Volume II of Reflections is dedicated to Daniel Beall. May your next steps lead you to happiness. And may you always go crazy. Some People —by Charles Bukowski some people never go crazy. me, sometimes I’ll lie down behind the couch for 3 or 4 days. they’ll find me there. it’s Cherub, they’ll say, and they pour wine down my throat rub my chest sprinkle me with oils. then, I’ll rise with a roar, rant, rage — curse them and the universe as I send them scattering over the lawn. I’ll feel much better, sit down to toast and eggs, hum a little tune, suddenly become as lovable as a pink overfed whale. some people never go crazy. what truly horrible lives they must lead.
Andrew Magrath Angie Saunders Ben Rafferty Cami Barber Corrie Tate Daniel Beall Emilia Kandl Jess Beck Jon Silvey Katelynne Shepard Kellie Thompson Morgan Cole Nathan Floom Robin Clark Sandy Dent Steven Fregeau
Andrew Magrath
Old Dog in Search of New Tricks
1
Angie Saunders
Technology and the Writing Center
5
Ben Rafferty
What the Hell is an Article? Grammar and Conversing with ELL Students
8 13
Corrie Tate
Personal Narrative — performance evaluation 2016
15
Daniel Beall
A Vision for the ELL Lab
18
Emilia Kandl
In it for the Long Haul: Long-Term-Minded Tutoring at a Two-Year College
26
Jon Silvey
Sustained Tutoring
33
Katelynne Shepard
When Peer Reviews Aren’t
37
Morgan Cole
Building Confidence
41
Nathan Floom
Make It New
46
Robin Clark
Robin’s Untitled Performance Review Paper
51
Sandy Dent
Oh, and by the Way Leah; I Think I’ll Retire
54
Steven Fregeau
Is This Therapy?
57
Old Dog in Search of New Tricks Andrew Magrath This has been a weird semester for me. I normally spend much of my time wrestling with best practices and theory. I find that struggle rewarding and am never happier than when given a problem to think about and experiment with for as long as I see fit. Sure, I tend to come back to the same issues over and over, but I don't mind because I feel like I get a little better at understanding the issue/s with each pass. So this semester was particularly difficult given everything that was going on with me. I came back to the writing center in not a particularly a good headspace. At the end of Fall semester, I lost my grandfather very suddenly. It was followed by the slow decline and loss of my grandmother during Summer semester. Back-to-back deaths left me starting Spring at the lowest point I've ever begun a semester. I was unable to find any real enthusiasm for much of anything, let alone work. My syllabi are usually done and printed a week ahead of the first day of class. This semester, I could barely string them together in the final days. To make matters worse, one of my classes fell through, and I was scrambling to make ends meet, which is when the Writing Center (as it has so often done) saved my bacon. Still, being depressed and stressed was not exactly the strongest way to start a semester. When I opened Angel again, it was very obvious that I was rusty at the job. Having not tutored in several semesters and my scholarship having lapsed, I struggled to remember some of the basics in terms of reporting, how to finagle Angle into doing something even resembling what you want it to do, and just tutoring in 1
general. The cherry on top was, having grown comfortable in a directive professor-role, that I worried that I'd struggle to re-engage the virtues of our peer-tutoring approach. I am very lucky that in all of this I got to work with high school kids online. They are, pretty much, the best. When I came to Stark State back in 2007, I was coming from Oberlin. All of the sessions I had there worked just like they do in our most unrealistic journal articles. At the Oberlin center, the tutor need only ask a single open-ended question and the tutee would talk for fifteen to thirty minutes--just like how all of the sessions miraculously seem to work in every published papers and case study! So there was a great deal of culture shock for me, as you may recall, adapting to the needs of our student body. I firmly believe that Stark State's sessions can be just as rewarding, if not more so, as my old sessions at Oberlin, but how one approaches and creates that environment is very different. That took time to get better, and I was afraid coming back that I had lost a step. Hence, the joy of working with high school kids. By in large, the high school kids are a treat to work with. They are incredibly engaged, clearly having given both the session and their paper a great deal of thought beforehand, and often have a plan coming in setting the pace and the agenda. Who could ask for more? It was very nice to have these clients out of the gate coming back. They helped me get my sea legs again and fall back into the swing of things. What's more, their enthusiasm is infectious. My melancholy at the beginning of the semester was brushed aside whenever I worked with these students. When you establish an obvious connection and really feel like you are collaborating with someone as they build themselves into 2
