Accommodations

I would really like to continue the discussion that we grappled with a bit on Wednesday.  Two of you pointed out that there is an inconsistency in the way we treat international students' expectations of women and the way we might treat sexism or racism.

I keep thinking about this in terms of the South.  Would a Southerner from the segregated South studying abroad in, say, England, have had his discomfort being tutored by a black student accommodated?  Respected?  Is respecting a foreign student's discomfort being tutored by a woman any different?  Where do we draw the line in respecting cultural values and mores?

Overcoming Reluctance

Maybe I’ve just been extremely lucky, but I’ve never had a student come in “just for extra credit” or because “the teacher told me to” and refuse to actually make any corrections on the paper. Almost every one has come in and been very responsive to the idea that I, as a tutor, might be able to help them improve their writing, if not their ability to write. There was one tutee who came in and I thought might have that perception and a distant attitude, based on the introductions, but quickly became engaged in the session once we started going over the paper.

So, where does the “almost” come in?

While I haven’t had hostile reluctant, I have had embarrassed and “I’m just ready to give up” reluctant. With those tutees, I couldn’t blame them for being so. I really felt sympathetic for the student who brought in a paper that needed quite a bit of work, but he looked like just the thought of having to look at his paper for just one more second would break him. At one point in the session, he seemed close to tears and convinced that he was a terrible writer.

That was when I knew I had to turn on the encouragement. Nothing false, and not sugarcoating over any of the problems, but honestly searching for the positive aspects of his paper and how he could transform it into something better. What truly seemed to help though was telling him that everybody, at some point in their academic career, has struggled with academic writing. Knowing that he wasn’t “stupid” or a “hopelessly bad” writer brought him back from the edge. Explaining that the ability to write well took time and was more a function of practice than intelligence gave him the confidence to continue the session until we finished.

It seems like such a simple concept, that “bad” writers are merely inexperienced, but somehow many people have internalized it to such a negative degree that they can’t see past their own attempts. I’ve read several articles recently about methods of education and how they can be backwards in the United States. In Japan, students are praised for effort, and failure is seen as an attempt to succeed. The author observed a class where the students had to draw a 3D box on paper. One student struggled to draw it properly, and was made to stand in the front and draw it repeatedly until he got it right. According to the author, in a classroom in the United States such a prospect would likely be highly embarrassing and open the student up to ridicule from his peers. The opposite was true for this student, for whom the class applauded when he finally drew the box correctly.

I think it’s very important that, as tutors, we learn to phrase criticism so it is a reflection upon the writing, rather than the writer, even as we are attempting to help the tutee become a writer. Praise effort, not the results or intelligence. It should be our task to help tutees realize that mistakes are just errors, not lost IQ points.

But I Don't Wanna Be Tutored!

I tutored a reluctant student last week. She came into the writing center only because her teacher told her to do so. Additionally, she was not a big fan of her teacher and made that quite clear during the session. I began by asking her about the assignment. She provided very minimal details on this matter. I could tell that this was not only because she was a reluctant student, but also because she seemed to a pretty deep-seeded dislike of her professor.

After getting some basic information about her assignment, I asked her what her concerns were with the paper. She responded with "I don't really have any. I just had to come here for credit." I replied by saying "OK, let's pretend that you didn't have to come here. What would be your concerns?" This extremely simple response actually worked: she began to explain how she was worried about if her paper was fulfilling the assignment and that she did not fully understand the assignment.

We read through the assignment sheet and gained a fuller grasp on what the assignment required. She slowly became much less reluctant as the session went on. And by the end of the session, she was doing most of the talking.

Giving "Lazy" Students a Chance

Today I tutored a student who was very defensive about his paper.  Whenever I pointed out a problem with clarity or word choice, he would go into a long explanation about why he made the choice he did.  Dealing with him wasn't particularly difficult, however; he was open to my explanations about why his phrasing and word choice were unclear or confusing, and we worked together to find better ways for him to express his ideas.

