Avoid this?

He that uses many words for the explaining any subject doth, like the cuttlefish, hide himself for the most part in his own ink. ~John Ray

Idiotic topics

"All of the prompts in English classes are always about some important issue of the day, such as freedom of speech, media violence, body image, or the war in Iraq/Afghanistan. I see why this is, but I propose that a truer test of a students ability to read and understand a piece and create logical and well-reasoned arguments might be to hand them essays on completely idiotic topics, like who would win a deathmatch between Jesse James and Al Capone, and see if they can isolate the author’s arguments, agree or disagree based solely on evidence (since this is so stupid that it’s unlikely they have a prior opinion on it), and construct their own argument to support their position. This would also make the essays more fun to read for the teacher!"

(The preceding post has been brought to you by Rosemary, who, unashamedly stole it from Trisdan...)

Best of...Worst of...

Your mission: tell us about your most satisfying tutoring session to date. What made it so good? Do you feel that whatever you did could be replicated in other tutoring sessions?

While you're at it, also tell us about your most dis-satisfying or useless session ever. What made it so not-good? Was the not-good element anything you can control or mitigate? How can we avoid a session like this?

I must say the stimulating conversations, friendly environment and welcoming atmosphere among the students, teachers and tutors here at the WLDC has to be one of my favorite things about Yuba College. Thanks to all of you who make this center possible.

What do you enjoy most about WLDC? Why?

Hi...just testing =)

Q: How many tutors at the W.L.D.C. does it take to screw in a light bulb?


A: I'm sorry we don't do that here.

Name our blog

OK, so what do you think? Keep the current name of our blog (it comes from the title of an article in our Fall 2011 newsletter) or change it? Here are the suggestions so far:

Write Place, Write Time
At the Tip of my Tongue
Down the Rabbit Hole
Into the Multi-verse
On a Dime
Behind the Couch
Under the Couch Cushions

As you can see, we seem to have a kind of prepositional phrase thing going here, except for Heather's (first one). What are your suggestions?

Avoiding the line-by-line tutoring trap...

Here are some of the ideas generated by tutors during our Wednesday meeting:

• Do not hold the pencil
• Look for the most common grammatical error--focus on it instead of any or all errors you notice.
• Try to focus on the most important errors. The ones that happen the most. The ones that most interfere with meaning.
• Make sure you let the student know, "we don't do that here."
• Read aloud
• Ask the student about their paper before you read it.
• Ask the student to summarize the ideas of the paper for you.
• Find something good to say. Praise with Dweck in mind--focus on effort and time.