It all works so well in theory....

Almost every tutor out there would agree that in theory a tutor's responsibility is to "tutor" writing and help a writer become more skilled and confident. But as several of the other posts have pointed out, sessions do not always work the way that they should in theory. When the writer is already a good writer then all they really need is someone else's opinion and a few tips on what could have made the paper even better. When the writer is...how do we say this...lost and confused as to how to form a complete sentence, frame an argument, or express their point in the English language, while everyone would agree that a tutor should help that person become a better writer, that paper is like a dying man on a road calling out for help before judgment day. That paper, while in theory should take the backburner as the tutor explains how to go about writing a good paper, desperately needs attention before the student turns it in and says that "but the writing center looked at it!" when he gets his grade.

Ideally, as a tutor works on a paper both the paper and the writer should improve. But when push comes to shove, which comes first? For me, it definitely depends on the situation. When a good paper comes in it is easy to help that writer become just a little bit better, and it is easy to do it while helping them fix their paper. When a mediocre paper comes in the job gets a little harder and a tutor needs to be able to divide their time between making the paper better and helping the writer understand what they could do in the future on this paper and the many more to come. But the fact remains that a tutor only has a short time with the writer, and that writer came in with a specific project that they wanted help with. Perhaps someday some writer will come in without a due date and ask for a writing tutor session just on some project of their own. Then the tutor will be able to spend their time helping only the writer. But as it now remains the writer and their paper have asked for help, and we need to help both of them. Again, ideally this should be simple, as you help the paper you help the writer and as you help the writer you help the paper. In reality, when an indifferent learner comes in asking for a grammar/flow check, a tutor might just need to point out a few necessary revisions and hope the writer learned something.

No paper will ever leave the writing center perfect. But no paper should ever leave the writing center as bad as it came in. When a student comes in with a specific project that project needs to be looked at, worked with, and improved. Just as any other tutor would help with a math, chemistry, or Spanish assignment, we try to help the writer understand they whys and whats. But we work with the material they bring us, and we do our part to make it better.

With great power comes great responsibility ... Thanks, Spidey

Stop me if you've heard this one: A student walks into the Writing Center and says, "I've got a five-page paper due in half an hour and I've got to get an A or all my med school dreams go down the porcelain express!" The tutor shakes her head and says, "But I just want to make you a better writer ..."
Ideally, both student and tutor get their way, right? During the whirlwind thirty-minute session, the student naturally absorbs all of the nutritious grammatical, syntactical, and organizational goodness and in the process produces a candy-coated confection of writing perfection (sorry for that ... it's rather late). But what if your tutoring session doesn't turn out like a scene from "Writing Center II -- Dreams Come True"? Which one -- better writer or better writing -- should wind up with the upper hand? Sure, you could clandestinely whip out your red Sharpie (which Claire so thoughtfully provided us with at the orientation), make a few quick proofreading marks, and send the student whistling out the doorway, since that was what they really wanted anyway ... but then you go home feeling cheap and a little dirty and nobody really wants that, now, do they?
And we all know the adage, "Give a man a fish ..." But what if he's trying to use a sharpened stick instead of a fishing pole? What if you have to gently nudge him toward the lake because he's dangling his pole in the kitchen sink? Or what if the assignment was to catch trout and he's out hunting boar? At what point do you tell him to throw it all out the window? (Hmmm ... I seem to remember some mention being made in Friday's class of the overuse of rhetorical questions as well ... Oh, well).
To the point: as a piano teacher, I'm always more willing to pass off an assigned piece if the student has grasped the concept she was supposed to learn in the piece. Sure, she played the entire song in D minor when it was written in C major, but the fortes were loud and the pianissimos were soft. Of course we aren't the ones grading the papers we're helping with -- we don't get to decide if the assignment gets "passed off" --but if, after a tutoring session a student walks out the door and never uses the word "irregardless" again, everyone's going to be happy. And if the "student" never "inappropriately" uses "quotation marks" in another "piece of writing" for the rest of her "life," everyone's going to be euphoric. Ultimately, the concepts gained from these sessions in the Writing Center will serve to improve the papers the students write throughout the rest of their academic career -- something far more important (though it may be hard to convince the students of this) than one wee little bitty A in a 1010 class.
By keeping this end in mind, we all go home happy. And no one feels cheap and dirty.

Cake and Eat It, Too

Better essays or better writers? We could debate this one until the cows come home (I live on a farm and can say this), yet the two issues are so intertwined as to be inseparable. In striving to improve the essay we are in essence improving the writer and vise versa. If we are doing our job as tutors, that is.

