A Possible Topic of Interest

I was interested in what everyone teaches in their tutorials as far as structure is concerned. I was never taught the five-paragraph essay, the three-paragraph essay, or any other prefabricated structure—I had never heard of them before until my freshman year of college. Naturally, never being taught it myself, or finding any use for it, I never have taught any student the five-paragraph essay, made reference to it, or used it as an example. Do any of you teach your students this (or any variation), and if so, what do you find useful about it?

When I first heard of the five-paragraph essay I took it as a joke. I literally thought the teacher telling me this was trying her damnedest to wittily trick me into believing the five-paragraph essay was a standard of compositional pedagogy, hoping to then reveal to my ignorant, credulous mind that the exact opposite, in fact, was true—she had in mind, I believed, an exercise in dissolving my perspectives of good and bad, acceptable and unacceptable writing, thus leading to my understanding of the infinitely varied, complex arena of writing. I was wrong. Instead she was quite serious, and I could not understand why anyone would teach it or find it useful in their own writing.

It is my contention, and it is hardly an original one, that the five-paragraph essay is not useful in the real world of writing. If there is an example of an essayist, successfully published, who writes in such a format, I’d love to read her. I am not closed to the idea of there being a place or an usefulness for such a prescribed format, I’ve just never experienced it.

An example that comes to mind of the usefulness of the five-paragraph essay—to form a falsefiability principle—interestingly emanates from the forms complete lack of pragmatic application. The example that could be used to prove the usefulness of the five-paragraph essay would be to demonstrate how the form, it its lack of real world application, builds the foundation for skills that any good writer needs.

To draw a parallel: anyone who has learned to play basketball has been taught several drills that do not directly apply to a real game. Such a drill is the practice of looping the ball (not dribbling) around your head, shoulders, waist and legs while running. This not only does not apply to a real game, but is also a non-dribbling exorcise, clearly breaking the fundamental rules of the game—traveling. There are several such drills. These drills are intended to build the players foundation that the practical experience and knowledge of basketball will rest upon. Such drills are present, as far as I can tell, in every skill that is taught (i.e. playing a musical instrument; learning to snowboard, ski, surf, skydive; fixing cars, computers; learning a new language).

There are several skills that are standards of composition pedagogy that do not apply directly to real world writing but which are able to demonstrate their usefulness in indirect foundation building. For example: a student is given sentences from great works of fiction and non-fiction that are stripped of their punctuation. The student is then supposed to punctuate the sentence in a way/s that seems best to them. They are then to compare their structure with that of the authors. This allows the student to practice basic rules of punctuation, but most importantly, it also allows the student to realize there is no one way to punctuate a sentence, and that each punctuation mark has several applications, the rules of which are confusingly protean. But there is no direct real world application for such an exercise. No one in any job that I know of is going to ask me to perform the above exorcise for a job related project.

However, just because there are exorcises which exist that contribute indirectly to writing as it is applied in real life, does not mean that all non-practical methods somehow build that needed foundation. The burden of proof is on the five-paragraph essay. Is it simply not useful in any way, or is it indirectly useful? I cannot come up with any plausible proof, such as the one given above, that could apply to the five-paragraph essay, convincing me of its non-relevance in the arena of writing; although, I am not closed to an opposing idea, and anyone who has insight into the usefulness of the five-paragraph essay is welcome to make me look foolish.

Editing again...

Well, as you all know by now, I have been thinking a lot about having an editor in the writing center. I believe that the whole concept would draw more people to the writing center and would also free tutors from spending an entire session pointing out typos.

I know that there are some questions that arise with having an editor in the writing center. Here are some that have been asked me.

What happens if a student thinks he needs and editor but really needs a tutor? Well I think that there should definitely be communication between the editors and the tutors. If an editor receives a paper that needs more work that a simple run through then the student would be referred to a tutor. If the editor has time in that moment to help the student then that editor should do so. If a tutor comes across a paper that seems to have been written by someone with a good grasp on English then that student can be referred to the editor.

