The Final Count Down

Bum Bum Ba Bum Bum Ba Bum Bum Da Dum. The end of the semester is coming up fast and it is almost time for finals. There is less than a month left in the school year. It is a time for increased stress levels and last minute drop ins before an assignment is due. A quote by Claus Moser shows just how important a tutor is, "Education costs money, but then so does ignorance." Tutoring can be a tough task, but helping someone to learn is always a great reward. Looking back on this short passage of time, I have learn quite a bit.
1. Sometimes people don't need help they just need someone to listen to their thought process.
2. There will always be one person that just wants you to write their paper for them.
3. Slow and steady helps students to understand the writing better.
4. Its ok to be wrong sometimes, as long as you know how to be right after.
5. The meaning of the "O" face.
6. The positive impact of the writing center on fellow Yuba College students. 

There are some more useful tips I have learned and it has been a wonderful experience working at the writing center to say the least.

Happy Halloween! Just for fun!

I thought it might be fun to do a compilation story with a spooky theme.  We'll see how far it goes since I do not know how many will even be on Blogger today.


The full moon was bright, the sky was clear, and the air was crisp and cold.  All was still except for a mist rising from the ground.  Eerie quiet surrounded the old, little town on this night.


So, someone else can pick up from here.

I forgot?

I am seeing more and more students coming in and forgetting to bring the prompt, the paper they are working on, or even the article they are writing about. I have one student that has never come prepared and I have explained to her several times that I am not sure about the direction of your essay because I have never seen the prompt. Then when she receives a bad grade for not addressing the questions in the prompt it somehow becomes my fault. So any suggestions on how to convey the importance of coming prepared without sounding like a nagging mother?

Relevant?

It is said that students learn better when the learning is "relevant" to their lives. The document I'm reading says that the teacher needs to make the learning relevant.

My question: Can a teacher even do this? Or does each student have to do this? How is this done?

Non-verbals speak

Let's try to maintain awareness of the messages we send without speaking--possibly without intending to.

For example, what is the difference between sitting across the table from the student and sitting beside or just around the corner from him/her? (If you are sitting on opposite sides, how do you even share the draft, anyway?)

What is the difference between having the paper in front of you, having it in front of the student, and having it somewhere between the two of you?

And how about that pencil--who is holding the pencil, who is making the marks on the draft, and what is the message there?

Tables needn't come between us and our students. We are engaged in a collaborative venture, not a mini-class. We offer choices, but we don't dictate what to do. There are so many variables, so many solutions, so many approaches--why would I think mine is best? We offer choices and then insist that the student take responsibility for making one.

Don't take the paper away from the student, and avoid just silently reading. Read it together. Better yet, spend five minutes asking questions about it and getting the student to tell you about it before you read at all. Make the student take you on a tour of his paper. Make him point to his thesis statement. Make him point to his topic sentences. Ask him why he put his points in this order or whether he considered rearranging them. Ask whether he presented any counterarguments--and make him point to them.

And pencils! If you, like me, need to fiddle with one, either use it as a pointer or write on a piece of scratch paper. Don't line out (the student's) words on the draft and write in (your) other words! Again, the ownership of and responsibility for the paper is the student's. Offer choices, let him choose, and let him write on his own paper.

Drive

With more and more students coming in with English writing assignments it is always useful to know a bit about what they are writing about, or at least be able to touch base on the main topics. These task is sometimes are to complete because we don't always have the time to read each assignments reading when we have our own reading assignments for our own classes.

HELPFUL HINT: In the book "Drive" there is a summary of each chapter in the back of the book, as well as, a glossary defining the key terms used through out the book.

Recently, in the WLDC...

A student walks into a writing center. She is a drop-in student. She asks you to "look at" her essay. You "look at" it. You make some suggestions. She says thank you and goes away. What is missing?

What is missing here is the assignment. What is it? Because if the assignment was to explain why honest news reporting is fundamental to the continuance of a democracy, and she wrote a fine essay about gender roles in television commercials, then she is not responding to the assignment. And right at the top of any requirement for a writing assignment is that it must respond to the assignment.

May I gently remind us all: ask about the assignment. Ask to read the handout (and hope there is one). And if the student doesn't have a handout, doesn't know the assignment, or can't clearly explain it, remember to explain to her that, while she may have written a very fine essay that maybe just needs a little work on the conclusion, that you can't really speak to whether or not she has satisfied that most essential element.

