Liam's English Blog

December 3-7         This week contained my final tutoring hours for this semester, and I saw several friends, as well as new faces, during my sessions. However, instead of evaluating these last minute papers and what I may or may not have learned from them, I'd rather take the time I'm using to write this blog to reflect on what I learned and experienced during this semester as a whole, as it was the first time I've worked in the writing center, and even as a tutor in any official capacity.         The going wasn't easy at the start - I had a few sessions where a student came in with a problem and I didn't have an immediate answer for them. But it was those selfsame sessions that taught me the most important lessons during this growing period. I still remember trying to advise one student on a paper they had to write for a Philosophy of Dance class. I knew nothing about the philosophy of dance, but by utilizing a general tutoring method, I w...

November 26-30          This week was the first back from break, but was also, understandably, lighter than the Monday, and week, prior to Thanksgiving Break. It would seem that the majority of people who found use in the services of the writing center, did so before the break so they could work on their assignments during that time of feasting and festivity. However, I still found a few appointments this week - at least one appointment with the ELL I have described in earlier blogs, as well as a friend who came in on Friday with questions on an English paper. Nothing particularly interesting occurred in either of these sessions as far as questions go, but I will cover them nonetheless.           The session I had with the ELL student was standard as to how we have been running our sessions the past three or so times they have come to see me. They give me a quick synopsis of their paper, usually communications, and I read through it...

November 19-20         This week was severely shortened due to the impending break on Wednesday, but I still managed to get several appointments on Monday. In fact, two of my appointments were with an ELL student, however their English was at a much higher level than the ELL student I had last Monday. Since they took the majority of my time, I will be focusing on this student and their work - as the last student I had just wanted me to look over a quick proposal assignment.         The ELL student came in for both a 1:00 and 3:15 appointment, which I was actually amused by since my 3:15 had been clear until after my session with them. According to them, after our first session, they had turned in their paper to their professor and gotten an A - so naturally they felt like the dialogue we had was helpful, and immediately came back for help on another paper.         With that said, I will discuss the type of help the stude...

November 12-16        This will be a somewhat shorter post than usual as I was too ill to come into work on Friday, a result of a nasty fainting spell I had the morning of, which left me horribly nauseated. However, Monday was full of appointments, and while most of them were just the same assignment four times, my first appointment that day was the most unique, and quite coincidental. We had just learned on Sunday how to go about a session with an English Language Learner (ELL), and so I was a bit panicked when my first appointment on Monday was just such a student who needed help with her English grammar and sentence structure.          As a natural English speaker myself, it took a moment of assessing both the paper and assignment for me to get a grasp on how to most effectively help the student with their work. Obviously I couldn't just tell them what was right and wrong, but in some cases the English was so mixed up, it was hard for...

November 5-9       This week was incredibly busy with every one of my appointments filled, and plenty of walk-ins to fill in if I managed to wrap up a session quickly. There are three major things I want to discuss this time: scheduling miscalculations, the student that knew too much, and consultant's fatigue.        Starting simply, as soon as I started my shift at 1:00 PM on Monday, I had two students who claimed to have an appointment with me - one was a new student with a technical business paper on AI, the other was a returning student that I had seen twice before. The matter created some confusion for me, which I resolved as best I could and things did end amiably, but I thought it worth mentioning. I had checked my appointments that morning, but only knew that I had an appointment at 1:00; I didn't know who it was with. Regardless, I ascertained who could wait and who couldn't and handled things in a timely fashion.       ...

October 29 - November 2           This week in the writing center was quite busy, much to my delighted surprise. Monday saw two students come to see me, one of which I will be discussing later, and Friday saw a full schedule of appointments - a repeat tutee among them, which in itself is refreshing to see. First off, let's talk about Monday's session. The predominant issue in the paper that the student who came to see me on Monday had was sheer word count. They had a paper that was more than three hundred words over the required maximum. Additionally, they needed help with Chicago style citations, but one short trip to Purdue fixed that quickly enough. No, the struggle that I found was trying to help this student cut out useless language from their paper, and consolidate extra lines of summary without sacrificing meaning or analysis.             I noticed while helping in this way that such an exercise is far more difficul...