Try to separate the writer from the essay and you’ll know what I’m talking about. Writing is an intensely personal and revealing medium. Through their words writers reveal (among other things) thought processes, knowledge, bias, humor, sensitivity, insecurity, fear, or a lack of any of the above. Each essay is in some way an expression of individuality deserving of care and respect. This is part of what makes our question so ethically complex.

I believe that when we look at an essay we can’t help but look at the writer behind it. Treat one and you invariably treat the other in some fashion. Each tutoring session, like each individual, is going to be different. So, when the student brings in an incoherent essay, my response would be based on a variety of factors including the student’s state of mind. Whether I address just this particular essay or the larger reasons behind what went wrong will vary student to student. Is the assignment due in ten minutes, or is there time to revise? Is the sensitive student more receptive to spelling than structure at this point? Is the student hostile toward advice or eager for help?

Students bring their writing to the Writing Center because they know it’s not perfect (OK, except for those who were forced to come). They look to us as having more experience or expertise with the writing process, and will, in theory, take our advice. As students work with a tutor to strengthen their essay, they are at the same time learning writing skills that will help them with future assignments. They can’t help it. Empowerment—it’s a beautiful thing.

As for the broadly offensive essay: We should never ignore it. Addressing the tone of the essay is just one way to diplomatically point out that words can and do hurt others. The student who writes using such language might already have some idea that this essay will cause a reaction. In this case, he or she will be watching and waiting for a response from the tutor. Our feedback should prepare students for what they will encounter in the classroom and in life.

It is also entirely possible that the student does not realize the language of the essay is offensive; in this case our reaction might spare them future embarrassment or animosity. Writers need to take responsibility for what they write. To ignore the offensive essay is to sanction it, while directly addressing it places the responsibility right where it belongs.

Why Can't It Be Both?

First off, I’m sorry I missed class last Friday. It sounds like I missed an interesting discussion. Second, as has been said before, this is a difficult question. I think the answer is both. When a student comes to us they expect us to make the paper better. That’s why they’re coming to the writing center. They want to be able to turn in a paper that will get them a good grade (whatever they consider to be good). But in the process of working with the student we should teach them specific skills that can help them as they write papers in the future. I have not sat down and tutored anyone in this specific venue as of yet, but I have had plenty of experience with people asking me for help on papers simply because I was an English major. This includes all of my family members. (I find this unfair because when I ask my accountant brother for help on taxes he tells me he’s not that kind of accountant. Why can I not be “that kind of English major?”) One of the main things I always stressed with them was that I would not write their paper for them, their paper must in their own voice and their own writing style, but I could teach them how to make it better. Usually these papers came in the form of email so I would send them back long suggestions and comments for sections of their papers. Of course they were looking for grammar help as well so I tried to fit that in, but what I wanted to do was teach them how to be better writers while still improving the current paper they had given me. I’m not sure how much it worked with some people, but I can say that with others I had success as I saw them try to use some of the writing techniques I suggested in earlier papers. In that way I think you can have success in both improving the writer and improving the writing.

Of course this works well with family members and friends because you can be pretty blunt at times and they still have to love you and will probably still use you for the same thing. But how do you handle it in a tutoring session with a total stranger? I think you can still approach the session with the idea that you can give the writer ideas that will strengthen their current paper, but can also carry over into their future writing. To the student who brings in a paper that is offensive I might say that they should re-look at some of their word choices and maybe find words that are more appropriate for a classroom or university setting. To the student who has a paper that does not make any sense I would try to pull out pieces that do make sense and then teach the student how to write their paper from those. I could then show the student how to use those ideas for their next paper so that their next paper won’t start off in such a jumbled mess.

Will my ideas always work in real life? No. Will there always be an exception to these rules? Of course. Can I give them a try and see if teaching a student certain writing techniques will improve their current and future papers? Sure. Why not? I’m still learning how to find the right way to work with different people, which is something I think we are all doing.