What happens if there are not enough papers for the editor to edit?
All tutors who are designated as editors will have been trained in both. I believe that having experience in both the editing and the tutoring sides would be beneficial to both the tutors and the writing center. To answer the question, the editor would simply be used as a tutor until an editor is needed.

Who would be designated as an editor?
The answer to this question would be left up to the head of the writing center. Some ideas may include: the most senior tutors would be assigned to be the editors in each shift, there could be a set group of editors who are then scheduled into the hours of the writing center, it could be possible to only have an editor available for two hours a day at first (more time could be added if there is a demand).

What would happen if students began bringing non-university work?
This would once again be passed by the head of the writing center. Some possible solutions include: having students with non-university work pay an extra charge, assume that students pay for the service with student fees and thus edit any work they bring for free, set a page number restriction.

As we all know, certainly there would be more questions and problems with this idea, but those questions and problems can be resolved. I think that this option would make the writing center more popular and would also give the editors experience as editors. This service would also prevent tutors from passing their time explaining why students should be more careful when typing so that they don’t press the wrong key. Just and idea, that’s all.

Pros and Cons

My first impression of the writing center being a drop in center was very positive. I really couldn’t think of anything wrong. But, as of late I have discovered that there are some flaws in drop in writing centers.

The Pro’s of a Drop In Writing Center – I think the best thing about having a drop in service is exactly that, that it is a drop in. Many times I more inclined to go to a tutoring service if I don’t have to set up an appointment. I like the idea that I can just show up and someone will help me. I’m not sure what the statistics are, but I feel that most people like the fact of not having to schedule an appointment. Is there anyone who would argue this???

Another thing that I enjoy about drop in tutoring is that students don’t have the same tutor looking over their papers. I think that it is important for students to have a wide variety of people looking over their paper. After a student has been in the writing center with different tutors and they have found that they like a certain tutor’s style than they can try to come when that tutor works.

The Con’s of a Drop In Writing Center – Along with some of my other co-workers, I feel that one reason drop in centers are bad isn’t because of the students, but because of the tutors. I believe the questions “Who’s working?” and “I need to go to class. Can you tutor?” can be avoided if each tutor has scheduled tutoring appointments. This way there would not be any confusion or frustration. Also, since each student would schedule a time to be tutored they wouldn’t have to feel like they are wasting time by waiting for the next available tutor. They would be able to come at the exact time that they would be getting tutored.

Obviously, I think both drop in and scheduled tutoring have their pros and cons. I think Weber’s writing center is excellent, but then I again I have a biased opinion. I think we do a great job! Warm fuzzies to everyone!

Two Things:

1) I thought that Claire's desire to have you all meet with her to discuss potential changes to the Writing Center is an interesting approach. I was wondering if you all could use this space to hash out some ideas on all of this? Consider this your prompt for this week (late) and next week.

2) Several people stopped me after class on Friday to beg and plead for an extension on the Bibliographic Essay. I'm in a benevolent mood this week, I suppose. The Bibliographic Essay is now due on the Friday before finals week.

Global or Die...Or Just Go Somewhere Else

I enjoyed reading Cynthia's blog about how making suggestions on a paper someone drops off is basically the same as doing an online tutoring session. I think she is right; though the success of a tutoring session often depends on the interaction that only can exist in a one-on one session, students can still receive help and meaningful suggestions on their writing if they are not present. If this was not true, we would have no need for the OWL.

When I first started working as a tutor and I heard that we are not a place for students to drop off their papers for a quick edit job, I agreed. I still do. From the way Cynthia described how she proceeded with her student's paper, it sounds that she handled the situation exactly how she should have. She helped his writing and focused on more of the global issues. If a student doesn't want help with these problems and only wants to know if his periods and commas are in the correct places, I think we should not help the student at all. Quick fixes and edit jobs aren't why we're here.

