Blog 5: Empathy

The only time I have dealt with verbally emotional students was when I was home back in Maryland. My friends would come over my house or dorm, so I could edit their papers or tutor them in math. I remember one particular afternoon in our freshman year when my roommate, who is also my very best and longest friend, asked if I could listen to her read her ecology paper aloud to me. My sister and I are both Pisces and have very similar personalities. We are pretty quiet, reflective, and introverted people, unless, of course, we around each other or our friends and family – that is when the party starts. However, as water signs, we have a highly emotional side to us, and it can come out at any given moment for any reason if we have been holding those emotions in.

I guess that is what happened to her. When she was about halfway through the paper, my sister threw her essay down and began to go into a very (colorful) rant. In between curse words, I gathered she was frustrated that it was the third time she had to redo her paper because she thought her professor was a jerk, her father had not contacted her back about the money for school, her mother was being overbearing, as usual, and being an Environmental Science major maybe was not her calling. My heart really broke for my sister because I had never seen her like that before that day.

My “motherly” instincts took over, and I attempted to calm her down by just allowing her to get her emotions out and listening. I think that is exactly what she needed because after about five minutes of that, she said she was ready to finish reading her paper to me. However, knowing my best friend like the back of my hand, I suggested we that we took a break and watch a Disney movie and order Chinese. Allowing her to just vent and take a break from reality made all the difference. I know that this situation was a special case because I will not being in an unprofessional setting like that nor know probably any of my tutees here at the Writing Center on such a personal level; although, every human being has a breaking point and may need an unbiased ear to just listen or be sensitive and allow them to take a break from reality.

I have read some emotional pieces, aside from my own, though. I remember reading a paper last semester, where a young man wrote about his triumphs over becoming a single man after ten years of marriage, being a newly single father of twin elementary-aged girls, and returning to college after dropping out his first semester. He had been through quite an ordeal for someone only a few years older than me, and the emotions. So, during the session, I tried to be a bit more cognizant than normal of the way I gave him feedback about his paper and some resources available to him that might have been more convenient for him, like submitting his assignments as OWLs for tutoring. He seemed extremely grateful and noted that he might have stayed in school a decade ago if those types of resources were available to him. The tutee knew I cared about him as a person, not just his paper, and I think that made all the difference during this session; this type of empathy should be used in every session, though, not just obvious emotional ones. 

Head vs. Heart

Hello, Blog!

This week's edition will talk about emotions coinciding with writing! Yay!

To be clear, I think all writing is emotional in some way to someone, even a boring science journal in which I cannot even begin to understand the diction and verbiage being used. Someone, somewhere, put a thought into action, whether that action was performing the experiment or recording the work. If we invest our time into something, I believe our emotions automatically are invested in it as well.

That being said, I have had some tutees that wrote about things that were very close to them and came across as specifically emotional, especially with the personal narratives that have been coming through the Writing Center lately. I will mention two incidences. The first was an OWL. The student was setting short-term and long-term goals. Her short-term goal had to do with school, but her long term goal dealt with her cystic fibrosis treatments. She was determined to get in her treatment every day. The writing was really emotional and I felt really bad for the girl. However, I did not want to involve my own emotions in the situation, so what I tried to do was to remove myself personally from the ideas in the paper and just focus on what I know: English. That helped me to get through the paper with the clarity of a peer tutor.

The second situation was a face-to-face session. The man had been deployed to Afghanistan and had written a personal narrative in the form of a letter to his wife. The material for the essay had come out of his personal journal from when he was overseas. As I began to read through, I started the feel the heavy emotions associated with war. There was a lot of fear in the paper: fear for one’s safety, fear for one’s possessions, fear for one’s sanity, and fear for one’s life. I could not help but be moved by the harsh experiences he had gone through. I could tell that he was also very emotionally attached to his paper by the way he sighed and explained to me the different aspects of the story that I found to be unclear. In this session, I found the same method of going back to what I know to be helpful. I got involved in the phrasing of sentences rather than the actual meaning and emotions behind those sentences. My strategy helped and the session ended pretty successfully, mainly because the student was a really descriptive writer and he just needed someone else to read his work to him so that he could hear his mistakes and confusing phrases and correct them in his own way.

