30 on the dot so that we can start our session. I have to go somewhere”. This comment made me feel uncomfortable because I felt that it was rude that she said that in front of my student. I just needed a few moments to finish up my previous tutoring session and the student at the door seemed like she didn’t care. The student I was sitting with felt as though she was being in a rush. The student I was currently working with showed much interest in revising her paper. She was very receptive of the comments and feedback I gave her. She was also very willing to work collaboratively with me in order to improve her draft. I told the student at the door that she could wait in the room next door and that I was almost finished. The student walked away.
As soon as I finished up my previous session, I walked over to the next room. The student then handed me her paper and said “I just need you to proofread this. Act like a professor. I want you to be very critical.” She then handed me a pen and expected me to read her twelve page research paper. She then said “oh and when you’re done, I have another one that I need you to read. But you have to be quick because I only have half an hour with you.” At that moment, I was annoyed. I told her “I’m not allowed to write on your paper.” She then replied “But, I’m giving you the permission to write on it. I want you to proofread for grammar”. I then explained that it was not my job to correct her paper. I was there to help her understand how to improve her paper on her own. She then pulled out her lap top and started working on another paper, as she left me to read her essay. I was already under the impression that she was not willing to read her paper out loud in order to find her errors. So I read her paper out loud for her. I wanted the session to end just as much as she did. I paused after certain sections and asked her where she needed to correct some of her grammar. Yet according to McAndrew and Reigenstaid , “ Premature concern about grammatical correctness and other rules of standard written English may truncate the rhythm of writing or even raise anxiety about writing to a crippling level” (17).
After she answered, I told her to write it on her own, where the corrections needed to be made. After working with that essay, she handed me another one and said, “Okay, this one is a little shorter but can you proofread in five minutes?” I quickly read the essay for her and showed her one spot that needed to be “fixed”. I was then relieved when the session was over.
I was very disappointed in the way I handled the session. I wanted to help her find her own areas of improvement and I wanted to seem enthusiastic the way I was in the previous session. I also wished that she was more receptive to the feedback that I was giving her, yet based on her comments and the vibe I received from her, I felt as though she had a different understanding of what a tutoring session should be. Despite the fact that I told her, I was not allowed to write on her essay, she still expected me to fix her paper for her. This could have been because she made it clear during the first few moments of the session, that she needed her paper proofread, we also didn’t get to talk much about mutual interest or how her semester was going because she was in a rush and I already had an impression of the student that she was not there to be friendly. McAndrew and Reigenstaid emphasize the importance of conversation and once wrote in an essay that a tutor should not “overlook the power of simply engaging in natural conversation with the writer, bantering back and forth about mutual interests...” (34).
Based on my previous observations, I realized that if a tutor and student both felt comfortable talking to each other during the begging of a session, the student was more likely to be receptive to a tutor’s feedback. The following session entitled displays what happened when a tutor and student met for the first time and treated each other with respect. In this session, the student was not in a rush nor was she rude towards the tutor. Therefore, the tutor freely spoke to the student and engaged in friendly conversation. In this session, the tutor and student both laughed, and smiled together. At the end of the session, the student filled out my survey and stated that she felt the tutor was friendly, helpful and clear.
“Joey and Tina”
Joey tutored Tina for the first time. These two people did not know each other. Tina was a young freshman student who was straight out of high school. She was about eighteen years old. Tina told Joey that her other tutor recommended that she should have a session with Joey because it fit into her schedule perfectly, and that Joey was a great tutor.
Joey smiled and said “How are you doing?”
Tina replied, “I’m doing fine.”
He then asked “ what do you want to work on for the session?”
Tina told said “I need to work on an argumentive essay.?
Joey then smiled and looked at her syllabus and then said “Does your topic deal with your career goals?”
She said “Yes”
Smiling, he said “Is that what you want to do in life?”
she smiled in return and said “I want to major in Early Childhood Education”.
Joey then said “what grade do you wants to teach.”
She looked directly into his eyes and smiled again and said “ I wanted to teach the younger kids. You know, the little ones, grades K through five”.
Joey then asked “ What class is this argumentive essay was for?”
She replied by telling him the name of her Professor, (for the purpose of this essay, we can call him Professor. A”. He then asked her if Professor A wanted the paper written a certain way. She said “yes”.
Tina informed Joey that the essay was supposed to be an argumentive essay about Animal Testing. Joey then looked at Tina again and asked her what side she was on. She told him that she was for animal experimentation. He then asked her what she felt about this topic. She told him that she was for it for a variety of reasons. He then looked at her paper again and then he asked her if they could read the first paragraph together.
