Blog 6-Writing Center Philosophy part two

Looking back on my first writing center philosophy in a previous blog, I still hold the same opinion on what my writing center philosophy is. I still feel it is very important to work together in accomplishing the task at hand. "Burkean Parlor Center" style, I guess. I believe that learning is achieved through an exchange of information between two parties, not simply passed from one to the other, or one "bringing it out" of an individual.

In our first mock tutoring session, I had the opportunity to tutor a peer for the first time. it was interesting, exciting, and a bit nerve-wracking to see what kind of tutor I would be. Observing my own style, I still stand by the tutor and student working off of each other's feedback. I feel it is most useful to the student if they direct how far and how much they want to accomplish in the session, and it is also helpful for tutors like me who sometimes have trouble keeping the session from becoming teacher centered. As a tutor it is very valuable for me to hear a student's feedback and point of view. I hope to use their feedback as the drving point in my sessions, because the way I look at it, I can't help the student get to where they want to be if they dont help me understand where they want to be. They have to be able to communicate with me where they want the paper to go, and I will help them get it there, and hopefully, help them become a better writer in the process, or at least give them some encouragement and some type of an example to help them next time.

So, I stand by my previous philosophy...tutor and student working together.

Blog 4- Mock Tutoring Session

Last Monday we conducted a mock tutoring session in which one classmate was the tutor and one was the student. I had the role of the tutor. Using conversation, the student and I discussed the assignment, and we broke down what it was that the assignment asked her to write. The student already had an idea of what she wanted to write about as a main topic, so we focused on building supporting ideas. This was a bit challenging, so we went back through the text and the student began to list inportant points that she felt would be relevant to the piece she was writing. This became quite challenging for me, because as we drew on more ideas, I lost track of thoughts and needed to stop the session and ask the student "wait a minute, what was the main topic again and how do these points relate?". (not a very good tutoring moment for me, I admit!)

As we continued with the session, we did a sort of mapping and organized how her essay would look, what each paragraph would be about, and when we reached the conclusion, like the Reigstad reading suggested, I encouraged the reader to somehow bring it all together. Bring all the points together that she discussed into the last paragraph.

Then she made a web of the points she wanted to discuss in her paper and I made suggestions on where I thought she should give more detail, where the reader might want to know more.

Overall, I was very lucky my student Erin responded well to feedback and was very interactive and gave me feedback as well. The student was motivated in accomplishing something in the session. Collaboration was more challenging than I thought and it was hard for me to not be so "teacher-like" and keep the session student centered or use a collaboration between student and tutor.

Blog 3-Writing Center Philosophy

Based on class discussion, how I view knowledge is a combination of both what we know already, and what we are trying to learn/ being taught, because the information we are being taught, eventually becomes knowledge we know already...so it forms a cycle of some sort, but the two are definitely connected.

To me, it is important that the student and tutor, work together during each session. "Collaboration" so to speak. It is important that there is an understanding that the success of each tutoring session relies on the student and tutor building off of each other's energy and feedback. With both parties intearcting together, and staying engaged in accomplishing the task, the efficiency of each session increases.

The role of learner and tutor comes into play here, it gets tricky when the tutor doesn't necessarily hold all of the control in the session, because it is what we are so accustomed to from all the years we spend in the classroom setting. Teacher (in this case, tutor) centered tutoring

In order to make this the most effective, both parties must come to the session prepared to give feedback. The student must be engaged in improving a particular writing piece, and not leave all work to the tutor.They have to want to be there, otherwise efficiency goes down. The tutor must refrain from taking full control of the session. This means listening to what the student wants to do with their paper and not necessarily just pushing their ideas on the student, because of the
"authority" they hold.

Tutors will be trained to be sociable, welcoming and approaching. Not every student will willingly give feedback. Especially if they were forced to come to the session. Tutors will take time to make student feel comfortable and open to share their ideas. They must be patient, because not all students are the same, and will not all use the same strategies. Finally, it is important that tutors understand that we can only do so much to help the student...but we must do all we CAN. This is important to understand because not all sessions will leave the student bursting with new knowledge and renewed excitement to write, but that doesn't necessarily mean the tutor failed. If they feel they gave it the best of their abilility and learned knowledge useful to tutoring experience, then it was still a successful session.

Blog 2- Lunsford Summary

Here, I am describing the process I used to write my summary for Andrea Lunsford's "Collaboration, Control, and the Idea of a Writing Center".

-First I read the reading selection, highlighting parts I felt were relevant to mention in the summary. I also took notes while reading the selection, so that I could remember why I wanted to include the highlighted parts, without having to re read over and over again.
- After reading, I began typing up the summary using the highlighted sections to guide me in the order I wished to go in.
-I took the highlighted sections and organized those ideas with my notes, chronologically, to form my summary.
-Then I looked over my paper to cite the information I had taken from the article.

This reading was more difficult than the readings we have previously read in class, so I did my best trying to understand what Lunsford was trying to convey in the article. =)

Blog 1

After the class discussion, it was interesting to see how many points were similar in the reading to what the class remembered from their past. I really liked the part where it pointed out what tutoring is not, because for someone like me who has never formally tutored before it is helpful to see what I should be careful not to confuse it with. When reading the second reading assignment, there was a part where it said "The best way to describe tutoring is to do tutoring", relating it to the class discussion, we were able to describe tutoring on what we found to be effective tutoring in the past.

In the second reading, it was interesting to see the cognitive side of how a writer writes. As pointed out in the reading, when I never really thought about it, I too thought that the writing process was individualistic, but after relating what was in the reading to what I do when I have to wirte a paper for class, it showed that the three main stages are essesntially what everyone uses as a writing process. Prewriting, writing, and re writing...

It was refreshing to see that the book admits that "writing is ot a steady straight ahead activity", and realizes that because of all that is going on inside the writer's head while writing, it becomes more complex than it seems. Because writing really isn't as easy as it seems!

STUDENT- CENTERED

Reading the tutoring options, I began to think how I would want my tutoring sessions to be. After reading the three options, I decided that because it is peer to peer tutoring, "student-centered tutoring" could be a good way to go, because not only can you help identify what the writer finds a problem or what is most challenging aboout the particular piece, but it helps you discover what are the main issues with the writer, although as the book points out, it will most likely never repeat itself entirely the same.

COLLABORATIVE

In my opinion, this would be a really effective way to tutor, because it fuses both the writer and tutor's ideas and you build off each other's feedbacxk and energy. However, it's imperative that the writer becomes involved in improving the piece and not just focused on listening to what you have to say as the "expert", and to achieve this, the book emphasizes creating an effective tutoring environment.

On page 28,in "the fuziness of tutoring writing", it describes how the fuziness of tutoring writing is actually a good thing. It is described as "human", and it's a good reminder that the sessions, should not be overly serious, that it should be a helpful learning experience that is enjoyable for both the writer and tutor.

It was really helpful reading what could strengthen or weaken the environment I would want to create in my sessions and what would be the most effective way to make the most of the sessions.