Thankfully, I have not had any tutees yet who I found to be overly emotional (No crying or any of that business), but I have read many papers thus far that have a large emotional charge. I know that all writing requires some emotion, but I am glad these students were willing to share out of their hearts and lives. I love that a piece of the student can be put into the work. However, as a tutor, I need to find a balance between empathy in my heart and a clear mind for the session.

 

Blog 5: Tears over Dover Beach

                I haven’t had any experiences with emotional writing during my tenure at the WSU Writing center. However, I did encounter one particular student at CLU who just seemed to buckle under stress during a tutoring session.

                She had been sent to me for writing and subject matter tutoring in her British Poetry course. She was assigned a 5 page paper analyzing how poets use language, sound, and structure as complementary aspects of their poetry. For the assignment, she had chosen Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold. If anyone here has studied the poem, there are several areas where Arnold uses words with strong “S” sounds – mimicking the sound of waves crashing against rocks and retreating with the tide. Additionally, the structure of the poem itself seems to replicate the silhouette of the Dover Beach cliffs. These were the types of things her professor was looking for in the paper.

                However, this Chinese ESL student did not understand the prompt. While she was a Junior English major at this point, the uses of language and sound that exist in English were very difficult for her to grasp. The language barrier seemed to inhibit her from not only composing a draft but understanding what was exactly being asked of her.

                I began the session with walking her through the assignment itself. She had brought a detailed outline but I quickly realized she had not actually done what the assignment was asking her to do – a result of her misunderstanding. I proceeded to tell her that, while she had already put in work, it was not the proper kind of work and we would need to readdress the task at hand. This was the breaking point. The realization that her time spent working on this was for naught caused her to start crying and she excused herself for a brief period of time.

               I cannot say that I understand the struggle she was going through. While I have struggled with my own assignments, even in upper division French courses, I cannot truly understand the struggle of trying to grasp nuance in a foreign language. She was gone for about 10 minutes when she returned to my desk. She started to apologize and I told her that there was no need. She asked me if I could explain to her what the teacher was asking for. We then spent about 15 minutes rewriting the prompt in simpler language so she could understand it on her own. The last step was to explain to her what the teacher meant by language, sound, and structure.

                We never got to the writing tutoring phase of the session. It was clear she was overwhelmed and just wanted to understand the assignment before diving into composition. When handling the session, I always tried to remember that she was five times more frustrated than I ever could have been. Also, I tried to keep my tone calm and supportive throughout the explanations. When dealing with emotional tutees, it’s key to be an ally. Make sure they know that you are on their side and want to help them succeed no matter how long – or frequent – the sessions may be. 

My writing (blog four)

I am skeptical of my ability to trace my writing's development. I am initially inclined to think I have always been an almost exclusively non-fiction reader and writer, whose regard for fiction has always been tied to the extent that a work dealt with non-fiction in a serious way, while simultaneously maintaining that such a thing as "non-fiction" does not exist -- it's all fictionalized representations of a subjective and intangible, so-called reality. But I can't have always been this boring.

When I was young I would draw on anything with a blank margin, particularly when bored. This led to church programs covered in grotesque, distorted figures and other strange drawings. Later my mom would inform me I was forbidden from drawing pictures on church programs. I was left with words, which were supposed to limit my thoughts to reflection on church subjects. For the most part, my writings began as incoherent non-religious thoughts, words heard I didn't understand, and flat observations about the people around me. When finally I turned to church subjects years later, what resulted escaped mere 'reflection.' I would document paradoxes in lessons, unanswered questions, and the vague platitude-swapping that was so often passed off as discussion. I would later discover that developing these ideas into a stand-alone work was called "essay."

