The College Mentoring Project

Saturday was the second and final meeting with the college mentoring program. Myself and Emily worked with Alex, who was writing her "letter" to her cousin. Emily and I brought the paper outside in the beautiful weather to read over, and as I read it I was thinking that Alex had some great ideas and did a great job of picking a central point (that Americans are intimidated of the growing Hispanic population) and sticking to it.

We brought Alex back outside in the sun and talked to her about her paper. Alex said that last time she worked a lot on organization, which was apparent in her paper because it was very well organized. Then, we got to the discussion of quotes. I noticed that the students were told to use quotes from the articles in their paper, but Alex hadn't done that. Alex admitted to working on quoting in the last session, but she still hadn't incorporated them into her paper. Alex was not confident in her ability to quote effectively or "correctly". The approach we took to the situation had a few elements: 1. We asked Alex to pick a quote in the article that she might want to use (for hypothetical purposes) 2. We asked her what argument it supported 3. We asked her "why??" Why did she choose that quote in particular? How does it support her claim? 4. We showed Alex how to introduce and follow up her quotes using the "sandwich" idea, that a quote should never stand alone.

Following the session, we had a discussion with the students about the differences between high school and college. Prior to this discussion, and even during my session with Alex, I never realized that quoting is a very foreign idea to high school students. I been thinking a lot about quoting and different ideas that are new to college students when they first step on campus. It's interesting to bring myself back to my first few weeks of college classes and remember what I found difficult. More importantly , this has gotten me to think of how to fix these issues and advise people on how to write better.

Reading Response 3/15

1. Minimalist Tutoring: What is a tutor to do if the writer outright tells the tutor that they need more to work with? How can you identify a student that will need more guidance? Can simply reading their writing and seeing their skill level determine that?

2. Pure Tutoring: What are some pros of directive tutoring? What are the issues?

Here is my response:

http://paige-english383.blogspot.com/2010/03/reading-questions-for-315.html?showComment=1268632672587_AIe9_BFv640TbYlC0WrElxLmOX3xhNGltsS8qBFBS5v2gSxQGxhjS74lPWQs0fUX-qQ2j0dTC_mWvSPQ7Vb7pTAt48RrKkiz4_RL-SkCdDfbHGomMehr_ZfpBCQth44cRZ8Da408Zea8hnZ5T3BeXreZ8IiLXr8rVRUtPPfH2aUDAPRsq_f-6A4nSn7c6UxNbihJtMSp9uK9je22p5bZohMvOwkEbETWF2IZBuUDkySy41HXci8tn7g#c4672878551904976326

Final Writing Center Shadow

My final writing center shadowing appointment was a no show!

High School Tutoring

To make up for missing the college mentoring project, I had my sister, Meredith, email me a paper she is working on for her religion class. My sister is a sophomore at a small-ish Catholic school in my hometown in Maryland. I know that a private school in Annapolis is a far cry from the student's situation who are involved in the college mentoring project, but from looking around at some of the posts about tutoring the high schoolers, Meredith seemed to have some similar problems and questions about her writing. The assignment was to write a paper describing a story that has been in her family for a long time and is told over and over again. Then, they were to state their opinion on family stories, how they contribute to a sense of family, and if a family could even be a family without family stories. Additionally, they were to briefly compare their story to a story found in the Bible.

I called Meredith yesterday afternoon and asked her to send me her paper. She said she wasn't done yet, so I asked her what she was writing about. She started telling me a wild array of ideas that seemed to not really have any significance or meaning to her. I also saw the potential that this paper has to mean something to her because it has to do with a family story. I began to sense that her paper would be unorganized and lack a central idea. Of course I didn't tell her that outright, but I asked her what her main idea was. After trying to come up with something, she admitted that she didn't really know, but she thought what she was saying sounded good on paper. So, I began to talk her through sort of a "prewrite" process. I asked her what she thought our family was about, what words she would use to describe our family. (It was difficult to not provide my own insight, seeing as how she was talking about my family too). After giving me a few minutes of good ideas, she had an insight to take her paper in an entirely new direction and start over. After that we hung up the phone. Within a few minutes she called me back with her thesis. The thesis had kind of the same problem as the initial draft -- she was just saying words because they sounded good, but she wasn't pinpointing her idea or driving home her point. So, I asked her again what she wanted her thesis to say. After that, she began to realize what I wanted out of her...to pick her point and stick to it.