a stronger, more confident writer, it's hard to feel indifferent to anything. It was nice to work with students that wanted to be there for more than just the slip. What also helped was the permission to cut loose on argumentation and really press students, per instructors' requests. Getting to do my favorite thing with the express permission of an instructor? What's not to love about that! I had a fantastic session with a high school student about the nature of arguments. She explained that she was primarily a fiction writer and struggled with academic tone and style. We got to have a really enjoyable conversation about the difference between persuasion and argumentation. I mentioned that plenty of terrible arguments are incredibly persuasive— argumentum ad baculum got thrown about. Another great aspect of tutoring online is you tend to see the same people again and again. Seeing the growth this tutee has made going from only having the personalesque narrative in her quiver to being able to craft a solid argumentative essay reminds me of the impact the Writing Center has on lives. I struggle in my teaching practice to find the balance between teaching content and advancing student ability/craft. As a tutor, my job is more straightforward, and that has helped make a big difference. It is incredibly refreshing to see real progress made and not go through professorial reflective handwringing on if I could have struck a better balance between content and ability. What I also found upon my return is that my original online database had not aged well. Aspects of it had lost functionality and other areas were no longer needed. I've always been proud of the database as I believe quantitative analysis is nearly always superior to qualitative analysis (because I'm a monster). Knowing that I helped provide the WC with quantitative tools has 3
always been something I think of as my greatest contribution. So when I found things in the state they were in, the first thing I thought was this is going to be fixed before I leave. I'm proud of the new system I built. I took everything I learned from the previous versions, and made a more focuses, and I believe, resilient database. By locking many of the cells, the formulae should now be less likely to be corrupted adding staying power. Interestingly enough, the hardest feature to implement was Cami's request to have excused no-shows. This turned out to be far more difficult than I thought it would be, and I thought about throwing in the tower several times, but I like the feature and anything worth doing is worth doing to the best of your ability. I got the feature working and am really pleased with how it worked out. The more focused no-show only database is more user friendly, better displays the information, and (I hope) serve the writing center until the next eclectically skilled rhet/comp, philosophy, physics employee comes along and builds an even better mousetrap. This has been a tough semester at its start, but I'm happy to be back in the Writing Center. It turns out I've really missed it.
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Technology and the Writing Center Angie Saunders “How do I double-space this?” “How do I save this document?” “How do I open Microsoft Word?” “How do I make these weird marks go away?” “I hit a button, and my paper is gone!” We’ve all had those sessions that seem to revolve around technology and how to effectively utilize it. Technology is becoming more ingrained into the fabric of the Writing Center, but it can sometimes be difficult to fully embrace its benefits because so many of our students do not possess basic computer skills. I often feel like I spend more time teaching students how to indent a paragraph or hit the backspace button than I do actually discussing the content of their papers. This leads to frustration for me and the student, as well lost session time. Over the past several years, technology has become intertwined with writing, and because of this, writing centers are seeing an increase in projects that go beyond the traditional typed essay. According to John Trimbur in “Multiliteracies, Social Futures, and Writing Centers,” the new digital literacies will increasingly be incorporated into writing centers not just as sources of information or delivery systems for tutoring but as productive arts in their own right, and writing center work will, if anything, become more rhetorical in paying attention to the practices and effects of design in written and visual communication—more product oriented and perhaps less like the composing conferences of the process movement (30). It has been over fifteen years since the publication of Trimbur’s article, and observations are even timelier 5
now. This semester, I have been seeing projects spanning the gamut from PowerPoint presentations to glossy business portfolios. On top of that, I’m seeing more and more written assignments using Google Docs and more students using “time saver” citation tools to document their sources.