My first blog, I tried not to make it into an essay

Are we there to improve the paper or the writer’s skill? This to me is an easy question—we are there to improve the ability of the writer. All of us had to prove that we had some skill at writing in order to work in the Writing Center. If all we had to do was use those talents to improve other people’s papers it would amount a less detectable form of plagiarism. In the end we would not be doing any tutoring, we would only be editors. In order to create any lasting benefit, we must focus first on the writer’s abilities to clearly state and support their ideas on paper. Even if we know that the paper could be made better by our editing it, it would serve no purpose other than earning the student a grade that they did not earn.
The next question does not have as easy of an answer. Should we, as tutors, help improve a bias, discriminatory, or other wise hate filled paper? This is a difficult question full of emotional and ethical problems. However, if we step back away from the emotional and ethical elements of the question and focus on the primary responsibility of a writing tutor, I think that the question becomes a lot easier to deal with. A tutor is not a counselor, police officer, or a politician; it is not our responsibility to console, enforce, or represent any beliefs or ideas that we encounter in another students paper. As writing tutors it is our job to try to improve the writing skills of any student that comes into the center and asks for help.
When the question is reexamined with this single purpose in mind—to help the writer improve—then it becomes clear that what the paper is saying does not matter, even if what is said makes us want to run the paper and maybe even its author through the shredder. As tutors we should not focus or care about the beliefs or ideas presented in a paper. Instead, we should focus on the students writing skill, both what that have mastered and what they need to work on.
Focusing on the writer also has a side benefit in this situation; it distances us from the uncomfortable ideas and beliefs that may be expressed. Because we are not working directly with the idea, trying to make the best argument and present it in the best possible way, we do not have to take any ownership of that idea. I know that it is a fine distinction between presenting an idea and helping someone else be able to present the idea in the best possible way. Yet, that small difference can also provide some comfort in what can become a very uncomfortable situation.
As tutors, we must learn to accept that others will not always see things the way that we do. We probably will not even agree on the answers to these and others questions. But that is okay, we can learn from each other, and we can try to pass on some of that acceptance to others by showing them that there is no single correct answer for a paper. In the end it only matters how their particular answer is presented and supported.

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.

A Difficult Question

This is such a hard question, especially since each individual situation is different and would obviously require different approaches, based on the student. My overall opinion, however, is that students walk into the writing center with an expectation that the tutor understands more than they do about the writing process. Because of this inherent responsibility, I think that it is our duty as tutors to make it so the student has the best possible chance for receiving a decent grade on their paper. Therefore, I think that if the student’s paper is making no logical sense, it doesn’t matter how perfect their spelling or grammar is, they are not going to receive a good score. Although it might be difficult and perhaps a bit bold on the tutor’s behalf, to suggest a complete revision of the paper, I think if the situation requires it, the tutor should say something in a diplomatic way. In my opinion, however, I think that there will be very few cases when a paper is so dismally unsalvageable that the student has to completely start from scratch. Hopefully, even if the student is completely off-topic, there will be enough of a basis that points can be drawn from some of the student’s ideas (this was my opinion about the paper we read in class about America’s “more” factor that prompted this whole discussion).
Answering the question and responding to the set forth topic, then, is the most important thing that a student needs to understand. If this is not the case, then it is the tutor’s duty to try to explain the importance of this to the writer. The responses to this, of course, are a whole different story. Since the session is supposed to be about the student, tutors should in no way force the student to change their ideas of what the question is asking if the student responds to the tutor’s advice negatively. If the tutor feels that they are pushing too far in asking the student to rethink their ideas of what the paper is supposed to be about, then the tutor should back off. At that point, I would say it is acceptable to simply try to make that individual paper better instead of trying to take a path that the student obviously doesn’t want to go down.
An even more difficult question, then, is concerning the offensive material that could come up in a paper that is simply not appropriate even in our modern day society, let alone a classroom. This is a line that I think, needs to be treaded very delicately. First of all, perhaps it might be possible to get around it by seeing if the student answered the right question according to their prompt. Hopefully, tutors can suggest that the correct topic has not been addressed, for example if the prompt called for delving into the intricacies of materialism in American culture and the student wrote an essay exploring the benefits of racism. If this is the case, then perhaps the student can be convinced that their subject material doesn’t really apply to the situation (and perhaps this is one of the few times that starting over on a fresh sheet of paper might not be a bad idea) and should be revised. If this is not the case, however, then I don’t think it is really the tutor’s place to encroach on the opinions of the student. If the student feels strongly about their viewpoint, I don’t know if there is much that can be done to alter it short of the student walking out of the door in a huff. But the real question is then, should we as tutors help the student refine their offensive points by helping make the essay better? I think that in the role of a tutor, we have an obligation to. At the same time, though, I think that as an individual we have a certain amount of independence to perhaps make it known that we don’t necessarily agree with the viewpoint, but that we are willing to help in other ways. For example, maybe tutors could help with the tone of the essay to calm it down a bit so it doesn’t sound so aggressive to its audience. Techniques like this might make it a little more acceptable and not so blatantly offensive to the student’s professor and fellow classmates. However, each situation is different and I think the tutor’s actions will really depend on the “vibes” received from the writer and their reactions when a tutor does give advice.
Overall, I think that by improving the individual paper, tutors will simultaneously be improving the general writing skills of the student. Since students come in to the session with the goal of an individual paper in mind, tutors should not take away the focus of improving that paper that is in front of them. But I also think, that by focusing on the importance of things like answering the question and writing a good thesis, students are going to be learning skills that will help them in later papers. The ideal, in my mind, would be to knock two birds out with one stone and simultaneously try to improve the quality of the paper and the skills of the writer.