October 22 - 26       This week was busier than prior weeks have been by a rather large margin, which was honestly quite refreshing. My two sessions on Monday, however, were perhaps the most significant. The first of the two sessions turned out to be a dual session in which two students came in with the same assignment, and so I decided to consolidate the two of them into one session to save on time, as I knew I had a 2:00 appointment just after them. The material we covered was actually quite simple, as they just needed help with clarifying the order of their citations along with some specifics to MLA citations. One example was a question on how to cite a chapter in a book or even a photograph. What I found enjoyable about this session was how it progressed. Both students were incredibly talkative and cooperative with me, and I found the whole experience quite enjoyable as I would help one of them with a citation and as they were working on that or looking something u...

October 19        This week was a different story from the usual, as it was just a half week due to Fall break. The fact that this half week also comes just after most midterms have completed leaves little in the way of reason for students to seek a consultant's assistance. As such, I did not receive any appointments on the one day, Friday, that I worked - and thus have little to mention in regards of what I learned or experienced this week.        All that said, however, I did notice three students who were here for observations of a writing consultant - fulfilling a requirement for an English class I believe. Their presence got me thinking about the mentees that I have still yet to see for a big research project in ENGL 339WI - a prerequisite for becoming a writing consultant. I recall having some excitement to fulfill this role, but it may seem that whatever mentees I was supposed to be advising had quite the opposite opinion, or at the ve...

October 8-12        Slow week in the writing center this week, however I did have a tutee on Friday that brought up an incredibly pertinent question that I had not considered to be a problem here at CNU. The student was a Freshman enrolled in English 123, the basic starting class, but was having trouble with her professor. She couldn't seem to write a thesis that her professor was willing to deem "acceptable." The real issue arises when I looked at her past theses and heard her explain her class situation to me: I agreed with her and honestly had trouble understanding why her professor was teaching the way they were.         This brings to light my weekly question: what to do when our understanding of how to help someone be a better writer directly conflicts with what a professor is telling them to do? This came primarily in the form of how the student's professor was telling her to write a thesis. It was too rigid and uncompromising, forcing...

October 1-5       This week in the writing center was relatively slow. I only saw one student in six hours of working. As a direct result, I had quite a bit of time to think about our prior meeting last Sunday and the concerns that it raised. However, before discussing any of these, I want to discuss the short meeting (for it only lasted about 20 of the allotted 45 minutes) that I had with a student on Monday. It was near the end of my shift, and the student came in with a graded paper full of professor comments, as well as a revised paper for our (the student and I) review.        I immediately noticed the professor as one I had taken in the past, and when the student began detailing the professor's hard stance on things like "be verbs" and "passive voice" and "cliches," I understood completely. Having some experience with these kind of nitpicking habits, I gave what I considered to be good advice when revising several areas of her paper - sugges...

September 24-28           This week in the writing center was far more lively than the last. Not only did I receive more clients, but I believe that I have found my first big concern as a writing consultant, and that revolves, for the most part, in how people unaccustomed to how a writing session should proceed view their writing consultant. To elaborate on this, many, if not all, of my clients so far have been Freshman. This is certainly good to see, as it means that they are seeking help with their writing, and I'm always eager to assist, but what concerns me is how deeply they hang off my every word.            As a student, I'm the last person who should have the power to dictate right from wrong, especially in writing which is a medium in which "right" might as well just be translated to "academic" as any form of expressive writing can follow quite nearly any form one chooses. But, to the point, I have to really try  ...

September 17-21         As the first full week of tutoring comes to a close, it's time to take a step back and really look at everything that happened.  Monday was a slog in every ounce of the word's meaning. I did not receive a single tutee for the entire four hour period. While this was somewhat upsetting, it freed me up to, along with doing homework for other classes, contemplate what I would have to be ready to help with should someone actually schedule an appointment with me. My main concerns typically fell on the kind of feedback I would give to someone who just is not understanding me or who wants me to do more than I can/should. I haven't had this experience yet, but I had plenty of tutees on Friday, filling every possible vacancy in my shift that I had.          Now a few of these were just quick questions, "Can you help me understand this assignment?" or, "I have half my paper written, but it doesn't sound very good to me....

Summary            The reading for this week focused primarily on both generalist and specialist tutor styles in the writing center; what they are and how they can affect a tutor's ability to instruct effectively. Our other reading served mainly to provide a list of tips on how to go about writing, including: examples of how to get started, how to make your writing more intricate, and how to get past the surface level of writing (spelling, grammar, etc.). While the latter reading presents a helpful tool for new writers, I believe that the prior reading, that which focused on generalist and specialist tutors, deserves the most summary. To elaborate on these styles, a generalist tutor is one who knows little to nothing about the materials, terms, etc. outside of his/her major, but instead asks leading questions in an indirect tutoring style. This helps them treat the student as the expert of their work and avoid taking control of their paper. Specialist ...