A tutee who was far more difficult to help came in a couple of weeks ago.  I still don't know if he was reluctant or just terribly shy, though I suspect the latter.  Our session lasted about twenty-five minutes.  During that time, I think the tutee spoke perhaps five or six sentences and a few disjointed words.  He kept his hands beneath the table for the whole session and made eye contact only very rarely.

As we worked, I became increasingly frustrated at his lack of participation.  When I pointed out structural problems or grammar errors, he simply nodded his head.  When I asked questions, he shrugged his shoulders and stared at his hands.  I was sure that he was one of those lazy students we fear being paired with who only come to the Writing Center when required to do so by professorial fiat.

The session took a swing for the better as I pressured the tutee to become involved.  I stopped making marks on his page and asked him to make them instead, leaving my pen on the paper.  I kept the paper tilted towards him to suggest that it was under his control, not mine.  Whereas, at the beginning of the session, I would answer the questions I directed at him myself after giving him a moment to answer them, I decided that I wasn't going to answer a question until he gave some indication that he understood what I was asking.  He answered the questions dully and wrote changes derived from his answers on his rough draft.  I felt like he was only grudgingly participating until I asked a question he couldn't answer.

After a moment of prodding him, he raised his eyebrows, smiled, shook his head, and said, "I don't know."  I smiled back and helped him work through the problem.  He still spoke only minimally for the rest of the session, but after seeing this unexpected response, I felt that he was trying--he was just very hard to reach.

Composition Course, Please

I didn't take a Composition course in college, but I had the pleasure of slacking off in an AP English class in high school.  I remember almost nothing about it except that I thought my teacher hated me.  By the end of the year, my confidence in my writing was shot.  Oh well.  So much for smarty-pants.

I had a friend who took a Composition course a few years ago who asked me frequently to help him with his papers.  He was required to write two double-spaced pages every week, in addition to a couple of longer pieces.  He was overwhelmed.

I tried to explain that the point of the assignments was to give him practice.  His professor graded generously and gave every paper back with suggestions for improvement.  Unfortunately, my friend was too flustered at the prospect of having to write at all to get anything out of the experience.

Oddly enough, I got something out of helping him with his papers.  I wished that I had taken a Composition course for my own benefit, as the practice assignments he was given were very interesting, and the teacher had chosen topics that were easy for students to become invested in.  I felt that I had lost an opportunity for some laid-back, easy, yet very productive writing practice.

As for the reasons for these assignments, I stick to my explanation to my friend: The teacher was trying to give his students an easy opportunity to practice their writing.  The classroom, from my vantage point as peer-reader, appeared to provide students an opportunity for gradual progression in their writing skills.

I’M PRETTY SURE I CAN’T BEAT AMANDA’S EXAMPLE SO MAYBE I SHOULD JUST GIVE UP AND RECOGNIZE THAT I’M JUST TOTALLY AWESOME AND INSPIRE PEOPLE TO STRIVE FOR GREATNESS? MAYBE NOT. WELL, I’M NOT SURE WHAT I’D DO IF A TUTEE SHOWED ME A PAPER COVERED IN PLASTIC AND TOLD ME NOT TO MARK IT. PROBABLY CHOKE OBNOXIOUSLY WHILE I TRIED SURPRESSING SHOCK AND SURPRISE? I DID HAVE A STUDENT IN 2010 WHO HAD TAKE AP ENGLISH IN HIGH SCHOOL AND KNEW HE WAS A GOOD WRITER. HE WAS THERE FOR EXTRA CREDIT. HAD NEVER BEEN INTO THE WRITING CENTER BEFORE AND WASN’T QUITE SURE WHAT GOOD WE COULD DO HIM. I TOLD HIM I’D ENJOY READING THROUGH IT AND TELLING HIM HOW WONDERFUL IT IS SINCE I DON’T GET TO SEE REALLY GOOD WRITING VERY OFTEN. HA. JUST KIDDING. I SAID IT’S A GREAT SKILL TO GET A SECOND SET OF EYES ON AN ACADEMIC PAPER—JUST TO DOUBLE CHECK IDEAS AND ORGANIZATION AND THE LITTLE MECHANICAL THINGS. AS WE GOT READING I NOTICED HIS THESIS DIDN’T LEAD INTO ANYTHING THAT HE’D ARGUED IN HIS PAPER AND WE HAD A NICE DISCUSSION ABOUT WHAT HIS PAPER WAS ABOUT AND HOW HIS THESIS COULD AND SHOULD INDICATE THAT. I THINK WE WERE FRIENDS BY THE TIME HE LEFT.

