Sap, Anxiety, and All That Good (?) Stuff, or I Suck at Titles.

Well, I am not sure what to write about, to tell you the truth. My mind has been overwhelmed with things, all those end-of-the-semester things. I’ve noticed that in tutees also. There’s less joking around, or caring about becoming a better writer, or any of those fun things. The sessions are still productive, but in a different way. I guess they might be more efficient, because there’s not time to relax, because papers are due and all that stuff. So I guess what I’ve observed people performing well, maybe even better than usual, under the right amount of pressure. Yet the ‘right amount” is hard to define. Sometimes when I start feeling overwhelmed, start feeling that I don’t know when to start. My productivity is at its lowest. And I’ve observed that in some students also, and no, it’s not the same as being lazy.

I don’t want this to sound like I am complaining though. I am not, not at all. I’ve enjoyed this job so much. What a privilege it truly is to help another person with something as personal as writing. One way or another, one cannot help but to see a little bit of the writer through the paper, and I can never get enough of that somehow. How often I am amazed at how different people’s lives, experiences, interests, and aspirations are. There’s something truly beautiful about this diversity, and I delight in it! And there you guys have it; I am just a poet at heart! Sappy, very sappy, but true.

Well, moving on – enough personal revelation… The beast, the bane of my existence, also known as the bibliographic essay, is slowly moving in some direction, hopefully in the right one. Best of luck to all of you with your essays!

blog

This is an open blog post, and I'm going to do the process thing and let it flow. I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to write about, and i'm not exactly sure it's going to make sense. i will experience self discovery though.

Aha...

That's the ticket...I know what I want to write about.

These last two weeks have been very difficult for me to tutor because I am busy with what I'm doing, and I'm having a hard time being empathetic to people who come into the writing center. I will hear someone complain about writing, and I am finding it increasingly difficult to be empathetic.

This is not good. I am starting to lose the edge. With my writing my bibliographic essay, I'm starting to convince myself that I know something about tutoring. Hell, I don't know anything. I need to keep this perspective or else I will become stagnant in my growth as a tutor. If I assume to know something, then there is no room for me to expand. If there is no room to expand then I'm not helping the writers to expand because I'm not expanding...I need a day off.

On an egotistically lighter note I'm done with my first draft of my bibliografic essay. I'm pretty happy about that, and I have to keep drafting untill I get it to a point of satisfaction. Also, I've started to eat oatmeal for breakfast, excercise, and snack throughout the day. I've found this to give me more energy. Them ther nuutricionalissts aint lion.

I think is as far of a rant as I want to go...Ah, self discovery

One more thing: I found the icon that changes the size of the letters. i have yet to find the spell check in the blogger, and maybe another time it will come to me .

The number of hands pens should be in

Well, since we have about two and a half weeks left before the bibliographic essay is due and this is an open blog post, I think that I should gather my thoughts a little more for the essay. By the way, learning a little more about ways to research was very helpful.

I believe that it was Dr. Rogers who gave us this idea. I am interested in the question if tutors should be allowed to write on students’ papers. Although this can be helpful, it can also be harmful. If tutors are not allowed to make any markings on papers then I wonder if students would be a little more involved in the sessions. I wonder if it would change their ideas about coming to the Writing Center; maybe it would let them know that we are not just an editing service. Maybe it would help them to put more of their words and style instead of ours. Or perhaps doing this will cause students to walk away and feel empty handed because they may think that the tutor did not help them as much as they wanted to. I am sure positive comments on the paper also increase the likelihood of students coming back to the center. If these are taken out then perhaps students will not be a likely to remember what was working in their papers and they won’t repeat that style again.

I also tutor math at Central Middle School. If I show the students an example of how to complete a problem and then ask them to complete another example, then they are more likely to grasp the concept than if I just show them the example. Even if I do the problem on another sheet of paper at the same time they are doing the problem, then they’re still more likely to understand it. I think that it is the same with writing. If I only show the students how to fix an error in grammar, organization, or whatever the problem might be, then it is far more likely that they will not understand why I did that. With the guidance of my help, if they are forced to fix the problem themselves because I am not allowed to touch their paper, then possibly the correction to that problem will have a better chance at being engraved in their minds.

I also like Harris’ essay about engaging reluctant writers. I believe I mentioned this in an earlier post. She has so many subtopics that I can look into. I guess that it kind of connects to what I stated earlier about getting the students more involved in their own work. Harris mentions that some students believe that if they remain quiet then the tutor will do more work for them, which may be true in many cases. But if a pen was not allowed in the hand of a tutor then just maybe the student may pay a little more attention to his/her work.