The other day I had an ESL student come in the lab. On her first assignment(she had a stack of at least five) of ten pages, we spent about 45 minutes focusing on mostly local issues. It was very frustrating to me, but I figured it was slow and she did need a lot of help, I should help her. After the first assignment she asked what time the writing center closed. I told her at nine. She said,"oh good, we have time to go through the rest of my assignments." I thought, "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I wish I was dead!!!!!!" But I just said, "okay, let's see the next assignment." This and the rest of her assignments were not even writing assignments. She had a list of questions with her short answers on them. I helped her with the first one of these and two pages into the second I decided enough was enough. I did not want to offend her, but I knew that if I did not say something to her, she would become too dependent on the writing center to fix all her little grammatical problems in all her assignments.
So I just said, "Listen, did you know there is an ESL tutor that you should go see for these kind of assignments?" She said she didn't. Then I proceeded to explain that the writing center was not for assignments like this, that we were there to help mostly with global issues on papers that deal a little more with writing and less on short, one sentence answers, and that if she needed help she could go get an appointment with the ESL guy. After this, she said that she thought the rest of the stack of assignments was okay and she didn't need help anymore. She left and I felt kind of bad for rejecting her, but I think I was in the right. We can't help in the way she wanted; can we? Besides the fact that her assignments had very little to do with writing, she expected me to spend three hours fixing her grammar. I'm sorry but I'm not about to do that for anyone.

My point is that we can and should help students, present or not, with their writing and that we should not help students, present or not, with only their small-time grammatical problems. If that is all the help they want or will accept, they need to go somewhere else.

The homestretch

November 17, 2004
What is there to say?

Life in the Writing Center is now a comfortable routine. Saturday the ESL student I was tutoring stayed and worked beside me on a computer for the next hour and a half, asking my help whenever she needed it. It was nice. Another of my ESL students told me the other day that the paper we’d gone over a couple time together received an A. That was very cool, too.

I know that being a tutor is making me into a better writer. I can see the difference in my own papers. The essay we had to read by Bartholomae keeps cropping up in my mind. I’m intensely aware of my writing coming out more and more in “Educationese.” I’m using words I didn’t even know three months ago! “Zone of proximal development” and “summative assessment,” what? I wrote a term paper this past weekend that sounded SO SMART. (Sometimes I feel like an imposter.) I used some things I’ve told students to use. I’m looking at this thing and wondering where to even start, and I thought, well, I’d at least put the headings I needed down. Then I started organizing what needed to go under the headings…next thing I knew I had an outline. Imagine that! I’ve got another one due today I haven’t even started. Think I’d better try that outline trick again.

My head is too full to have anything profound to say. I do a little better writing; when I try speaking these days, I can’t even form a sentence. I keep telling myself that plenty of people have survived the Education department. So, I’ll take up more space when I’m not thinking about my classroom management plan. Later days. Blog on!

Warm fuzzies

One of my tutees today was a student whom I have helped three or four times since the beginning of the semester. As he was reading his paper aloud, I could tell that his writing abilities have significantly improved in the last ten weeks. I told him this and asked if he was taking writing classes other than English 1010. He said that 1010 was the first writing class he had ever taken (he is an ESL student), but he had visited the Writing Center for every assignment. He has learned as much from us as he has his professor.

Good job, WC buddies. Just thought I would share.