Joey helped her pronounce some large medical words that she couldn’t really pronounce. Joey repeated some of the words she said, he repeated a word and she corrected it verbally so then she corrected it. She was laughing, while she wrote some words on her paper.
She made corrections on her paper, he told her that some of the sentences were straight forwards, she smiled. He pointed out that he liked the imagery. He told her that he liked the imagery that she put at the end of the essay. He smiled and said it pointed out her voice.
He then started to read again, he said okay, “So you don’t have an intro?” She said,” nope.” She then told him that she did have the resources for the essay with her.
Joey than crossed his left foot and rested it on his right thigh, in an L shape. He then read the course requirement sheet with her again, and went over what she needed to do. He said, so this is your stand?. He said “Alright, you don’t have an intro but you want one? So you have to write one. Do you have a notebook or anything else? You don’t wana type it on the computer? Are you comfortable with the pen?” She told him that she liked to write with a pen. She started to write her ideas down on paper as he read along. He then told Tina “Define the issue. Tina what’s the issue? Are you position 1 or position 2? Tell me.” He said, “Keep writing”, She said” I have a problem making a thesis it’s always too long.” He told her that it was alright and that she should just continue to write. As he looked at her paper, he said, “I understand what you mean in your intro, your wording is a little off.”
He then read her old thesis and told her to make a fresh one. He said “Write it, state it simply, what’s going on and hat you want to say.” He then noticed that her coat was still on. He looked at her and said, “Are you comfortable writing with your coat?” She said, “Yeah I’m cold.” He was smiling. She was laughing.
She finished and said. “Can I say this?” She then read her thesis. He said, “Can you refine it? What’s your purpose? What purpose does it have?” She said “the purpose is to prolong the lives of those with certain diseases, helps animals and humans,”
Joey then said, “Let’s get a general concept. Animal illness? Human sickness? What else did you mention?” Tina replied, “Anesethia, life saving surgery, new drugs should be tested on animals”. He said, “Okay, so let’s work on animals instead of people.”
Joey continued by saying “Animal experimentation has a purpose to do what? You told me so and so, do you get what I’m saying?”
Tina replied by stating “You list them out in a thesis statement?
Joey said “Sure, because these are what you’re going to talk about in your paper. Thesis statements are very specific.”
Tina then looked up at him in agreement, as she began to jot down some ideas. While she was writing down her ideas, Joey pointed out on her outline that she had some excellent thoughts written down. He told her that he wanted her thesis to be solid and she continued to write. He then told her that she had great supporting details. He looked over her writing as he shook his feet and started to tap them. He then looked at the monitor. She started to hum to herself as she read the paper.
About half an hour into the session, she looked up and said “Okay it’s a single statement now”. She then started to read out loud to herself. Joey listened to her as she was reading. He then said “See, it’s good. Animal’s have a purpose.” He then said, “Good, good.” She replied, “Do I have to add some of these in it to? “ She adds some ideas, she said “Do I have to put a refute in it?” He said, “No, not in the thesis because it’s only one point.” She said, "I always have a student write something general, and then work on it.”He said “You see this is what you’re proving in your paper. “
He then said, “Some of the wording was a little off, but it could be changed. Overall he said it was awesome!”
He then asked her if there were any other issues she was concerned with. She said “No.” He told her that he really liked the essay except that there were many quotes. She then replied that the professor wanted quotes.” As the session ended, I asked her to fill out the survey. Her answers on the survey showed that she felt she had a positive learning experience. She felt as through the tutor was approachable and easy to talk to. She found the session very helpful.
Based on this observation, because Joey engaged in a friendly conversation with Tina and showed interest in her topic, Tina was more receptive to Joey’s feedback. It also helped that Tina did not go into the tutoring session with an attitude nor did she tell Joey that she just wanted him to proofread her essay. It seemed as though Joey was comfortable in talking with Tina and offered her some positive feedback as well as constructive criticism. He also asked Tina a series of open ended questions which allowed her to answer freely. She was not limited to yes or no answers. This allowed for a collaborative tutoring session in which the student was able to make revisions to her paper and find areas of improvement along with a series of questions that the tutor asked her. Despite meeting each other for the first time, the type of conversation that the two had with each other during the very beginning of the session greatly affected the overall outcome.
Works Cited
Newkirk, Thomas. “The First Five Minutes: Setting the Agenda in a Writing Conference.” Robert W and Jacob S Blummer. The Longman Guide to Writing Center Theory and Practice. New York: Pearson Longman, 2008. 302-315.