So, where does this leave both student writers and the writing assistants who have to help them navigate all the ever-changing sea of computers and software and websites? And more importantly, what responsibility do writing assistants have to keep abreast of changing technology and to teach students the ins and outs of computer applications? I’m not sure I have an ironclad answer to this question, but over the course of this semester, I’ve encountered more technology-driven questions than ever before. I’ve helped students struggle with Angel and fight with their e-mails and figure out how to incorporate graphics and tables and Smart Art into their written projects. I’ve had to calm several students down after the paper they were sure they saved turns out to be absent from their flash drives. I don’t mind doing these things, and even when it’s an unfamiliar program, I can generally figure it out. But I feel like technology-driven questions are competing for space and time with writing-oriented questions. Quite often, twenty minutes have passed before a student figures out where on Angel an assignment sheet is or where they saved their paper. By that time, I can only brush the surface of their actual written assignment before I have to move on to another appointment. This is a recurring area of frustration for me. The task, then—particularly with students who have been out of school for many years and have no real experience with computers and other writing-oriented technology—is managing students’ technological is 6
sues while still giving the content of their papers the attention they deserve. One obvious way to handle this at least part of this problem is for writing assistants to continuously familiarize themselves with popular writing-oriented technology and websites. While I personally dislike Google Docs, I’ve been exploring it with the goal of better being able to advise students who use it. But… regardless of our familiarity with computers and programs and websites, this still leaves us with the task of sharing that knowledge with students who are struggling. We’re still left with the problem of frustration and lost session minutes. One suggestion I have is to come up with Microsoft Word and Google Docs fact sheets. They could be arranged as FAQ sheets (highlighting questions we see most frequently), or we could simply list a handful of basic skills (doublespacing, saving the document). This way, we could have something to give students that would offset the technology-oriented questions and allow using a modicum of focus on other matters. Technology has the capacity to bolster writing assignments, enhance the writing experience, and create new dimensions to the idea of a narrative. At the same time, technology and its impact on student writing and writing sessions is not without its problems. As new technologies develop, writing assistants will continue to adapt to their presence. Works Cited Glasbergen, Randy. Illustration. Trimbur, John. “Multiliteracies, Social Futures, and Writing Centers.” Writing Center Journal 20.2 Print. (2000): 29-31.
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What the Hell is an Article? Grammar and Conversing with ELL Students Ben Rafferty For the past two semesters, I’ve had the opportunity to work much closer with ELL (English Language Learner) students than I ever had before. With the opening of the ELL Lab, I’ve worked with these students in ways that I never thought I would, opening up an area of my tutoring that I always thought was lacking. It’s an understandable fear for a writing assistant, as the problems faced by ELL students are often greater, or at least more complex, than our average clientele; they may have similar issues with developing ideas, research topics, adjusting to an academic environment, etc., but on top of that is a lack of the innate awareness of the English language that their native speaking peers possess. Even native students who approach the definition of “illiterate” (and we see our fair share of those, especially downtown) have an understanding of the language just through verbal communication and cultural awareness that non-native students do not have. ELL students who are incredibly bright may be able to overcome some of this, but it is still a barrier to overcome, even for them. Take a student who is unfamiliar with an academic environment, doesn’t have a base of American cultural knowledge, may also have learning disabilities, and who has a language barrier, and it’s a veritable quagmire of issues that both writing assistants and instructors can only begin to navigate. However, hope is not lost. The Writing Center (and its sister, the ELL Lab) is in a unique position to help the student start to peel back these layers. And there is one natural, unavoidable place to start, a place that our instincts often tell us to shy away from: grammar. 8
