"Diagnosing problems: ways of reading student papers"

Karen Gocsik's article reminds us, once again, what a complex process we face when we tutor students. We are simultaneously reading as a tutor, responding as a "common reader," looking for higher- and lower-order concerns, and thinking of a sensitive but direct way to address a student's struggle with an essay. This is no mean feat, and I think we deserve a pat on the back for all this multi-tasking.

One aspect of this article that I liked especially was the list of questions we need to address when we're working with students (page 2). They all speak to higher-order concerns, and they help us connect with the student's needs. We certainly need answers to these questions first before we can effectively assess a student's writing strengths and weaknessese.

I also liked the response to the fabricated student essay (page 4). The author alluded to a point that Julia aptly made at the new-tutor professional development session this afternoon. Occasionally we read an essay that really offends or irritates us. How do we respond when an essay is really, truly awful? How do we encourage students and build confidence? How do we develop a "tactful and effective response?"

What did you think of this article? Did it make you re-consider your approach to tutoring in any way?

"You fix it for me: a lesson in women's work and cultural misunderstandings"

I give Kim Zabel, the author of this article, a lot of credit for keeping her cool. I think the situation she described would have been very difficult for any one of us. As a feminist, I would have been challenged to control my temper (but I may have been challenged even if I weren't a feminist).

Do you think cultural differences excuse the kind of behavior the author discussed? Of course, the Sudanese aren't the only culture that has (what seems to us) a sexist attitude toward women. We see it in our own culture, although it may come across in more subtle ways.

Have any of you experienced this dismissive attitude from any of our students, whether ESL students or native speakers? John, have you observed this? (I would ask you, Brandon, but you've only worked three hours).

MERRY
SEMESTER'S
END!!!!

"Making Writing Visible"

This article, by Mary B. Nicolini, represents what we're trying to do through this blog: use writing to learn rather than to show learning. Even though it focused on a specific high school, "Making Writing Visible" emphasized some of tenets that define our approach in tutoring:

1. "Writers need to get it down before they worry about getting it right." That's why fluency comes first for our lab-based students. I know some of these students have been initially frustrated that we haven't emphasized grammar and punctuation in that first week or two of the semester. But discovering what one has to say must take priority. Also, one of our former tutors pointed out that once she found her writer's "voice," she became a lot more invested in taking care of mechanical issues.

2. John Mayher was cited in Nicolini's article: "Teaching writing as a process can either lead to anti-writing in its commonsense domesticated version where the attention still remains focused on producing 'essays,' or it can lead into thickets of discovery." I like this distinction, and I suspect these "thickets of discovery" can and do occur during our tutoring sessions.

3. "Students learn to write by writing." To a certain extent, we need to get out of their way so they can charge into those aforementioned "thickets of discovery" without us as barriers. Of course, it can be a struggle to find that fine line between offering needed guidance and giving student writers the room they need.

What ideas did you take from the article? What fresh insights--or important reminders--did you glean from it?

"English as a Second Language"

This is well-traveled territory, but I do appreciate author Karen Gocsik's clear breakdown of some of the common issues we face when working with international students.

I also liked the points she made about other ways of looking at writing and research. Many of us share the American cultural bias to get straight to the point, make it short and sweet. It makes me wonder what we're missing by axing digressions. How much subtlety are we sacrificing?

What other aspects of this article piqued your interest?

"Tutoring Graduate Students in the Writing Center"

Thanks to Cynthia Burgess for finding this (blessedly brief!) article. It addresses a population we haven't work with extensively: graduate students. However, as Madonna adds graduate programs, we're likely to see more demand for this specialized tutoring.

A couple of ideas I'd like to discuss are:

1. More tutor/faculty communication and training; and
2. More faculty/student interaction.

Jeri Ann has made the point that to develop a true writing community, we need to involve not just students, but faculty and staff, too. However, as is probably true at many universities, these three groups at Madonna feel overworked and stretched to the limit (and then some).

I suspect we all agree that we need more collaboration among students, staff, and faculty. Tutors need additional training in tutoring for specific disciplines, graduate students need more direction about the writing process in these disciplines, and professors need to touch base with their students' needs.

So how do we do this?

"Formative Assessment and the Paradigms of Writing Center Practice"

I have to admit this article took me a while to wade through. (That's what I get for reading only murder mysteries.)

Some of the central ideas I took from it were:

1. Writing centers help change the writer;
2. Real education changes the learner;
3. Social constructionist theory argues that we need to help students not to just fit into an academic paradigm but to challenge it; and
4. It's time to question our traditional standard of literacy, which penalizes nonstandard discourse communities.

Although nos. 3 and 4 are interesting and valid points, I don't know that we're ready to tackle them.

I'm intrigued with the idea that to really have an impact, we need to change the writer/learner. As Ann has said repeatedly, we focus on the writer more than on the paper. One key seems to be promoting reflection on the writing/learning process itself. I was especially struck with the quotation, "Writing centers...focus on another important component of formative assessment: generating in the learner a capacity for introspective evaluation of the writing process and the quality of written work created through that process." This is why we ask our student writers so many questions: We learn to write better by thinking about our writing.

What ideas did you take away from this article?