I was raised in a literary environment -- my home, that is. My mother, a single parent, public school teacher with a Master's in Linguistics, placed the arts above almost anything else in my formative years. The author whose work introduced me to the essay form was Mark Twain. I don't remember a lot of the first essays I read, but I do remember -- strange as it may be -- the feeling of not understanding. I remember reading pages filled with references to whom and/or which I was in the dark. I remember thinking that it seemed impossible to read and understand all of what was required to understand what Twain was saying. Looking bad, this seems somewhat pathetic; he was (and remains) one of the most profound and accessible writers of American history. As a early teen, however, I simply didn't have the background -- yet. This, in a sense, informs the ways I approach a student's non-undesrtanding, misunderstanding, etc. It's not as if they don't understand, and that's that -- it's that they don't understand yet. As regards cultural capital, we are all born tabula rasa.

My writing developing alongside my reading over the years -- and, strangely, this happened mostly outside of school. I have always found it difficult to be as engaged with required reading as I am with my own intellectual pursuits. There is an element of personal interest at play, but there's also some psychological aspect to my aversion to assigned reading. Further, for me, writing has always been an extension of reading, perhaps with the addition of observing the world around me. And when I say writing, sadly, I refer almost entirely to essay writing -- which I love nothing more than to create myself after absorbing the work of others.

Lessons learned over time

I entered higher education with little to no concept of the types of writing that would be expected of me. I remember vividly when my English 1010 instructor posted my first essay on the over-head as an example of what not to do. My writing skills were decent, but I hadn’t fulfilled the assignment as I was supposed to. I attribute this early failure to two factors: my long absence from formal schooling and my deplorable high school education.

I guess you could say that my knowledge of different forms of writing was anything but intuitive. I understood that there were different types. I had heard the terms “research paper” and “persuasive essay,” but I really didn’t know what these entailed. It wasn’t until I was assigned these types of papers that I realized how little I knew, and how much I would need to educate myself in regards to these various formats.

I think this really helps me tutor unfamiliar papers. In my own experience, I have had to read between the rubric’s lines. From what an instructor has written in a syllabus, a student can begin to fathom what type of essay a teacher is looking for. But, sometimes this isn’t the case. Sometimes the details are (purposely) left out. My experience in searching for those answers has helped me to tutor because I am comfortable looking for answers. I am familiar with not knowing something, and educating myself about that subject. I feel as if this skill, if transferred into my tutoring experiences, can be a benefit to the students who are as lost as I was at the beginning of my university experience.

A brief history.

                Being the daughter of a high-school English teacher, my entire life was influenced by English and grammar. She taught me to be articulate and well-versed. The basic knowledge of proper punctuation, syntax and grammar was built in to my working memory and my daily speech. However, something I have always struggled with is explaining and defining why something is wrong. I could read a sentence and know what was wrong, but not why. I had a difficult time defining grammar rules; I just knew what sounded good and what didn’t. I suppose that I never yearned for the knowledge either. I flew through high school English, writing my essays with subconscious knowledge. Because I took both AP English and Literature in high school, I skipped English 1010 altogether. My freshman year in college I took English 2010 and passed with flying colors. Again, I did so purely on subconscious knowledge. I still did not know the rules. I assumed that those rules were taught in English 1010, which I was able to avoid. Although I always enjoyed English, I never thought that I would encounter another English class again. I did not need to learn the grammar rules at this point. I was home-free. Little did I know that after changing my major from Psychology, to Elementary Education that I would finally settle on English Teaching. I knew that I needed to learn these grammatical rules and definitions in order to effectively teach my students. When I happened upon the writing center, I knew that it would be the perfect job for me. I was so excited when I was hired, knowing that this would provide me the necessary skills. It put me in the best position for my future career. In summary, my English and writing skills were my birth-right, taught and inspired by my mother. 