We are taught and encouraged to focus on higherorder concerns. What this means, effectively, is that we are to focus more on the overall ideas, the general flow, or the concepts of a student’s essay. These things, we’re told, are more important than grammar or punctuation, that as long as a student is able to express him or herself, those things will follow. The ideas, the expressions of emotion or thought are of most importance. This is an admirable line of thinking, and one that I generally try to adhere to. Obviously, we want all students to find their voices, to be able to say things they never thought they could say, to dream the biggest dreams, and all that fluffy stuff. But what if the student doesn’t yet have a voice to be found? Or she has one, but it’s lost in her native tongue? We must always consider how to best help students find their voices, and with ELL students, the reality is that grammar is a necessary step toward those higher-order concerns. The student may be a beautiful writer in her native language, but without the ability to navigate the English language, we may never know that. This is why it is imperative to never assume superiority over an ELL student, but to help guide them, just like we would with any other student. I’ve seen many examples of this in the ELL Lab. One student, Lora, is a beautiful writer, occasionally able to use turns of phrase that would put many native speakers to shame. But she has worked hard to get there, and has received a lot of help along the way. To be fair, she started off a pretty strong speaker of English, but the written word has been a struggle for her; she is also a great student, one who has the time and ability to put in the necessary effort to get to this point. Even a strong student like her needs help; students who aren’t as adept may need even more. Just like any other student, it is our job to parse out how to best help, the only difference is that grammar tutorials should absolutely be an option. 9
None of this is to say we should feel obligated to go through a student’s entire paper to help him or her edit it. As I wrote about last year, it is important to not burden ourselves or the students. Pinpointing one or two key issues can provide something to focus on. This might be hard if the paper is very difficult to read, but even just going over parts of speech, for instance, can be valuable for an English learner. More often though, the ELL students we see are coming in with some base of English, so their specific issues may be pretty easy to define. Yes, as my title alludes to, discussing articles (a, an, the) could be a particularly valuable lesson, as many other languages do not have such a thing. If the tutor determines that the student grasps one grammatical concept, going through other issues in the paper can be appropriate, as long as neither party gets overwhelmed. The key here though, the thing that I feel separates this from simply editing, is that we make sure to explain the reason for every single change, and to try to get the student to correct the next instance of that issue herself. As Blau, Hall, Davis, and Gravitz allude to in their study of the differences in ESL session tutorial records, using the same collaborative, Socratic method employed in traditional sessions, but applying it to a grammar lesson, is the best of both worlds: In a describing a transcript from an effective ESL session, “Notice that the tutor used a combination of both didactic and Socratic methods—leading statements and open-ended questions—to help the writer create a very clear sentence” (3). Simply explaining why it should be “He went to the store” instead of “He go at store,” instead of simply telling the student, is key to making this seemingly lower-order concern something to add to the student’s English tool belt, providing a new way to use his or her written voice. Of course, this does mean that we have to be able to explain the why. 10
Many writing assistants have expressed worry about dealing with ELL students because they don’t feel they “know” grammar well enough to explain it to someone else. This leads to panic, and a tendency to just quickly move along to the next grammatical issue. As Purcell says, “It is much easier to provide a needed word than to explain such elements of the English language as the tricky usage rules for articles” (2). A writing assistant will likely know when something is wrong, but don’t know how to explain why. Take comfort in knowing: this is completely fine. I have found that one of the best tactics for dealing with this issue is to be totally and completely honest with the student, admitting that I don’t know the reason for something. However, the key is to use this as a learning opportunity (for both parties). Look the rule up – there’s something called the internet that can help with this – and chances are we’ll be able to offer extra insight just by reading over a quick explanation with the student. This, along with admitting that things like articles often don’t make a lot of sense, is a great way to build rapport with students, and to ease some of their anxiety about the English language. After all, if native speakers don’t have all the answers (even the “experts” like us), then they certainly shouldn’t feel bad. Learning together with them is a great way to spend time in a session. We’re not wasting time by not looking at the paper, we’re giving them more tools to function in an unfamiliar environment. Sometimes the best course of action with an ELL student is simply to talk. Asking about their assignment is a great place to start. Find out if they’re able to explain it; if not, that is another great way to spend time in a session – just going over the assignment sheet. Indeed, even if the student has a full draft of the paper written, if she isn’t able to explain the assignment, there’s a good chance she may have written it under false pre11