Ask other questions, too, before you "look at" a paper. Ask about the topic, about the writing process, and about the paper (even though you plan to read it in about five minutes!). If you make the student talk about her writing before you read, you will probably learn some things, like what she's most worried about, or what she's confident about, or what she doesn't know, or what she hopes to gain from working with you. When a student asks me to "look at" a paper, for instance, I often ask, "To what purpose? What work do you hope to get done?" I usually learn something useful to the session.

Always on the sunny side

“The first step towards the solution of any problem is optimism.”
- John Baines

I'm sure we have all had moments were it is hard, or close to impossible, to find the sliver lining. This task is even harder when the product of our creation is being graded. I try not to start a tutoring session by pointing out all the things that are wrong in a paper or even what can be done better. I like to start by asking the student what they feel they need to work on, want help on, and what they thing they have completed already. From that I can make a judgement on what to reinforce about the paper. Usually what  they want help with (if already completed) is fine the student just lacks the confidence in their self that the work is good. Now sometimes there is work that needs to be done to a paper and I like to start with some positive feed back first before introducing the negative work.

Another method I like doing is just having the student talk to me. This is useful when they say that they have no clue what to write about. I walk them through it step buy step. As what would you like your essay to cover (thesis). What kind of things help support or prove that point (claims, reasons). And what are some examples for those points. 

I also think that our encouragement before they leave the writing centers does a great deal to relieve the stress that goes hand and hand with a writing assignment. Just looking at the students I have worked with, how they seem when I first meet with them to when they leave is a great deal of difference.

How to write a book about "How to Watch TV News"...

I have been working with several students that are reading "How to Watch TV News". I noticed immediately that this book seems to be a difficult read for most. I decided to start reading it myself to see what everyone was talking about. I have only read the first couple of chapters, but have noticed that it does seem to be a bit awkward. Most students have said that they are having a hard time deciding what information is important. They are having issues deciding what information should be utilized in their writing. I noticed that someone said it comes off more like a "rough draft", instead of a final copy. I agree. It also comes off as fairly bias. It seems like an awkward choice for English 51 text.

The book that I would really like to start reading is "Drive". It seems to have a lot of interesting ideas. Catherine and Rosemary are both reading it right now. Rosemary was reading it last week and talked about it briefly. It seems like an interesting book! I need to find more time to read some of the books available here at the writing center. If I continue to have free time in the early morning, I plan to catch up on "How to Watch TV News" and hopefully start reading "Drive".

The 2 o'clock Hunger

It's that time of day there are not many students in the writing center and all the tasks of a tutor have been completed. So what I ask is there left to do? Well I answer with read. Now I may be the only one that finds this much down time while at the WLDC in the afternoon, but I have made a nice dent in the books "Drive" and " How to Watch T.V. News". One is a much smoother read than the other, just F.Y.I.

ESL Tutoring

Under Rosemary's persuasion, I am blogging for the first time in my life and doing it about my experience with ESL tutoring.  I honestly don't believe I've accomplished as much as I expect I should have.  However, my anxiety about tutoring ESL students has faded. 

I have found, in my life experience, that even in a business relationship an element of personal connection makes for a better work environment. So, I approach the encounters as I would with any person I form a relationship with.  I connect with them in a personal way. What I feel is beneficial about this approach is that I'm learning about their background.  I learn about the languages they have spoken and  have been exposed to.  I learn about the culture they come from.  I learn about what is important to them.  I feel this is significant because it is allowing the client to trust me.  They don't just see me as another college staff person but as someone who is really interested in their life and their success in it.  Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying all college staff are impersonal, many are just busy and overwhelmed.  As a tutor, we have the opportunity to fill in the gap.  This applies to any student receiving tutoring services.  Yet, more so, it applies to the ESL student. 

The anxiety for the ESL client as a learner outweighs the anxiety I have as a tutor.  By acknowledging how they must feel, I realize that worrying about being "perfect" is just pointless.  We are both going through a learning process.  This viewpoint has helped ease up my nerves, which has brought about a more relaxed experience for both the client and me.  The fact that they do not see me being anxious helps them to feel more confident in themselves and me.  I think that combining the previous approach with this one is working.