The Barbarian and the Other Mrs. McNeill

I think I learned how to write different types of essays in middle school. Since I was placed in the Talented and Gifted program in elementary school, I had the (dis)pleasure of taking advanced English, math, and foreign language courses. So, it was pretty much expected of me to proficiently learn and execute essays at a level that was higher than my actual grade. It made me feel pretty miserable honestly. I mean, I love to read and do creative writing but not when I am forced to do it – guess that’s just the rebel in me...

But, I do remember two teachers in particular who made it their mission to stifle this rebelliousness and write academic essays, like the ones that would get me into college (which I did not EVER had to do by the way). Ms. Barbara and Ms. McNeill were the names of the English teachers I had for AP English and AP Language and Literature.

Ms. Barbara also known as The Barbarian. This one was quite the Writing Nazi and had us writing every single day we were in class. It did not matter what type of writing it was. We kept a daily journal for writing responses to writing prompts, had in class and outside class essays to complete during the semester, and practice AP exams to write periodically. UGH! And, it was clearly outlined in her syllabus that we would be writing descriptive, analytic, argumentative, narrative, compare/contrast, cause and effect, satire, process, and expository essays. My favorites were satire and argumentative essays, of course. Each month, we would learn how to write a new type of essay, and by the time I got out of her class, I could write any type of essay on command in about forty five minutes or less.

Oh, but Mrs. McNeill was different (and, yes I know it is very ironic that she was my favorite high school teacher, and we almost have the same last name). She would still make us write, but we could choose which type of essay we wanted to write for each particular novel. It was great even though we could only use them once. We also had discussions about the essay types, which really helped me to understand how to actually write them, and we gave each other tips and advice on how we constructed our own essays.

Coming to Towson University then Weber State University, I was already prepared. The only difference is now I actually care about the quality of my work, and I like writing academic essays. It is still forced upon me to write them, but nowhere near as bad as it was in high school because I am no longer in the accelerated program, and there is not so much outside pressure for me to do well on a test I could care less for. And, now that I think about it, there probably was a learning curve. I have written so many essays that it is almost second nature for me to create a satisfactory one in forty five minutes and pretty great one in a few hours. I am nowhere near to being a jack-of-all-trades essay writer though!

Sources of Citation Knowledge

I took an AP English class in high school, so I had a basic idea of how to cite sources but I didn’t know there were different citation formats until my first English class at WSU. Most of my university honors classes also required MLA citation, which helped me to learn MLA style through repeated practice. There was not much of a learning curve for me because I already knew the basics of citing sources. When I took English 2010 with Professor Pollett, I bought a small, but thick reference guide on citation styles for any source. When I come across a new source format, or if I feel like I just need a refresher on the subject, I always go back to that book. Like others have written here on the blog, I can’t pinpoint the exact moment I learned how to cite my sources properly. My knowledge of source documentation was built gradually over the years by my elementary and junior high teachers, and was additionally clarified once I entered high school and university.

Writing: A (brief) Personal History

Matthew Kunes


When I was in ninth grade, I had a geography teacher who used to teach at the university level. His class was known to be inordinately difficult, given that geography wasn't really considered to be a core subject like Math, or English. Since I went to a small high school, his was the only geography class available, and the class was required for graduation.


He was one of my best teachers, and one of the smartest men I have ever known.


One of his “quirks” was that he expected us to write at a college level, and he taught us the format (what I recognize now as a simplified version of APA): always have a cover sheet, and used double space, 12 point font, and Times New Roman.


While I won't say that the content of my essays in his class would be considered college level, I will say that our teacher held us up to a higher standard than any other high school teacher I've ever had. The beginnings of my college writing began there.


I entered the early college program the following year, and began to write papers at a (more or less) college level since then. I attribute my success in college writing since then to liberal use of online citation generators, and the long suffering of my professors in dealing with my procrastination.


The next major turn in my writing career was when I started to get inundated with writing assignments as I advanced in college. While I couldn't point to a specific time or event, my academic writing style markedly improved over the course of the next few semesters at Weber.



