ESL & Regular Students

In Monday's class, Whitney and Sarah were the discussion leaders for the Harris and Myers pieces. It was interesting because at first, I had the ideas that yes, there are different ways of tutoring ESL students and native English speaking students. As the discussion progressed, however, I began to see that there are more similarities between the two. You should still talk to the student beforehand, gain an understanding of what they expect from the tutoring session, and then move on from there. I think it was Scott that also brought up the point of trying to figure out which way the student learns best, whether that is a direct approach, or a non-direct approach (not quite an INdirect approach :)).

Once again this seemed to be a clear cut case at the beginning, but once you read the two articles, you see all the gray areas that are formed. Just because something seems the obvious answer (of course you shouldn't censor student's writing), the more you discuss the idea and hear OTHER viewpoints on the subject, the less clear it seems to become! I think Sarah was the one that said the two articles that we read each day seem to play devil's advocate with each other, and it certainly makes for interesting discussions.

Censoring Writing

For my discussion leader, I did Sherwood's article on censoring students in the writing center. I was really excited to have this article as mine to lead the discussion, because there were so many different issues that were brought up in the reading, as well as many gray areas in the answers. The main point of the article was whether tutors should censor a student's writing if it is offensive or if that would be stifling creativity and denying their first amendment rights. The problems come when the tutor has to realize if the student is writing to express their opinion or point, or if they are writing for the grade, because those two things are not always the same goal. The ideas sparked a lot of discussion, and it just showed the problems when there are extinuating circumstances. I think Whitney was the one that brought up some different issues with offensive language, and Sara made a good point about ESL students who don't necessarily know something might be offensive. Overall it was a really lively discussion. I'm still unsure where I am on the issue, but I think as a tutor, my goal would be to help with what the student is looking for, if they want to express their opinion, regardless of reaction, then that's what I'll help them with.

Fannie and Morgan

In Monday's class, we had two group discussions on articles in The St. Martin's Sourcebook for Writing Tutors. Both articles actually seemed to tie into together, but the one that stood out the most in my mind was the different opionions and issues surrounding Fannie's story. I think that the complete lack of interest on the part of Morgan when she was tutoring Fannie (and others) should be seen as a failure in the eyes of a tutor. The simplest issues that Fannie was having (pausing frequently) could have either been avoided or seriously improved if Morgan had taken the time to figure out WHAT was causing those, instead of just assuming she knew. This relates back to the first article, about the relevance of a tutoring session, and relating it to a therapy session. Whereas I don't think Morgan needed to learn Fannie's life story, I do think she should've take the time to reach out a bit to her, to find out some of her background, before they moved on to the future.

Grammar Snobs... the End.

Well I finished reading Grammar Snobs... I have to say that it was probably one of the first (if only) required reading in any of my English classes that I enjoyed. Overall I think it does a good job of really just boosting your own self confidence as a writer, using your own judgement. There were some good points in the reading about putting words together. I ALWAYS catch myself writing 'alot', yet because of spell check and automatic correction, I never notice it though, since it just fixes it for me. When I read that passage, it made me think back to all my typing. Yep, spell that wrong.

The Satan part had me cracking up. I didn't even realize how lengthy it was until after I went back and looked at it, I was so engrossed in the reading! I definatly had no idea "waked" was a word. Completely threw me off! There were some other words that I had never given much thought to that suprised me (inflammable?) so it was nice to have those pointed out.

Overall there is A LOT (2 words!) of information in the book, and its a pretty entertaining read. Its a good book to pick things up in the reading, and to be able to go back to look something up... if you know where to look!

Whaling

If I were to critique the piece on Whaling from a perspective of Expressivism, this piece would have a lot to make up for! There is really no voice to the piece, and you're unsure of the writer's association with the subject. There is no personal story involved, just facts and figures. In the Expressivism theory of composition, I would have had this student make a few drafts of this piece, perhaps changing the narrative distance in each draft to gain a different perspective on it. Group peer evaluations would also be used before the final draft was turned in, so hopefully all the errors and injecting personal feelings and opinions would be changed. Also, I would probably have to students choose a broad topic for the semester, and then for each paper write a different emotion or way of looking at the same subject according to the writer.

English 435, Post 1.

Myself as a Writer

Well, I always thought I was a pretty strong writer. Like most of high school, English classes seemed especially easy to me. I couldn't figure out why other people would have all kinds of problems in their writing, like incorrect uses of commas or citations, and yet they jumped off the page to me. By my junior year of high school, friends were constantly asking me to proofread one homework assignment or another. When I decided to pursue law school, my mom recommended that I take English as my major. Not only was it easy for me in high school, but it would be a great assest for law school.

Three years later I realize the error in my ways in assuming English would be just as easy in college. While I still had my basic knowledge of English and grammar, so did everyone else in my classes, and I began to notice subtle differences in how I write my papers compared to others. I'm not especially creative when it comes to things like a catchy title, and I tend to use the same descriptive words over and over to describe a situation, but I feel that I can keep the flow of my story pretty linear. In every English class I take, from writing in the workplace to creative non-fiction, I pick up new things I hadn't thought of before. My writing might have been good for high school standards, but I still have a lot to learn in the college world.