Grant it, I do have concerns about my performance.  Really though, that's just about refreshing my knowledge regarding the fundamentals about the English language, which I haven't had to think about in years.  I am using resources at the WLDC to assist in that.  One of those is the green book that Rosemary suggested. Studying the materials between clients is advantageous.

The approaches I have taken are what seem to be successful at this point.  It's not technical.  My tendecncy is to overcomplicate.  I don't know if anyone else does this.  But whether you are like me or not in that way,  I think it's best to start where I did and move on from there.

George Orwell

"Political chaos is connected with the decay of language... one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end."

Uber-tutor challenge

Work with a student on a piece of his/her writing without reading every sentence in a straight line from start to finish. You may ask the student as many questions as you want.

1. Read the first paragraph to try to find a thesis.
2. STOP reading.
3. Only skim subsequent paragraphs, in particular looking for topic sentences.
4. Read the last paragraph, in case the thesis got put there.

How did that go?
Are there any disadvantages to doing this? What are they?
Are there any advantages? What are they?
What questions did you ask the student that helped this work (or might help this work next time)?
Will there be a next time?

And last, why in the world would I ask you to try this?

Welcome to fall semester 2012

You've barely had time to get to know your workplace and a couple of your fellow tutors, and already we're asking you to start blogging!

This blog enables you to read about what other tutors are doing--what worked and what didn't (that time, anyway). You can share frustrations, epiphanies, or successes. Respond to each other with encouragement, empathy, questions, suggestions, or random song lyrics. Not really. No lyrics. Unless they are pertinent.

Really, this blog is what you make of it.

What about grammar?

While it is true that we don't proofread papers, addressing grammatical problems IS part of what we do, especially errors that are pervasive in a paper. We don't want to simply ignore those issues or assure students that their papers are wonderful if their sentences truly are tangled up with errors. This can give students the wrong impression that they are doing just fine when they may have many sentence level errors that impede understanding.

Since it isn't your job to know all the ins and outs of grammar (they just don't teach you a lot of those rules in k-12), but since you also want to be honest with your students, what do you do?

Here's what I suggest:

1. Browse the green ESL book to see how they explain some of those rules you never learned in school. You'll pick up few useful ones, I guarantee.

2. Don't gloss over messed up grammar. Say something like, "Gee whiz, what a great topic, and what great organizational strategies you used. However, are you aware that you make a lot of mistakes with verbs? Do you feel pretty confident that you will be able find your verb mistakes once you get around to proofreading?" Or how about, "Golly, you did such a good job with this synthesis. I can tell you worked really hard. However, do you remember learning about sentence fragments in your ESL/high school English class? What do you remember about them? Do you see that this one is a sentence fragment?" Or, if you know it sounds weird but you can't put your finger on why, how about, "I really like your topic and how your developed it. Some of your sentences seems a little awkward to me, like this one. I'm not sure you can say it like that....can you think of another way to say it? Do you remember the rules you've learned about using phrases like this? Is there a name for this?" This might get the student looking more closely and connecting their ESL grammar class with their writing--THEY are in the driver's seat, using what THEY already know to self-correct--and inform you along the way, which makes them feel good, too.

3. Try to brainstorm a way the student can learn to identify the problem area. Try to find some kind of signpost in the student's writing that seems to mark the type of error you're working on. Get creative. Ask someone else for ideas.

4. Work on only one or two grammar matters in a session.

Because while it's not our job to make a paper perfect, we do want to give realistic feedback.

Writing prompt

"Tutors who never blog are ungenerous, secretive sorts who keep their good ideas to themselves and do not fail to deprive others of the encouragement they might be hopeful of being the beneficiaries of in a community of practice such as that of the WLDC."

Respond. Do you find this claim a little cheeky, or do you find it downright insolent? Do you find the double negatives off-putting? How about the awkward constructions ending with "of"? Can you revise them for clarity? Explain your answers, using your own experience and evidence and examples from the text.

Something about reading

I am guessing you run into students who misunderstand their reading or claim to have poor comprehension no matter what they do....

...so what do you do with that?

Do you feel that you have enough tools to help them with their reading comprehension? Or do you think we need to add more to our tutor training? Or is this not a problem in your experience?