Summary           The readings for this week centered on the two styles of tutoring in the writing center, directive and nondirective, as well as feelings of guilt in tutors over how a session played out. The first reading that pertained more heavily to this feeling of guilt covered Jennifer Nicklay's short essay in which she gathered data via surveys to other writing center consultants in an attempt to better understand why her colleagues were expressing feelings of guilt after sessions. After writing a literature review to better explain the meaning behind her concepts of directive tutoring and collaboration, Nicklay explains the results of her survey and how it helps determine the reasons for these guilty feelings. She comes to the conclusion that most tutors believe that collaboration in these tutoring sessions is a peer to peer effort, but feel guilty as they, the consultants, can be seen as experts in the field by their peers, effectively dismantling th...

Summary:        The reading for this week handled several different topics. It began with the identity behind every writer, how tutors can and should address these differing identities, as well as giving a few examples of tutors that have been put in these identifying situations. The focus then shifted towards multilingual writers and how tutors can best assist them in their writing. The reading emphasized one-on-one tutoring as opposed to a classroom setting, as this helps multilingual writers focus on what they need to fix or work on in their own writing, allowing them to go at their own pace. Additionally, the text urged tutors to: get acquainted with the writers, consider nonverbal cues, ask the writers what they want to work on and how, etc. Near the end of the reading, the text shifts towards covering tutoring men/women with disabilities such as deafness, dyslexia, and Attention-Deficit Disorder. In this case, the text advises that tutors be mindful and r...

        Summary:          This week's reading was very much centered on motivational tactics and the different types of motivation. The essay primarily covered the relationship between two students and how the three types of motivation played a role in the tutoring process they underwent. These three types of motivation are: amotivation, intrinsic motivation, and extrinsic motivation. Starting with amotivation, this is everything that discourages someone from performing a particular action. Such is defined as th e belief that adapted strategies will not produce a desired outcome, that a particular skill level is not high enough, and other such amotivational ideas. On the other side of the spectrum is intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. These types of motivation are exactly what they sound like; intrinsic motivation is focused on internal aspects, such as doing something because you want to do it, whereas extrinsic motivation is focused on...

This week's reading focused primarily on the fundamentals of tutoring and how to tutor effectively. Such a responsibility includes being on task and interested in the material you as a tutor are trying to teach, as well as practicing active listening as a means to facilitate better communication. There are many steps that go into being an effective tutor, such as being ethical, professional, and flexible with those you are tutoring, but a tutor must also be willing to learn on the job as there will always be situations with which you may have no or little experience. In these cases, using what you know as a tutor to adapt and advise is the best you can do. However, it would be best for a tutor to avoid using a corrective style because while this may be useful in the short term, the tutee learns much less as a result of trying to handle their paper quickly. Instead a tutor must take the time to hear their troubles and difficulties and then present a solution through carefully consid...

To my understanding, the reading focused on the reasons for having peer tutoring, as well as why peer tutoring is a beneficial method of teaching. Something I liked in particular about it was the way it questioned, and subsequently answered, why peer tutoring is an effective method of teaching. Not only does this form of teaching benefit those who do not quite understand the material, but in teaching it to others it helps reinforce the material in the minds of the peers doing the teaching. In this way, the text explains to us how peer tutoring is not simply, "the blind leading the blind," but rather students explaining concepts in a language their peers can understand. A question that this poses, however, is the matter of what is the most effective teaching environment if tutoring is such a progressive method of instruction. Does the success of tutoring create a smaller demand for more learned instructors, as all it seems to take is one instructor and several students that gr...

After nine years of writing stories, I see myself as an adaptive writer. I mostenjoy writing fantasy short stories, expressing my knowledge of our world through new characters and environments of my own design. Early memories of writing come closer to writing full short stories, as I used to avoid something if I couldn’t do it perfectly. That in itself became a roadblock when it can’t to essays, but as I’ve said, I am an adaptive writer. After consultation with teachers and peers, I learned to broaden my writing ability. This also helped me develop a mantra for dealing with stress, which is: No matter what it is. It. Will. Pass.