tenses. Helping students decode meaning is imperative to their overall development as speakers. “[A]n important part of the writing process for the ESL learner is to be able to articulate the assignment in order to understand and internalize the concepts, to communicate these concepts clearly to a native speaker, and thereby to ‘own’ the understanding...having the student communicate it clearly will continue to be a timeconsuming but essential part of the tutoring process for non-native speakers” (Blau, Hall, Davis, and Gravitz 2). However, sometimes the best way to spend a session is just to talk about culture – American culture, their culture, and everything in between. This can offer the student more than we can often imagine. Going off on any and every tangent with them is often very rewarding. Again, it’s an opportunity for learning to take place for both parties. For students, this exchange of cultural information offers a “better understand the idiosyncratic cultural expectations of their American audience, which is of central importance in effective writing” (Blau, Hall, Davis, and Gravitz 2-3). Also, letting a student discuss his or her own culture greatly “strengthens the rapport between tutor and student, allowing for more confident, constructive criticism on the tutor’s part and improved writing on the student’s part” (Blau, Hall, Davis, and Gravitz 3). Just recently, in a session with an ELL student working on a research paper, the topic of libraries came up. I asked if she’d tried going to a public library at all; she seemed baffled that I would even ask this question, and asked if there were any around, to which I offered a few examples, and said that they’re great sources of free information. “Free?” she replied. Come to find out, in her home country of India, libraries are decidedly not free. She explained that while they are open to the public, it is rare for people/students to use them because getting out books is costly. The simple idea of being able to 12
check out books, movies, etc. for free completely opened up her world, and she was very grateful that we had the conversation. These cultural conversations don’t have to be particularly “academic” either. Last semester, I had a great conversation with an ELL student about Star Trek. We’d started by talking about her assignment, and she was very confused by it; it was for a cultural diversity class, and she had to respond to an article which made the case for Star Trek being the perfect American myth. I asked her if she knew what Star Trek was, and she replied, “A movie?” This led to a lengthy conversation about Star Trek, the history of American television, and science fiction. We watched some clips, looked at pictures, and discussed terminology like “reboot” and “series.” Obviously, not all native speakers even know that much about Star Trek either, but this was not someone who’d maybe heard about Kirk or Spock before, this was someone who didn’t know that Star Trek was a television show, let alone one so important and iconic in American culture. She didn’t really even have much of an understanding of science fiction, as it’s simply not prevalent in her home country of Iran. She was happy to soak in this information, and while I don’t expect her to be showing up at any Trekkie conventions anytime soon, it helped fill in a cultural gap, and she was grateful for it. Having these sorts of seemingly superfluous conversations also has the benefit of modeling English speaking for the student, and giving them an opportunity to practice that valuable skill. ELL sessions are not easy. This is obvious. But they don’t have to burdensome or scary either. By narrowing in on key issues, being willing to discuss grammar, learning with a student, and simply providing them with someone to fill the role of cultural confidant, we can give non-native speakers the same kinds of tools to 13
grow as a writer that we would any other student. Sometimes all they need is someone to count on in a world that is wholly unfamiliar to them, someone who won’t judge them or condescend to them. Sometimes the only thing we need to provide them with is another human being who is willing to admit that articles are kind of silly. Works Cited Blau, Susan R., John Hall, Jeff Davis, and Lauren Gravitz. “Tutoring ESL students: A different kind of session.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 25.10 (2001): 1-4. Web. 7 April 2016. Purcell, Katharine C. “Making sense of the meaning: ESL and the writing center.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 22.6 (1998): 1-5. Web. 7 April 2016.