Over the past few weeks of working in the Writing Center, I have been continually amazed by the power of writing. Though I have always had a very high opinion of the way writing can express ideas and connect individuals, the experiences I have had in tutoring sessions have only helped to strengthen these beliefs in my mind.
A few weeks ago, a girl walked into the Writing Center who seemed to be having troubles speaking. Within a few seconds, she communicated to me that she was deaf, and that she would greatly appreciate assistance with a paper she was writing for her degree. I was not sure how the session would be successful at first, but we soon worked out a system by which we could communicate. I read over short sections of her paper, and circled spots that we needed to look over. After I had finished reading each section, she looked at the places I had circled, and pointed at the ones she did not know how to fix. By setting a piece of scratch paper in between us, we could write short notes to each other, and communicate ideas back and forth. This method was conducive to a great tutoring session, and we had soon gone over the majority of her paper before I had to leave for a class. Helping this student with her paper was an amazing experience for me, and it was great to spend time with an individual who especially relies on the art of writing to accomplish goals in her life.
Helping ESL students with their writing has also been a source of satisfaction for me recently. I have noticed that by having a written record of their grammar sitting in front of us, an ESL student and I can effectively assess problem spots in their usage of the English language. A paper presents a sort of visual aid for a tutoring session because the student can actually see what is being done with each correction. This would be much harder if the student were simply speaking to the tutor. Therefore, a tutoring session has the potential to affect the writing skills and the speech of an ESL student. This allows me to see my role as a tutor in a much higher respect when it comes to ESL students, because I am not only providing them with a better grade in a class, but also helping them to communicate better with the world around them. In addition, this enables me to see how powerful of a tool a writing tutor can be to a non-native speaker. I am sure that if I were in a foreign country, learning a new language, I would come to greatly appreciate anyone who was willing to sit down and analyze a piece of writing I had completed in that language.

Submission's online

It’s now 7:30, which means that I’ve been away from home for 12 hours (almost). I’m still in the computer lab and I’ve come to a couple realizations. 1-I need another blog. 2-It’s now 7:30, which means the buss ’s have stopped running and I’m officially stuck on campu’s. Hopefully, I’ll be able to find someone to pick me up. Otherwise, I’ll have to wait until 12:30 (at night) when my husband gets off work. I gues’s I could try living in the library like we mentioned in clas’s today. I don’t think they have shower’s, though. 3- My contact’s are getting fuzzy and sticking to my eye's. Yes, I know that three is not a couple, but I wanted to whine about that last one.

So, back to the matter at hand: another blog.

At the beginning of the semester when we went to various 1010 and 2010 class ’s to talk about the writing center we mentioned that we are not an editing or proofreading service. We said "you can’t drop your paper off for us to read and then come back for it later." Now, that’s a mighty fine philosophy since it makes the student’s more accountable for their own papers and get’s them involved in the revisin' proces’s.

My question: how are online submission’s different from a drop-off service? It’s basically the same thing, except with the online submission’s the person doesn’t even have to make the effort to come to the writing center for drop-off and pick-up.

Today a girl brought in her brother’s paper. I felt really silly telling her that I couldn’t look at the paper because he had to bring it in and sit down with me, but he could email it and I’d do it without him. It seemed ridiculous. So, I had her wait while I did what I would do with the paper if it was an online submission. I wrote my usual "So-and-so, thank’s for sending us you’r paper. I’ll be making some comment’s and suggested correction’s. If you have any further question’s please come into the writing center and we’ll be happy to help you further." I know I am going to writing center hell (limbo, at least,) but I feel perfectly justified in doing what I did.

I know the reason’s we have the online submission’s. There are some student’s who don’t come to campus’, distance learner’s, high school student’s and all of that, and I agree with it. I know it is a very valuable service for those who can’t make it to the writing center during operating hour’s.

Actually, at this point I don’t know if I’m advocating the elimination of online submission’s or the beginning of drop-off submission’s. Or even advocating anything at all! I suppose it was just my duty as the "Moral Commander of Double-Standard’s" to point this out to everyone.

Oh, thank you to Lori for her’s wonderful presentation about apostrophe’s today. I learned ton’s. I’m sure you noticed all the correct way’s I used them in this blog.

Drop-in Writing Centers

Obviously, I’m behind again. I don’t have a proper excuse this time, thank heavens. I’ve just been extremely lazy, sitting at home, reading romance books and eating bon-bons.

Is there a problem with drop-in writing centers? Well, from my little soap box vignette today, it’s apparent that I’ve found a problem with the drop-in-ness of our writing center. (Sadly, all of you that were in class will have to be bored to tears by reading this since I already talked about it. Buy, hey, I’ve got to get my blog in somehow.) In my estimation, the problem is not with the tutees, themselves, but with the tutors.