North, Stephen M. "The Idea of a Writing Center." Barnett, Robert W and Jacob S Blummer. The Longman Guide to Writing Center Theory and Practice. New York: Pearson Longman,2008. 63-78.
North, Stephen M. "Revisiting“The Idea of a Writing Center.”Barnett, Robert W and Jacob S Blummer. The Longman Guide to Writing Center Theory and Practice. New York: Pearson Longman, 2008. 75-91.
December 8, 2008
Eng 4070: Peer Tutoring
Final Essay: How a Student's Attitude Affects a Tutor's Enthusiasm
There are a variety of different reasons why students set up appointments with their tutors. In some cases, a student has taken it upon his or herself to take their work to a writing center. In other cases, a professor may have required a student to take his or her paper to a writing center. Regardless, students go into tutoring sessions with hopes of either “fixing their papers” or “getting their papers fixed”. How the tutor expresses in interest and enthusiasm in the student’s work can greatly affect the student’s motivation to write during a session, in the same respect, the way the student first speaks to the tutor, can greatly affect the tutor’s enthusiasm towards the student’s subject.
In Newkirk’s essay “The first five minutes”, he states that the beginning of a session is “. . . important in giving the conference direction- they act as a kind of lead.” This can be true in many scenarios. For example, if a student comes into a session with a sarcastic tone of voice, and impatient attitude, the tutor may feel disrespected and may even be reluctant in showing interest and enthusiasm towards the students work. This was depicted in one of my observations of Frank and Eve.
Frank and Eve , When a Student is in a Rush
Frank and Eve were familiar with each other. They have worked with each other in the past. Frank and Eve greeted each other as Eve put her belongings down. She reached in her bag and pulled out to papers. She handed it to Frank. Eve sat next to Frank and looked at him. Frank was reading her paper. As he read he started to make a few marks on the paper. She sat and waited for Frank to finish. He leaned forward and said “Pretty Good’. He read the paper and looked at the punctuation marks. She then nodded her head and continued to look ever him.
He said “You can use a semicolon here. I made this past tense for you.”
She then said “Okay”.
He also told her to “Capitalize the P in Party”. He then told her to do that throughout the paper. He then continued to point out words in the essay that she could change.
He then said, “ instead of using the world pleasurable, use enlightening.” He then looked at her and said, “Okay, here’s a preposition”. She said “Okay”. He then continued to read and she said “thank you”. He handed her the paper with the corrections.
Afterwards, she then handed him another paper. He said “Now what is this?” She handed him another paper to read. She said “I’m going to focus on the social network with Obama’s Campaign”. They exchanged papers, he gave her back her old essay he just read and corrected, while she gave him the new essay about Obama. She then read his comments and he wrote on the other sheet. Looking up at her after about five minutes he said, “So I see here that you’re a student ambassador? she said “yes”. He said “Cool, I didn’t know that”. She didn’t continue to speak to him. Instead he looked up at her after reading a page and said. He read each sentence and commented on certain paragraphs by marking them with a pen. He looked at her as she read her old paper. He said, “you know if you have any questions or don’t understand anything then pleas elect me know and I’ll be happy to go over it again: He finished correcting her paper and he held it in front of her. He then corrected her grammatical errors.
As he made the corrections, he looked up at her and continued. He said “Not too many problems going on. He handed it to her and she said “Thank You” .He replied and said “Come back if you need anything. Have a great thanksgiving”.
When I asked her to fill out my survey, she took a deep sigh. She looked like she was in a rush. Based on her results, she felt that the tutoring session was effective and that the tutor was very friendly, clear and easy to talk to.
Despite the fact that the tutor basically edited her paper for her and was willing to explain the changes he made, the student still believed that he was a great tutor. This could have been because she went into the session with a different expectation of what a writing center should and shouldn’t be. She may have also acted this way because she wanted to just get her paper “fixed”.
North claimed that writers came to writing centers in order to be engaged and want to learn to be better writers. North’s idealistic views were far from what happened in this tutoring session. In reality many students just want a better paper, not necessarily want to become a better writers. According to Newkirk, the student’s contributions in these opening minutes need to be used to give the conference a mutually agreeable and mutually understood direction”. Since the tutor and student have already worked with each other in the past, it’s possible to conclude that the tutor and student have had sessions like this before. Despite greeting each other during the very beginning of the session, neither the tutor nor the student really spoke about the expectations for the essay. It seemed as though the student and tutor have already established a mutual agreement as to what was expected of each other during the tutoring session.
This type of tutoring session, although highly criticized in North’s essay, is very common among writing centers. This very type of session is the reason why many people think that tutoring is a time to just have their drafts “fixed”.
