Response to Ember's Idea

Hello all-
I think we are supposed to blog about another person's idea for his/her portfolio, so I decided to go with Ember's. I like how you are taking the common idea of a map and putting a spin on it. Out of your two ideas (the skiier and the mission), I liked the idea of the downhill skiier on his way to summer vaction. That idea contributes to our understanding of writing--there are a series of steps one must take in writing in order to create the ideal piece of writing, which is exemplified in your idea of the skiier having to make stops along the down-hill slope, eventually reaching their ultimate goal of summer vacation.

Another idea could simply be that you map out the course of an academic school year or maybe just a semester. You could have the beginning of school relate to the beginning of a paper, both of which can seem daunting and frustrating. You can have the first test relate to the first draft of a paper, fall break relate to a breakthrough in the paper, and so on. I don't know if that would really work, but it's a thought.

I really do like the idea of you putting yourself in the student's shoes because if your portfolio is ever used as a means for students to learn about writing, then they may be able to connect with your overall message of writing as a journey through their personal experiences.

So, those are my thoughts. Good luck!

Awkward Tutee

So Bryan and I had a very weird tutee come into the center on Wednesday. The kid was a freshman working on his first assignment for his English 103 class, the gist of which was to write a four-to-six-page paper on an issue within a community of which you belong and some possible solutions to the problem. First, the kid was rather unresponsive to our questions; he would just say "I don't know" to pretty much everything. After some time and some prying, though, we were able to get some ideas flowing.

The issues we had with his writing abilities were just things that are typical of most freshman trying to delve into college writing: coming up with ideas, developing those ideas, organizing, etc. What was difficult for me in this situation was the tutee himself, not so much his problems with writing. Overall, he was just very awkward, and his hygiene wasn't exactly up to par. He definitely ate a scab in front of me and Bryan... Anyway, this social problems and some of his comments (like "No one wants me in their community" and "I don't have many friends") made me worry about how well he is adjusting to college life and how happy he is here. Now, I understand why he is having difficulties at college, as I mentioned above, but I don't think it's my place to tell him this. At the same time, I hate to see someone in his situation, even though I do realize that's the way life is. I guess I am just wondering if there is someone on campus that could help this kid and if I should direct him there. The overall question is do we as tutors have a responsibily or even simply the right to go beyond helping tutees with their writing when we know there is a larger problem going on?

Question

Dr. Fishman-
John and I are sitting here in the Writing Lab puzzled yet again by the assignment. Is the "memo" mentioned on the schedule the blog posting you were talking about where we describe what our portfolio is going to be, or is it a physical piece of paper that we are supposed to hand in?

Thanks,
Ali

Strengths and Weaknesses

My strengths as a tutor? I can understand assignments (or at least help make them less obtuse for the students), empathize, spot grammatical mistakes, and just in general help with making the writing sound better.

Having the students read their papers aloud really helps them. They actually do catch some mistakes that way, plus it emphasizes that we're here to work with them, not for them. Lots of times when I was an undergrad I would go to my professors and ask them how to improve my work, how to get better grades in their classes. And it worked. So, I'm not afraid to ask for help; I've always gotten good results from it.

Weaknesses as a tutor? Fully explaining the whys of grammar. I know the rules, but sometimes it's hard to explain them to others. It just requires practice, I suppose. At any rate, I'm expecting a crash course in it this semester.

First Tutee!

Well, today business is booming at the writing center. Two students in as many hours! I was pretty nervous about the first guy that came in, to be honest. Fortunately, Bryan was here and we both helped the student. The rule of not writing on the papers is something I'll have to get used to. I used to teach reading classes at Spartanburg Tech and I'm used to leaving hen tracks all over the papers. But, I was feeling more confident by the time the student left.

Then Ali told me that I'd missed class this morning, and now I'm just embarassed and a bit frightened that I'm in trouble.

Weaknesses in Tutory?

I just realized I published that without catching that typo in the title. How embarrassing.

Some Thoughts on the Process

Somehow I haven't gotten any tutees yet. I have tutored in the past, though, in Spanish, history (don't ask me how), ESL, etc. That was different, though, because there weren't as many rules involving the tutoring; I was simply to help the students. Tutoring Spanish was pretty easy because the students always had a test coming up and we could study specifically for that. Once I got two veterans who were taking Spanish in summer school and were having such a hard time with it that I was called in to work with them every single day. One of the guys went on to get his master's at USC to be a psychologist. He wasn't all that interested in speaking Spanish. He just needed to get the class as a general education requirement. Which is fine with me. Everyone has different reasons for being in a class. The important thing to remember is that it's none of my business.

Probably the most valuable thing that I've learned from being a tutor is to remember that you're tutoring someone who either doesn't understand or doesn't like the subject at hand. You know how you feel when you have to take a class in a subject that you're terrible at and that you hate. Well, for the tutees, guess what? Obviously, we all love writing here in the writing center, but remember that there's a very good chance that the tutees hate it. If we didn't love writing, we wouldn't be here, and if the tutees shared our love of the written word, they wouldn't be in the writing center, either.