My regular shift goes from eleven until one, since I have a class that ends at 10:50 and one that begins at 1:00. We’ve all had the problem of deciding how soon it is kosher to leave at the end of our shift. Most of us have classes directly after our shift and therefore need to leave a little early so we can get to class on time. (The guy sitting next to me in the computer lab smells like curry. I’m getting really hungry.)

Today, at about 12:45 a tutee came in and I started to help him. His paper was only three pages, so I thought I could give him a decent session and be just a little late to class. However, after the first paragraph I realized it was going to take a long time. To really help him with all the problems it would have taken at least half an hour, more likely an hour. The poor kid knew what he wanted to say, but couldn’t write it down.

At about 12:50, after realizing how long a proper session would take, I was relieved to see another tutor come in, a veteran who didn’t “get” to go to the tutoring class. I got his attention and asked if he could help the tutee I was working with. “Yeah,” he said, “in another ten minutes.” He left the room for less than a minute, then came back in and sat in one of the chairs up against the wall. He just sat there, looking at the clock. I noticed another veteran tutor had come in, so I asked her to take over the session, which she graciously did.

This is the big problem I see with drop-in writing labs. If we had appointments they’d be on the hour and half hour (I’m assuming) which would give each student 20-30 minutes to sit down with a tutor and have their full attention. As it is, when I sit down with a tutee I still pause to greet students who come in the door and assure them a tutor will be with them as soon as possible. I also have people (tutors, tutees, random students, etc.) ask me questions while I’m tutoring, all of which interrupt the session I’m in. With appointments we could avoid the interruptions to greet other students since each appointment could be assigned to a specific tutor and only that tutor would need to greet the student. Obviously, though, it wouldn’t solve the random question interruptions.

Appointments would solve the problem I saw today. We wouldn’t have students coming in at 12:45 who need a session that lasts half an hour. The transition from one shift to another would work better since we wouldn’t have to make the decision to pass the tutees off to another tutor or be late to class.

I do not believe, however, that appointments are the ultimate solution. Tutors should be a little more on the ball. We shouldn’t have the ten minute lull every hour with tutors who are leaving saying “I can’t help you, I have to go to class in a few minutes,” and other tutors (sitting in the writing center) saying “I’ll help you in ten minutes when my shift officially starts.” (They never really start at the hour anyway, since they have to clock in, get their folder, get situated, write information in the folder, swipe the card, etc.) It is silly. If there are people who need a tutor waiting when a tutor gets to the writing center the tutor should clock in and help the person. It is just silly to wait for ten minutes. We all know we don’t work the exact amount of time our shift calls for, so let’s stop being idiotic and do the job.

Different Strengths for Different People

In one way or another ever student that I tutor is smarter than me. Many of the students have more “life experience” than me. Some know how to use computers better than me. And many know much more about the sciences than I do.

These past couple of weeks I’ve had a handful of students needing help with their research papers for Bio Med. For starters, I don’t even know what they teach in Bio Med. I’m pretty sure it’s something medical, but I don’t know exactly what is being taught. Even if I knew the content that was being taught in the class I wouldn’t understand the terminology. The medical field has never been a big interest of mine. Even though the students have been a lot smarter than me in the area of their subject, I believe that I was able to give them some of my writing knowledge.

Many of the Bio Med papers have been APA style. I have never written a paper in APA before. The first time that I’ve been exposed on how to use APA is this semester at the Writing Center. Every single time I have helped someone with APA I have felt really stupid. Often I find myself searching through the manuals wondering what to do if there are two authors or if it is an online source. APA is gradually growing on me. Even though many of the students know APA better than I do they still have questions. When they see me looking through the manual it gives them the confidence to look through it themselves.

At first, I thought that the student would think of me as an incompetent tutor, because I had to search the manuals. Even if I am incompetent, when I look through the manual it shows the student that I am helping them find the right answer and not just something that I think sounds good. It also helps the student become aware of the manuals. Many might not even know that they exist, unless we show them how to use them.

We will always have students with papers where we are unfamiliar with the subject, but if we focus on what we are supposed to (i.e. thesis statement, conclusion, clarity of ideas) we will be able to help them become better writers.