I can recall a session I recently had with one of my students. She arrived into the writing center exactly at the time that her appointment was scheduled. As she stood outside my room, she noticed that I was still with a student. I asked her if I could just have a few minutes to wrap up the session. She looked at me and said “Well, I got here at 7:30 on the dot so that we can start our session. I have to go somewhere”. This comment made me feel uncomfortable because I felt that it was rude that she said that in front of my student. I just needed a few moments to finish up my previous tutoring session and the student at the door seemed like she didn’t care. The student I was sitting with felt as though she was being in a rush. The student I was currently working with showed much interest in revising her paper. She was very receptive of the comments and feedback I gave her. She was also very willing to work collaboratively with me in order to improve her draft. I told the student at the door that she could wait in the room next door and that I was almost finished. The student walked away.
As soon as I finished up my previous session, I walked over to the next room. The student then handed me her paper and said “I just need you to proofread this. Act like a professor. I want you to be very critical.” She then handed me a pen and expected me to read her twelve page research paper. She then said “oh and when you’re done, I have another one that I need you to read. But you have to be quick because I only have half an hour with you.” At that moment, I was annoyed. I told her “I’m not allowed to write on your paper.” She then replied “But, I’m giving you the permission to write on it. I want you to proofread for grammar”. I then explained that it was not my job to correct her paper. I was there to help her understand how to improve her paper on her own. She then pulled out her lap top and started working on another paper, as she left me to read her essay. I was already under the impression that she was not willing to read her paper out loud in order to find her errors. So I read her paper out loud for her. I wanted the session to end just as much as she did. I paused after certain sections and asked her where she needed to correct some of her grammar. Yet according to McAndrew and Reigenstaid , “ Premature concern about grammatical correctness and other rules of standard written English may truncate the rhythm of writing or even raise anxiety about writing to a crippling level” (17).
After she answered, I told her to write it on her own, where the corrections needed to be made. After working with that essay, she handed me another one and said, “Okay, this one is a little shorter but can you proofread in five minutes?” I quickly read the essay for her and showed her one spot that needed to be “fixed”. I was then relieved when the session was over.
I was very disappointed in the way I handled the session. I wanted to help her find her own areas of improvement and I wanted to seem enthusiastic the way I was in the previous session. I also wished that she was more receptive to the feedback that I was giving her, yet based on her comments and the vibe I received from her, I felt as though she had a different understanding of what a tutoring session should be. Despite the fact that I told her, I was not allowed to write on her essay, she still expected me to fix her paper for her. This could have been because she made it clear during the first few moments of the session, that she needed her paper proofread, we also didn’t get to talk much about mutual interest or how her semester was going because she was in a rush and I already had an impression of the student that she was not there to be friendly. McAndrew and Reigenstaid emphasize the importance of conversation and once wrote in an essay that a tutor should not “overlook the power of simply engaging in natural conversation with the writer, bantering back and forth about mutual interests...” (34).
Based on my previous observations, I realized that if a tutor and student both felt comfortable talking to each other during the begging of a session, the student was more likely to be receptive to a tutor’s feedback. The following session entitled displays what happened when a tutor and student met for the first time and treated each other with respect. In this session, the student was not in a rush nor was she rude towards the tutor. Therefore, the tutor freely spoke to the student and engaged in friendly conversation. In this session, the tutor and student both laughed, and smiled together. At the end of the session, the student filled out my survey and stated that she felt the tutor was friendly, helpful and clear.
“Joey and Tina”
Joey tutored Tina for the first time. These two people did not know each other. Tina was a young freshman student who was straight out of high school. She was about eighteen years old. Tina told Joey that her other tutor recommended that she should have a session with Joey because it fit into her schedule perfectly, and that Joey was a great tutor.
Joey smiled and said “How are you doing?”
Tina replied, “I’m doing fine.”
He then asked “ what do you want to work on for the session?”
Tina told said “I need to work on an argumentive essay.?
Joey then smiled and looked at her syllabus and then said “Does your topic deal with your career goals?”
She said “Yes”
Smiling, he said “Is that what you want to do in life?”
she smiled in return and said “I want to major in Early Childhood Education”.
Joey then said “what grade do you wants to teach.”
She looked directly into his eyes and smiled again and said “ I wanted to teach the younger kids. You know, the little ones, grades K through five”.
Joey then asked “ What class is this argumentive essay was for?”
She replied by telling him the name of her Professor, (for the purpose of this essay, we can call him Professor. A”. He then asked her if Professor A wanted the paper written a certain way. She said “yes”.