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Personal Narrative — performance evaluation 2016 Corrie Tate
Over the course of the last year, I feel that I have grown as a tutor. I have been working more both at main campus and the downtown satellite which has helped me learn more about the student base. In the fall semester, I was able to absorb many of Andrew’s shifts at the downtown campus. This was more than I had worked at the downtown campus in the past and became an eye opening experience. In the past, I had only worked one shift at the downtown campus. It was an evening shift, and there were rarely students coming in for help by the time my shift started. Taking on a larger role downtown meant more student contact. The student base downtown relies heavily on community. If they have not worked with you in the past, they do not trust working with you. They prefer to work with the same tutor they always have. They have learned to trust the opinion of that tutor. They have also built a relationship with that tutor that allows them to have an understanding of what types of help are needed. Being the newcomer to the downtown satellite meant that I would have to use my opportunities wisely to build the trust of the community. At first, I was used primarily as a receptionist for the other tutors. As time went on I was given more opportunities to work with students and I began to build the trust that is needed. This is a process that takes time and patience for both the student and the tutor. The students become used to an unspoken understanding with the tutor. This makes it hard for the student to communicate with a new individual. They can become very frustrated and will ask for a different tutor if they do not 15
feel they are being understood as they express their needs. This becomes overwhelming for all of the individuals involved. The downtown student base is also very different in their approach to asking for help. They do not tend to schedule appointments. They will simply pop in and ask for help as it is needed. There is not a particular time limit or expectation assigned to the sessions. This makes recording appointments downtown difficult at times. For many students, it is typically a matter of asking a very specific question, letting the tutor know that is all that is needed for now, and stopping back in when they have another question. The student may stay for several hours and work independently for the majority of that time. This student needs to simply understand that help is available if it is needed. The student does not necessarily want a tutor to review the body of the paper, for example, they may only want help with the citation. In this example, the tutor needs to remain willing to help and understand not to take the student’s need for independence personally. Many times the concerns of the student are recurringespecially as technology is concerned. For example, the same student may need help printing the same materials each week. Many students need help saving to their flash drive in the morning, and then locating the file again later in the day. Technology is something that frustrates the students. The tutor needs to remain patient and understanding. It is important to not get frustrated with the student; they are already frustrated enough. Over the course of the year I feel as though I have been able to build relationships with many of the students in the downtown campus. I have been able to build trust 16
and understand the needs of many of the students. I have been able to find new ways to help the students and have learned the value of patience and understanding. I have been slowly accepted as a part of the community and hope to continue to build trust and understanding with many more of the students as the summer semester begins.
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A Vision for the ELL Lab Daniel Beall It has been one of my greatest pleasures to be involved in the beginnings of the Lab and to be offered a great deal of autonomy to do what I think is best in assisting this unique student population. Having a sort of blank canvas to work with brings up the old problems of the artist; first, that any initial effort you make is bound to be followed by decisions based on that initial effort, the equivalent in writing being that once you’ve decided on a thesis, all further reasonings should point to such, so your thesis better be somewhat true to begin with. The other old problem of the artist is that your capability is always trailing behind your vision. Vision is always ahead of execution, and like the piano player who hears the music so much better in his head than he can actually play, this is something he must get used to, and resist being stuck in the place where he doubts his own ability to fulfill the vision, paralyzed by the assumption that no one will appreciate it even if he does. Thankfully, my recent decisions have removed me from all of these struggles at Stark State to focus on teaching itself, as I head off to Ecuador to improve in those skills again. As someone who cares very much about the future of ELLs at Stark State, I want to write a little about how I saw and still see the ELL lab. My vision is necessarily idealistic, detached from myself, and open to interpretation. I can only offer what I would someday like to see the ELL lab become, what I think its true potential is. I imagine walking into the Lab in ten years’ time. From outside, I can already hear the chatter through the door. The large room is divided into two sections, one for quiet studying and one where students are free to 18
