Theory and Practice
This is the first blog post I have ever written. How exciting to learn something new! But, when I told my husband that I was unsure how to go about doing it, he said, "Just open a Word document, put 'Emily's Blog' at the top, and start typing!" He laughed hysterically as he compared me to Creed on The Office. Not funny.
Going back to the topic at hand: are we in the business of creating better writing or better writers? In theory, our main concern should be to teach the student to write well on his or her own. When a student leaves the Writing Center, he or she should carry some extra confidence in the ability to go home and continue writing for classes. This is the main concern of a tutoring session, and that is why the student holds the pencil and makes the changes. We were trained never to reveal an answer, but to instead let the student discover it on his or her own through prompting and teaching. We are also called tutors, not proofreaders and editors. I have worked as a professional editor. My job required that I make the writing better. This is not the same job.
However, in practice the goal of teaching and confidence-building will not always occur in a session. Because we are human and the people we tutor are human, there is no way to predict the outcome of our efforts. There are suggestions and scenarios we can learn from, but when it comes down to an actual tutoring session, we have no idea what will really happen until it is over. We may also never know the true impact of a session.
In theory, I should tell a student that his or her paper needs to be completely rewritten if that is the truth. In practice, this depends on the student. If we go back to "The More Factor" paper, the obvious flaw was the fact that the student had misunderstood the argument Shames had made. Therefore, if Dr. Rogers asks me what is wrong with the paper, I will be a "good student" and point out the major errors. However, if the author of the paper were sitting next to me, I would have a different approach. The specifics of that approach would depend on the student. I would most likely ask, as Wingate suggested, "How do you feel about rereading the Shames essay and making sure your paper addresses all of the issues raised there?" If the student seems uninterested, I may back off, depending on the depth of the reaction. Or, I may try to rephrase the question.
As a tutor and as a person interacting with others each day, I try never to cross lines. I dislike confrontation and do everything in my power to avoid it. Because this is a characteristic I have always had, I know it will cross into my tutoring. There may be times I will need to overcome the fear of offending somebody in order to help them learn. This is something I will have to learn to deal with as situations arise.
So, the answer to our debate is different in theory and in practice. We can talk until we are blue in the face about who is right or wrong, but the truth is that we are human and that each tutoring session will have its own unique set of rules and lines, which we may or may not dare to cross.
Going back to the topic at hand: are we in the business of creating better writing or better writers? In theory, our main concern should be to teach the student to write well on his or her own. When a student leaves the Writing Center, he or she should carry some extra confidence in the ability to go home and continue writing for classes. This is the main concern of a tutoring session, and that is why the student holds the pencil and makes the changes. We were trained never to reveal an answer, but to instead let the student discover it on his or her own through prompting and teaching. We are also called tutors, not proofreaders and editors. I have worked as a professional editor. My job required that I make the writing better. This is not the same job.
However, in practice the goal of teaching and confidence-building will not always occur in a session. Because we are human and the people we tutor are human, there is no way to predict the outcome of our efforts. There are suggestions and scenarios we can learn from, but when it comes down to an actual tutoring session, we have no idea what will really happen until it is over. We may also never know the true impact of a session.
In theory, I should tell a student that his or her paper needs to be completely rewritten if that is the truth. In practice, this depends on the student. If we go back to "The More Factor" paper, the obvious flaw was the fact that the student had misunderstood the argument Shames had made. Therefore, if Dr. Rogers asks me what is wrong with the paper, I will be a "good student" and point out the major errors. However, if the author of the paper were sitting next to me, I would have a different approach. The specifics of that approach would depend on the student. I would most likely ask, as Wingate suggested, "How do you feel about rereading the Shames essay and making sure your paper addresses all of the issues raised there?" If the student seems uninterested, I may back off, depending on the depth of the reaction. Or, I may try to rephrase the question.
As a tutor and as a person interacting with others each day, I try never to cross lines. I dislike confrontation and do everything in my power to avoid it. Because this is a characteristic I have always had, I know it will cross into my tutoring. There may be times I will need to overcome the fear of offending somebody in order to help them learn. This is something I will have to learn to deal with as situations arise.
So, the answer to our debate is different in theory and in practice. We can talk until we are blue in the face about who is right or wrong, but the truth is that we are human and that each tutoring session will have its own unique set of rules and lines, which we may or may not dare to cross.
posted by Emily Petersen at 7:55 AM
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