One thing I try to encourage (not just by talking, but by demonstrating it) is to WRITE SOMETHING in the margins rather than highlight or underline. Highlighting/underlining can be just as passive as the passive "reading" that is the problem in the first place. You don't have to think very much or understand very deeply to underline. (Just ask a student WHY he underlined THIS sentence, right here, and see if he doesn't say something vague like, "I thought it might turn out to be important.") Point is, underlining seems as likely to identify something puzzling or just some minor thing the student "gets" as it is to identify something important in the piece. Writing something, on the other hand, is active and requires that you actively process the information at least enough to figure out what you want to write.

What do you do?

English Pet Peeves

Every now and then when helping a tutee out with their work, I'll come across something that makes me cringe mentally. When I see something like "I believe" or "I feel" in their writing I have to stop myself from asking "Really?".
I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only one who gets a tad annoyed by these kind of things every now and then, so I'm asking you to share what it is that bugs you when you are working with your tutee.

We need a law

Can we just ban the proposed solutions to some problem or other that start with, "The government should do something about [fill in current topic here]"?

The freaking government? Really?

I recently read a paper on bad manners that called for the government to do something about it. I am NOT making this up.

Someone should pass a law prohibiting this line of thinking.

Google Earth/MapQuest tutoring

Do you ever find that your work with student writers devolves into line-by-line error-finding? Of course, we can always try to offset this with finding something positive to say ("What an interesting topic! However did you choose it?").

Do you have another way of working with student writers and student papers that works any better?

Here's one: sometimes I don't even READ the paper. This actually works great--I just skim far enough to find something that appears to be a thesis, and then predict aloud how the writer might have developed it. (I always ASK if this is, in fact, the point they intended to develop. Sometimes I'm wrong.) This is a conversational opener and is followed by a lot more of me asking questions like "Do you feel that you developed that point sufficiently, or do you think you could stand to brainstorm effects a little more?" I call it my Google Earth (or MapQuest) tutoring strategy: zoom out for a bird's eye view before trying to navigate the by-ways.

That fact the I don't immediately start reading the paper line-by-line seems to be kind of disconcerting to some students at first, but usually they do a quick recovery and buy in to my madness.

Your literary input

If toilet seats can become folk art, then camp songs can be literature. What literary devices do you find in this popular camp song? Who is the protagonist, and what are his main characteristics? Who is the antagonist? What point is the author trying to make?

Late last night, when we were all in bed
Old Mother Leary left a lantern in the shed
And when the cow kicked it over, she winked her eye and said,
"There'll be a hot time in the old town tonight!"

(Bridge: Fire! Fire! Fire!)

Tutor the Tutor

As we all know, tutors (and teachers) do not have all the answers. This is my second semester as an English tutor, and my first semester tutoring English As A Second Language (ESL) students. Although English has always been my strongest subjects, I find myself unable to answer a lot of questions I have been asked lately. The problem is... I just don't remember the rules. I can tell a student that something is written a certain way, but I have no answer when they ask me why it is written that way. It has been so many years since I have learned all of the official terms and rules for English, so I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions on how I could re-learn these things so I can provide my students with the answers they seek. Maybe there is a place online that I can print out worksheets or something? Help me help them!

Everything Bad Is Good For You

Wow.

Has anyone read this book? This is one Kyra is considering for use in her class.

The author, Steven Johnson, posits that the "new" technology--video games, TV, internet--is itself getting smarter and is, in turn, making us smarter: The Sleeper Curve (after the Woody Allen movie). I am already convinced we are re-wiring our brains and evolving them into...something or other....but I'm not sure if that's good, bad, or indifferent.

But wow. What an interesting argument Johnson makes. Read this book!

I can't wait to read its opposite in The Dumbest Generation, the other one Kyra is looking at. Also, I am as of now looking for more of Johnson's books, and, happily, there are plenty.

Feed Me, Feed Me!!!

Sometimes when I'm working with a student and they are needing help in organizing their thoughts and getting them written down I notice that they are wanting me to feed them word for word what to write.  In order to avoid "writing" for them, I just tell them that I'm going to let them get that aspect of their paper written and I will be back to check on them.  This makes them do their own writing in their own words and I'm able to avoid the whole "feed me, feed me" problem that arises from the students lack of confidence in their own writing.

What do you do to avoid the "feed me" problem?