A few hours later she called me back and told me that she emailed me her "final" draft. I opened the paper, read it over, and called her back. Her paper was actually good. I told her that her organization was significantly better, and she seemed passionate about her topic. Her main problem was the flow between sentences. I taught her how to use transitions effectively by using an example in her paper. Then she began saying "ooh, so I could do the same thing here..." exactly. Also, her paper lacked a conclusion entirely. I told her that her point would be driven home much better with a conclusion, and she asked me what to write. (She had no problem asking me exactly what to do in her paper, seeing as I am her sister, and I had to remember the 'fix-it-shop idea' and apply the techniques we have learned about in class). I advised her on how I usually write conclusions, but I asked her what she wants her reader to take away from reading her paper. She told me, and her dialogue was a good conclusion in itself.

Reflecting on the experience of helping my sister, I realized alot about the transition between high school and college. My sister said that she has never thought about writing this way, as a personal assertion of what YOU have to say about something. I think a lot of high schoolers are thinking about what their teacher WANTS them to say and are just trying to get through the assignment, without realizing that their teacher most likely wants to hear what they have to say. I think a lot of high schoolers like Meredith would benefit from college students coming and teaching them about writing, especially college students that are passionate about writing and who realize that writing is an excellent form of expression, and that good grades on their papers will just fall into place as long as they are passionate about what they saying.

I really enjoyed working with my sister. I now have so many ideas about how a high school writing class should be taught!

March 1 Questions

Tips for Conferences and Reports:

-I was confused on the first point about only using the report forms for the writing center and 383. Why wouldn't you use the report forms for writing fellow work?

Reports:

-What are the consequences as a writing consultant for writing an "awful" report?

St. Martin's Sourcebook

-How can we effectively tutor the student in regards to their development if we do not fully agree with their topic? In my opinion, it is our job to help the student regardless of our stance on the issue, so how can we help the student to the best of our ability without having them feel attacked?

Bedford Guide

-Is it valid for teachers to make their students do a specific type of pre-write? If they do, and the method does not work for the student, is it right for us to provide the student with another type of prewrite that goes against the professors assignment?

Writing Center Part 3

Yesterday I had my first real experience shadowing in the writing center. The tutee was a freshman girl writing short essays for her English 103 class and she was asking for help with her third essay. The assignment was to choose 2 articles, in addition to one required article, and develop a single cohesive thesis while making the articles "speak to each other". The tutor did not read the paper before hand, so she read the paper out loud to the writer. I think that it is beneficial to read the paper before the session, but if that isn't possible for some reason, I think reading the paper out loud was an awesome way to get the writer listening and catching her mistakes on her own. In this case, the writer did stop the tutor at some points and say that she realizes that is a mistake, or ask the tutor how she could fix that because it sounded awkward.

This was an awesome session to sit in on, because a lot of the issues we have been talking about in class came up. The writer had tons of specific questions, and the tutor would address the issue at hand, usually using a single example in her paper, and then leave it up to the writer to fix the issue wherever else it came up. I felt that this was a good approach to take because it wasn't a "fix it shop" method, but the writers concerns were still being addressed.

The writer mentioned in the beginning that she wanted to talk mostly about content, because she wasn't sure if her argument made sense. The tutor used techniques that we have been discussing, mostly asking the writer to talk through her ideas and explain her argument. The tutor mentioned that she knows the writer knows what she is talking about, but her writing is not accurately reflecting that. The tutor made marks directly on her essay, and the writer was also taking notes of her own.

There was definitely a gracious attitude from the writer, and I could tell that she genuinely wanted help. The tutor was also passionate about helping her and she had a lot of knowledge on how to help her.

This session started at 5 and ended around 6:10. Generally, sessions are limited to an hour, so the question that I thought of while 6 pm neared was this: what do you do as a tutor if the session is going to run long? There is no guarantee that you or the writer will be available to stay longer. So, what is the protocol for the long session? Do you schedule another session? Continue via email? This question is something I will continue to think about.

Monday's Readings

Here are my questions for Monday's readings:

1. "This is a redneck argument!"

-If the tutor had shared his background with the student who wrote the paper, how would their session have been different? Would that make the student more willing to open up and think in broader terms, or would they feel attacked and embarrassed? Would sharing a tutors personal connection with the argument even be ethical?

2. "Reflections on Teacher Comments"

-Is there really a harm in tutors commenting on professor's comments? What is that harm, and is there any potential good that could come out of commenting on professor's comments?

3. "How to Make Sentences Clear and Concise"

-After reading this, I realize that using too many prepositions is a weakness of mine. So, ow many prepositions is too many?

4. HK ch 5

-Why isn't there a standardized system of English grammar or standard guidelines for academic writing? What does the fact that there isn't tell us about the English language and academic writing?

5. Bedford Guide Ch 4

-So far all the readings we have done have told us what to do with students who are having grammatical problems in their papers. But what about students who just can't get it even after having corrected their mistake multiple times? Do you refer them to their professor or is it your job to work with them until they "get it"?