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.