While I wouldn't consider myself a master of the genre, I definitely have a lot of experience writing in the academic setting to know what a professor usually expects from a writing assignment.

Our Knowledge of Essays VS. The Students'

I entered college know, more or less, what was expected of me in almost any kind of essay paper.  However, it’s impossible for me to pinpoint a moment in time when someone actually taught me how to write an essay. I can remember some very clear lessons – the essays I wrote for AP English, for example – but most of my training in essay writing has been pounded into my brain since before I can remember. Writing comes very naturally to me, whether in fiction, journal writing, or essay papers, but it’s not the same for everyone.

I have noticed that, for the most part, the younger students I tutor know the basics about writing a good essay. The students that have just gotten out of high school, for example, almost always have an opening paragraph with a clearly defined thesis that they revisit in a concluding paragraph after they have written a supporting body. I have been very impressed by these students’ preparation, and I think there’s something to be said about the teachers and schools providing this preparation to our freshmen.

In my experience thus far, it is the non-traditional students that need more help as far as actually writing their paper goes. For many of these students, it has been years and years since they’ve written anything, let alone an essay. It’s usually these students that I have to coach through the organizational process of writing an essay.

One of the topics universal to tutoring is correct formatting. Even if a student can write an essay with an intro, thesis, body, and conclusion, they often have formatting errors – or lack of a format al together. I find myself going through MLA and APA formatting with every single student I meet with. Even if their professor is not looking specifically for a format, I review the basics of MLA to make sure that they know how to do it. I tell them that, if the teacher has not asked for a specific format, MLA is the standard.

Although I can’t pinpoint exactly when I learned how to write the essays I write today, I do recognize  that I didn’t learn it all at once. For example, although I knew the basics of MLA formatting from high school, I wouldn’t have been able to answer specific questions about either MLA or APA until I took this class! If my students haven’t taken this class, surely I cannot expect them to have as comprehensive a knowledge as I do now.

In summary, it has taken me years to be able to write the way I do, and I am an English major. I need to make sure that I am patient with the students that come in to the writing center, especially when it comes to the common errors of formatting and organization. My purpose as a tutor is to help the students I work with become better writers. Although many students come into the writing center knowing the basics of how to write an essay, our goal is to make sure that those who do not leave just a little more confident in their ability to write an essay. 

- Samuel Bartholomew

Life of Writing

         A large part of what gives me confidence in writing is that I have always seen myself as a writer. When I was a young child, my mother encouraged me to write letters to far away relatives. Even if that “letter” was a picture with some random squiggles representing words. As I reached ripe, old elementary school age, my mother encouraged my siblings and me to write our own stories.

         When I earned my first bachelor’s degrees at the University of Utah, many years ago, the same sophistication we expect of undergraduate writers did not exist. I took an “advanced” composition course, but that class stressed the evils of plagiarism, and how to focus our long paper (10 pages) on a single topic without wandering afield.

         Subsequent classes in my fields of study, English Theory and Criticism; and Film Studies did not require the same level of academic writing we demand today. Of course the essays had to be cogent, cohesive, factually correct with a well-supported thesis, but citation wasn’t an issue. It was sort of a free-for all. As long as you made a stab at citing the works you used, everything was fine.

         When I worked in journalism, knowing exactly where my information came from, and how to document a source was vitally important. Of course, it was done in a manner entirely apart from scholarly citation. When I shifted to work in education, again, the writing had to be well researched and well written. Citation, however, was once again casual.

         My background kept my writing skills sharp so when I began my studies at Weber I was able to research and write papers. Proper citation, however, still gives me fits.

         In Elementary Education, I had to understand that not all students take to writing, not all people breath the written word like air. Not all people view themselves as writers. Writing is a laborious process. Some people fear nothing more than being asked to write an essay. Kind of like me fearing a complex algebra problem, or even an elementary algebra problem.