Tina informed Joey that the essay was supposed to be an argumentive essay about Animal Testing. Joey then looked at Tina again and asked her what side she was on. She told him that she was for animal experimentation. He then asked her what she felt about this topic. She told him that she was for it for a variety of reasons. He then looked at her paper again and then he asked her if they could read the first paragraph together.
Joey helped her pronounce some large medical words that she couldn’t really pronounce. Joey repeated some of the words she said, he repeated a word and she corrected it verbally so then she corrected it. She was laughing, while she wrote some words on her paper.
She made corrections on her paper, he told her that some of the sentences were straight forwards, she smiled. He pointed out that he liked the imagery. He told her that he liked the imagery that she put at the end of the essay. He smiled and said it pointed out her voice.
He then started to read again, he said okay, “So you don’t have an intro?” She said,” nope.” She then told him that she did have the resources for the essay with her.
Joey than crossed his left foot and rested it on his right thigh, in an L shape. He then read the course requirement sheet with her again, and went over what she needed to do. He said, so this is your stand?. He said “Alright, you don’t have an intro but you want one? So you have to write one. Do you have a notebook or anything else? You don’t wana type it on the computer? Are you comfortable with the pen?” She told him that she liked to write with a pen. She started to write her ideas down on paper as he read along. He then told Tina “Define the issue. Tina what’s the issue? Are you position 1 or position 2? Tell me.” He said, “Keep writing”, She said” I have a problem making a thesis it’s always too long.” He told her that it was alright and that she should just continue to write. As he looked at her paper, he said, “I understand what you mean in your intro, your wording is a little off.”
He then read her old thesis and told her to make a fresh one. He said “Write it, state it simply, what’s going on and hat you want to say.” He then noticed that her coat was still on. He looked at her and said, “Are you comfortable writing with your coat?” She said, “Yeah I’m cold.” He was smiling. She was laughing.
She finished and said. “Can I say this?” She then read her thesis. He said, “Can you refine it? What’s your purpose? What purpose does it have?” She said “the purpose is to prolong the lives of those with certain diseases, helps animals and humans,”
Joey then said, “Let’s get a general concept. Animal illness? Human sickness? What else did you mention?” Tina replied, “Anesethia, life saving surgery, new drugs should be tested on animals”. He said, “Okay, so let’s work on animals instead of people.”
Joey continued by saying “Animal experimentation has a purpose to do what? You told me so and so, do you get what I’m saying?”
Tina replied by stating “You list them out in a thesis statement?
Joey said “Sure, because these are what you’re going to talk about in your paper. Thesis statements are very specific.”
Tina then looked up at him in agreement, as she began to jot down some ideas. While she was writing down her ideas, Joey pointed out on her outline that she had some excellent thoughts written down. He told her that he wanted her thesis to be solid and she continued to write. He then told her that she had great supporting details. He looked over her writing as he shook his feet and started to tap them. He then looked at the monitor. She started to hum to herself as she read the paper.
About half an hour into the session, she looked up and said “Okay it’s a single statement now”. She then started to read out loud to herself. Joey listened to her as she was reading. He then said “See, it’s good. Animal’s have a purpose.” He then said, “Good, good.” She replied, “Do I have to add some of these in it to? “ She adds some ideas, she said “Do I have to put a refute in it?” He said, “No, not in the thesis because it’s only one point.” She said, "I always have a student write something general, and then work on it.”He said “You see this is what you’re proving in your paper. “
He then said, “Some of the wording was a little off, but it could be changed. Overall he said it was awesome!”
He then asked her if there were any other issues she was concerned with. She said “No.” He told her that he really liked the essay except that there were many quotes. She then replied that the professor wanted quotes.” As the session ended, I asked her to fill out the survey. Her answers on the survey showed that she felt she had a positive learning experience. She felt as through the tutor was approachable and easy to talk to. She found the session very helpful.
Based on this observation, because Joey engaged in a friendly conversation with Tina and showed interest in her topic, Tina was more receptive to Joey’s feedback. It also helped that Tina did not go into the tutoring session with an attitude nor did she tell Joey that she just wanted him to proofread her essay. It seemed as though Joey was comfortable in talking with Tina and offered her some positive feedback as well as constructive criticism. He also asked Tina a series of open ended questions which allowed her to answer freely. She was not limited to yes or no answers. This allowed for a collaborative tutoring session in which the student was able to make revisions to her paper and find areas of improvement along with a series of questions that the tutor asked her. Despite meeting each other for the first time, the type of conversation that the two had with each other during the very beginning of the session greatly affected the overall outcome.