Reluctant Writers

I have definitely had my fair share of tutoring reluctant writers in sessions at the Writing Center. I can remember two examples to begin with, one more extreme than the other. 

I had a session a few weeks ago in which a girl brought her paper in “for extra credit.” The paper was enclosed in a plastic covering and she informed me that she did not want me to make any actual corrections on her paper. I felt very confused about what to do next when she asked me for a brown slip to prove to her teacher that she “came in” to the Writing Center. I had her read through her paper and tried to give a few suggestions for her writing. I told her to try to come in to receive help from the Writing Center before she was ready to submit her paper. I grabbed a brown slip and ended up writing “The student read her paper aloud to me. No corrections were made.” I then wished her luck with her paper. This was an extreme case of reluctant tutoring, and there wasn’t much I could do in that situation. 

I had another session in which the student seemed very uncomfortable with the tutoring process. At the beginning of the session, I could tell she wasn’t too enthused about receiving my help and I felt very uncomfortable. I started asking her more questions about the paper to get her more involved. She still seemed reluctant, so I stopped during the session and asked if there was anything that she really wanted to work on. After I asked again (I had asked the same question at the beginning of the session and had not gotten a concrete answer) she started to become more involved in the session and started responding to my suggestions. We ended up having a very productive session once she became involved in the tutoring process. 

I have found that if I show the student that I am really just trying to help, they become more comfortable with the tutoring process. I don’t have a specific solution to dealing with writers who are reluctant to receive tutoring, but each time I try and make them feel as comfortable as they can be in each session.  

Reluctant Students?

Have you had any experience with students who were reluctant or resistant to being tutored?  How did you deal with it?

2010 English Oddity

I took English 2010 upon returning to college after a three year break and a two year mission. My last composition class was in high school, nine years prior, but it counted as English 1010 at Utah Valley University so I skipped straight to intermediate writing. I expected to be challenged, especially since it had been so long since my last actual English composition course.

I was wrong.

The class was a complete and utter waste of my time and the government’s Pell Grant money. After the first week, the “teacher” did nothing more than point to a page in The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing, Fifth Edition, and essentially say “do that.” Granted, she was there to answer questions about the assignment, but the amount of actual lessons she taught during the full semester course fit on one hand.

Then of course, there’s the fact that even those lessons were worthless. They consisted of her putting up a transparency (yes, on an overhead projector that I thought went the way of the phonograph) of a grammar workbook page that should not have been allowed outside of junior high school, maybe high school. I remember one was “Commonly Confused Words” of the “choose the correct word to complete this sentence” variety. “Tommy likes Jill. (They’re/Their) going to the movies.” We discussed them as a class and no one seemed to struggle. There was also an object lesson about an orange, but I can’t for the life of me remember the object of that lesson.

Most of class time was spent peer-reviewing the papers: analysis and synthesis (a fancy way of saying “compare and contrast”), argumentative research, and a few others. This might have been useful if my peers actually commented on my essays, but, despite my insistence, they didn’t feel adequate to the task of critiquing them. They received A’s, but the teacher never provided evaluative or qualitative feedback of any kind in order for me to understand why they were “good.”

The only benefit I extracted from that class, besides maintaining my GPA and fulfilling a requirement for my major, didn’t occur until I started here at the Writing Center. The teacher made us attend the UVU equivalent a few times, which gave me some idea of what to expect as a new tutor. Still, three years is a long time to wait to see any value in a course.

This may sound harsh, but I believe the class was taught in that manner because the teacher was older (60s or 70s) and an adjunct. I don’t get the sense that my fellow students in the program, who took courses from other instructors, had the same experience. It certainly doesn’t make sense to me why the college would hire glorified graders across the board to teach a foundational class, and it was the only class I honestly felt I could have taught better, as an undergrad, than the teacher did.