         Students coming into the Writing Center may not have sophisticated writing skills, or they may be highly sophisticated and knowledgeable in both content and form of their writing. The best teachers meet the student where the student “lives”. Effective teachers work with the student, reiterating and reinforcing current knowledge, while encouraging the student to stretch, and further his or her own skills. We, as teachers, should be able to work effectively with “new” writers as well as with experienced writers.

Your assignment was not to "just write an essay"

As I thought about where I got my diversified understanding of academic writing, I was taken to my AP English teacher during my senior year of High School. She inspired in me a desire to read more and develop a love for the language. As I read different novels and essays, I began noticing differences in the writing. I did not, however, know why or what the differences were. Now, I jump forward to my English 2010 class down at the U of U. My instructor was a TA, and we were explicitly told we would be writing different types of compositions. We did an annotated bibliography, an expository piece, a research paper, and a few minor writing assignments. That was when I understood that writing was never just writing. There was always some format or purpose. As I went through my coursework at WSU, I discovered that the nuances of each style of writing were a little more intuitive. I was able to see the differences more clearly once I had studied a bit and realized that there were differences. This is invaluable as a tutor. Often times I'll ask a student what their assignment was, to which they reply "I don't know. I was just supposed to write an essay." I can now ask leading questions to discover what kind of "essay" they were to write.

How I learned to stop worrying and love English essays

                I think I can credit my university level writing to three professors I had that taught the 2000 level survey courses that were required for all English majors at University of Wyoming. The classes, in theory, were designed as a sampler of literature from Beowulf to late 20^th century novels, but, in practice, were the place that a lot of the stronger elements of writing were developed.  My 1010 and 2010 were taken as online classes that, in retrospect, were not really worth the money I paid. I got A’s on almost everything without effort, but if I were to look at them now I would surely cringe.

                The first survey, covering Anglo-Saxon poetry through the Restoration era, was taught by Carolyn Anderson. She taught me an important lesson about writing a paper that actually says something by tearing apart the first paper I turned in. It was an analysis of a Shakespearean sonnet, focusing on wordplay and double meanings. I can’t remember the number off the top of my head but the opening line “Farewell, thou art too dear for my possessing” could mean that the object is so beloved by the author that keeping them is an injustice, or the costs of maintaining the lifestyle desired by the object is ruinous. I basically did a close read on the two interpretations and though I did a hell of a job, but was horrified when I got a C- on the paper. She did allow rewrites, so I went in to ask if I could save the paper. The question she asked changed how I write papers, “The poem has two meanings. So?” this was the first time I ever really thought about essays in this manner. Yeah, the analysis was good, but what was the point? I reworked the paper, adding a general argument that, “Shakespeare wrote this as a commentary on the duality within relationships, that they have emotional elements and pragmatic elements” or something of that sort. Not the strongest, but it bumped the paper to a B and I learned about the purpose of writing.

                The second survey was English Romanticism and early American writing through mid 19^th century, finishing with Moby Dick. Eric Nye taught me a very important lesson, although not one usually mentioned in classes. He is a man that loves literature, even tearing up while reading Wordsworth in class. He taught me that the best writing comes from something that you care about, and finding that connection improves your papers. I don’t think I had ever ENJOYED writing essays before I had that class, but he pushed us to find topics we cared about enough to want to share with everyone.  

                The final survey, focusing on the last one hundred and fifty years of literature, was taught by Robert Torry. The classes he usually taught were the senior and graduate level theory classes, so quite a bit of that seeped into this one. This is where I really fell into New Historicism as my preferred style, as I expanded my analysis with research in the historical context of my subjects. I spent more time reading about the 20’s than reading The Great Gatsby(yeah, I know, a difficult feat), and the resulting paper had more to do with the era than the novel. I really got into the idea that any work is an artifact of its time and it had really stuck with me in my writing.

                Any time I write a paper, something from one of these three classes comes back to me.  I have these three to thank for actually shaping me into a better university level writer. 

Gary Lindeburg