Works Cited
Newkirk, Thomas. “The First Five Minutes: Setting the Agenda in a Writing Conference.” Robert W and Jacob S Blummer. The Longman Guide to Writing Center Theory and Practice. New York: Pearson Longman, 2008. 302-315.
North, Stephen M. "The Idea of a Writing Center." Barnett, Robert W and Jacob S Blummer. The Longman Guide to Writing Center Theory and Practice. New York: Pearson Longman,2008. 63-78.
North, Stephen M. "Revisiting“The Idea of a Writing Center.”Barnett, Robert W and Jacob S Blummer. The Longman Guide to Writing Center Theory and Practice. New York: Pearson Longman, 2008. 75-91.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Tutoring Session With Anna
Tutoring Session with Anna she brought a paper with comments from her professor. She also brought in a paper with the revisions that she made. She needed to hand in the paper for a final. We pulled the paper on the computer as well. Basically I had her read the paper to me. Then we went by each paragraph and looked at the content of the paragraphs. We organized it together. I asked her to see if her ideas fit into the paragraph she wrote. She then realized that she could move some of the sentences to other paragraphsin order for her ideas to remain consistent within each section. Afterwards we went over the correct formatting. I showed her an example on the Diana Hacker Website.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Reflection of a Tutoring Session
I didn’t get to write about my tutoring session that I had last week with “Melanie”. Melanie was an Education major who barely spoke English, literally. She is an adult student, and is a native Spanish speaker. I felt that she needed an ESL tutor. I’ve had her before. It was so difficult for me. She not only had a difficult time speaking and writing English, she could not write the correct letters that I dictated when trying to help her correct the spelling of a word. Her paper had fragments, and was missing words. Some prepositions were used incorrectly and she was writing word for word in the book. I tried to show her some websites that would help her in writing and speaking English. I tried to help her as best as I could but ended up dicating things to her. Although, I’ve recommended her to other tutors, she said that I was the only one that fit her schedule. Another problem I had was that the room was stuffy and her perfume was too strong. I felt like I was going to throw up. I was actually nauseous and had to get up a few times and leave the room. I felt that it was not an effective tutoring session. Although the student was very sweet and appreciative, I felt that I was not capable of giving her the proper help that she needed. It was more than organizational issues, it was just her understanding the resources that were written in English. I’ve spoken to other tutors that have had her and they all told me that they too had difficult ties teaching her. She needed to be in a Spanish Speaking Class but for some reason she wasn’t. I don’t want to sound pessimistic, but I feared that if she didn’t get the proper help (with someone who is specifically trained in working with ESL students), then she would encounter more problems as she moved up to the higher level courses.
Tutoring Session Reflecton
Reflection on Tutoring session.
Today I had a session; the student came in late, about half an hour late. She seemed distressed because of the miscommunication with the person who made the appointment for her. Apparently, she was told that that session was 10:30 am but on the schedule it said 10:00am. So she wanted me to look over her paper with her with the professor’s comments. She did not have a printed version and needed to use my laptop because she didn’t feel like going over to the computer to open up her paper. So it took another five minutes to start my laptop and I was losing time. I got the vibe that she was upset. I didn’t feel like it would be helpful to go through the “Hello, how are you? What’s your major, how’s your semester going conversation. “. Plus she was an adult student, a lot older than me and sometimes I do get intimidated working with frustrated adult students. Anyway, we pulled up the file on my laptop and we only had 10 minutes left. I could only skim through the paper and checked if her citations were in the correct format. They were not so, I wrote the website for OWL PURDUE down because the internet was not working on my laptop. I then directed her to RYAN so that she can continue a session with him.
Today I had a session; the student came in late, about half an hour late. She seemed distressed because of the miscommunication with the person who made the appointment for her. Apparently, she was told that that session was 10:30 am but on the schedule it said 10:00am. So she wanted me to look over her paper with her with the professor’s comments. She did not have a printed version and needed to use my laptop because she didn’t feel like going over to the computer to open up her paper. So it took another five minutes to start my laptop and I was losing time. I got the vibe that she was upset. I didn’t feel like it would be helpful to go through the “Hello, how are you? What’s your major, how’s your semester going conversation. “. Plus she was an adult student, a lot older than me and sometimes I do get intimidated working with frustrated adult students. Anyway, we pulled up the file on my laptop and we only had 10 minutes left. I could only skim through the paper and checked if her citations were in the correct format. They were not so, I wrote the website for OWL PURDUE down because the internet was not working on my laptop. I then directed her to RYAN so that she can continue a session with him.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Reflection of Tutoring Session
Today I had a tutoring session
Reflection 11/13/08
Today I tutored and had a student observe the session.
When working "Melissa", I had to help her being the writing process. She wanted to write about her childhood and how she did not want to raise her children the way she was raised. It was quote difficult for her and she seemed quiet at first. Later on she revealed some details about her life that she wanted to include in her essay. It was difficult for her to begin writing because this was a very touchy subject.
What I allowed her to do is to let out some of her emotions and then I listened for some key element that she would like to use. She told me that her childhood made into a more mature and responsible person. So what I did was repeat some of her ideas back to her. She told me some examples of what made her mature at such a young age.
As she began to jot her ideas down, I repeated some of her ideas to her in order to clarify that this is what she wanted. I then asked her how these were related to how she raised her own children.
By allowing her to talk out her thoughts, she became more comfortable with me and was more eager to write this down. She actually reveled to me that she has cried in the past about writing this yet she felt the need to write some of her experiences down because it has in fact changed her life. She had so much to say and I didn't realize this at the beginning of the session.
Her attitude changed completely from the Begining of the session to the end. At first she was quiet and at the end she was talking more and very appreciative. She left with about three paragraphs of writing and an outline of her essay.
Reflection 11/13/08
Today I tutored and had a student observe the session.
When working "Melissa", I had to help her being the writing process. She wanted to write about her childhood and how she did not want to raise her children the way she was raised. It was quote difficult for her and she seemed quiet at first. Later on she revealed some details about her life that she wanted to include in her essay. It was difficult for her to begin writing because this was a very touchy subject.
What I allowed her to do is to let out some of her emotions and then I listened for some key element that she would like to use. She told me that her childhood made into a more mature and responsible person. So what I did was repeat some of her ideas back to her. She told me some examples of what made her mature at such a young age.
As she began to jot her ideas down, I repeated some of her ideas to her in order to clarify that this is what she wanted. I then asked her how these were related to how she raised her own children.
By allowing her to talk out her thoughts, she became more comfortable with me and was more eager to write this down. She actually reveled to me that she has cried in the past about writing this yet she felt the need to write some of her experiences down because it has in fact changed her life. She had so much to say and I didn't realize this at the beginning of the session.
Her attitude changed completely from the Begining of the session to the end. At first she was quiet and at the end she was talking more and very appreciative. She left with about three paragraphs of writing and an outline of her essay.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Plan for Research Project
Research Question: How do open ended questions, directive questions & questions that fall between the two categories, affect students? In what context do they appear in? What kind of responses do students give to the three approaches?
Plan for Gathering Data:
Read through some of the sections in the two textbooks for class and then search the internet. I'm going to use some of the sources that are posted in our google docs as well as some of the links on our class homepage. I've found a fair amount of sources already.
Familiarize yourself with your topic:
My topic:
What are the conflicts between minimalist tutoring and other types of tutoring and what type of background does the tutor have?
I read Brook's Article in the class text book. Brooks wrote a few points about minimalist tutoring. He said these were important:
1. Sit next to student
2. Get student to sit closer to their paper than you are
3. If you're right handed, sit on the student's right side.
4. Ask the student to read the paper to you.
5. Concentrate on success on the paper, not the failure. You have to encourage them.
6. Get the student to talk. "Tell me some more about that" (soft). "where do you say that in your paper"(aggressive).
I'm going to also search with my keywords. I'm going to write the title's and authors of the sites I read. I want to rank it based on importance for me.
Write about things in Brook's articles that are relevant.
Identify a research question: My topic:
What are the conflicts between minimalist tutoring and other types of tutoring?
Develop a list of questions you might want to explore with respect to your topic
1.What are the most common approaches of tutoring sessions?
2. How do students react with minimalist tutoring?
3. How do students react when the teacher just proofreads the work?
4. What types of questions do tutors ask and how do the students react?
5. What kind of attitudes do the students have towards the teacher?
Strategies to deepen and focus your question:
I'm going to gather as much data as possible. I'm going to write at least five observations and I will start reflecting on each of my tutoring sessions.
Decide what you need to know to answer your research question:
I need to have my observations of tutoring sessions. I need to also have background information on what type of tutoring methods work and what fail. I need to know what types of tutor training are available.
Formulate a research plan that includes:
Statement of purpose (what you hope to show/discover)
To figure out how tutor training affects a tutoring session and what types of tutoring methods these tutors use.
What are the conflicts between minimalist tutoring and other types of tutoring and what type of background does the tutor have?
List of the information you need to gather
Observations on tutoring sessions, background information on types of tutoring methods, background information on minimalist tutoring.
So far I have done three observations as of November 11, 2008.
Research based on the readings and sources that are listed in my annotated bibliography.
Annotated Bibliography:
1.Brooks, Jeff. "Minimalist Tutoring: Making the Student Do All the Work." Barnett, Robert W and Jacob S Blummer. The Longman Guide to Writing Center Theory and Practice. New York: Pearson Longman, 2008. 219-224.
This essay goes over minimalist tutoring and how observations reflect the way people notice things and how they are categorized. Some categories include, Body language, Tutor Talk and Assignment. The article also talks about dimension and how observations reflect the way we think are noticed and categorized. The essay also discusses naming different aspects such as background noise, conversation and the paper.
2, Hoffman, Kimberely, et al. "Strategies for Editing and Sentence-Level Consulting." Praxis: A Writing Center Journal. U of Texas at Austin. 3Nov.2008 < http://projects .uwc.utexas.edu/praxis/?q=node/201>
This website covers the following topics:"Helping students edit without diminishing their authority",”Global- and Local-Level Concerns"."Misperceptions of the Editing Process","Directive vs. Non-Directive Approaches","Collaborative Strategies for Consulting on the Sentence-Level"
3. Lunsford, Andrea. "Collaboration, Control, and the Idea of a Writing Center." Barnett, Robert W and Jacob S Blummer. The Longman Guide to Writing Center Theory and Practice. New York: Pearson Longman, 2008. 92-99.
Lunsford presents the reader with the idea of three different types of writing centers. Two of which can be threatened by the concept of collaboration. The first writing center she calls a “Storehouse Center”. She believes this center is one that revolves around the idea that knowledge is something people can view and reach instantly. She believes collaboration can threaten it because believe knowledge is gained by a person alone. He or she does not need someone to work with them in order to broaden their ideas. The second type of writing center is what she calls “The Center as Garret”. Collaboration threatens this center, because this center believes that students are unique and have the knowledge already inside of them. The center’s purpose is to have a tutor facilitate a learning style that allows the student to discover the knowledge that is already within them.
4. Newkirk, Thomas. "The First Five Minutes: Setting the Agenda in a Writing Conference." Barnett, Robert W and Jacob S Blummer. The Longman Guide to Writing Center Theory and Practice. New York: Pearson Longman, 2008. 302-315.
Newkirk’s essay ”The First Five Minutes”, informs it’s audience about the types of complications that a teacher and student can experience during a conference. Newkirk then uses three examples of observation and dialogue from three teacher student meetings and ellaborated on what happened between the teacher and student and how they communicated thorughout the session, whether it was effective or not . He then analyzied why the sessions projected their results.
5. Ronesi, Lynne. "Meeting in the Writing Center: The Field of ESL." TESL-EJ. Mar.-Apr. 1995. 11 Nov.
2008
In this site, there's a paragraph within this essay that discusses some of the problems that tutors are faced with. It stated that tutors who are trained properly can help students gather ideas and thoughts in order to begin the writing process. This discussion focused on ESL students and how most of them were preoccupied with sentence structures and "syntax" errors as opposed to focusing on "content". This essay also focuses on the importance of the "collaborative process".
There is also a portion of the essay that I can relate to on a personal level. In the essay it states that as the researcher watched tapes of tutors working with ESL students, the researcher noticed that because of the language difficulties, the tutors were more ready to give the answers instead of allowing the students to generate their own answers. Based on my own experience, I've encountered difficulties with ESL students and was ready to just give them the answer because we were having such a hard time talking to each other. I feel as if I am not properly trained to work with ESL students.
This website will help me because I can evaluate my observations and search for similar problems that the tutors may have been faced with in regards to students who speak English as a second language. This site gives me a “heads up” in what to look for and can help me generate a checklist of things to look for during a tutoring session. It also offers me an explanation on why tutors may behave a certain way.
6.TheWritingCenter.WinonaStateUniversity.11.Nov.2008
This website offers guidelines in regards to tutors conducting conferences with students. This website focuses on the importance of listening and how to allow the students to trust the tutors. This website emphasizes the value of High order concerns, Low order concerns, dialogue, giving clear explanations and etc.
I will use this website as a guideline in evaluating the behaviors of the tutors that I have observed. Based on this website, I have a better idea of what to look for in a tutoring session. Obviously, tutors from our class will have already learned this information. Therefore it can greatly influence their tutoring approaches as opposed to those tutors who have not received any training. These guidelines will allow me to analyze my data by breaking them up into certain categories that I have listed earlier.
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