congregate. There are a few groups of students. One group sits working quietly, with a tutor supervising. Another group is absorbed in self-study, using our resources to simply practice English vocabulary. A few students are using our computers to call home, a few others are practicing reading comprehension. The last group is receiving a grammar lesson over one particular point from the lab supervisor, lessons that are scheduled weekly. There is a large bookcase of resources off to one side, containing one or two shelves of tutor created research as well as books on theory, a collected research library that strengthens as the years go on. A file cabinet contains folders that each student can use as a portfolio of language work, as tutors have been helping them set goals in language learning and the student’s folder is a record of benchmarks set and achieved. Everyone is happy, serene, learning. This short essay is framed on the wall. You get the idea‌ On first glance, the similarities between this place and the Writing Center are apparent. But these places are crucially different, and further research will show the how and why of that. What we know now is that the one-on-one that the lab offers is one thing that is crucial to language learning. This is something that, as it develops, categorizes the lab not as simply a support, but the very place of learning itself. The reevaluation of the differences between the WC and the ELL lab should be ongoing. I am not trying to say that the WC’s function is simply that of support for other classes, but I am trying to say that the WC functions as more of a support for the other classes than the lab would, in theory. Even if we someday get a full-fledged English language program at the college, the lab will, more often than not, function as the place where learning starts, working in 19
tandem with classes but never viewed as simply a resource to succeed in those classes. Maybe it’s stupid to compare the WC and the ELL lab. But then, why are our reading comprehension classes not under the English department? Where does the skill of “listening” fall under our expertise? There are so many questions. But one of the conclusions we can draw from this important dialogue is the necessity for a fully trained-inESL staff/faculty that can even have an informed dialogue like this, a staff/faculty that can create the appropriate questions moving forward, further refining the thesis. Leah Schell-Barber has done the hard work of creating a job description that will hopefully, eventually, attract a lab supervisor that will function as research head. The lab supervisor should be dedicated to this field and only this field, with a Master’s degree in it at least. It is too vast a subject to be under someone who is distracted by other subjects. Functioning as the arms of the supervisor are of course, tutor/teachers. I call them tutor/teachers because they will be teaching as best they can until a full ELL program is instituted. The subject of English language learning is necessarily directive, and to have top quality tutor/teachers in the lab is to hire those already experienced as an undergraduate with ESL, much like the WC prefers to hire those with undergraduate writing center experience. An alternative might be to preferentially hire those with student-teaching experience, that have some experience with creating lessons, those coming from Education. These employees might end up being attracted from Akron or Kent, as those schools have programs where undergraduates interact with ELLs. Once hired, they should be trained, or retrained by having to go through some kind of certification program. The point of all this is to make sure that the people working with 20
our ELLs care about the field. We have always hired writers at the writing center; is it too much to ask to hire educators? Because of the nature of the work, these tutor/teachers shouldn’t, in the future, be considered employees of the Writing Center. While its natural beginning is as an extension of the WC, there will eventually be too much extra to do to consider it a tentacle of that respectable institution; in time, it must become its own octopus. Again, the field is too vast. So it comes to describing some of these tentacles. No self-respecting lab would ignore the numerous assists that some materials can provide for students at this juncture. To entice students, we should provide lists of online resources, from WhatsApp to iTalki, and the students should be asked what apps and technological resources they use. Compiling this list and keeping it updated, and providing access to them when we can is the job of someone with a consistent ear to the ground, as well as someone who can work with tech support to give unique privileges to our computers. The students need (free) recording technology to work on accent reduction and fluency. We should provide headsets at many more computers than we currently have. An eye will always be out for the latest software that we can use for practice. For our technologically challenged students, I envision a file cabinet drawer of worksheets for every grammar point under the sun, a goal that is more achievable than it sounds due to the surplus of books that break the English language down in this way. Also, the more I read and the more work with them, I understand that academic vocabulary is everything to these students. Comprehension issues abound, and studies show that an ELL has to understand more than 90% of surrounding vocabulary in order to infer meaning from context. This means that we need an academic word list and flashcards and all associated 21
tools in order that an ELL can study vocabulary with or without a tutor upon entering the lab. Of course, I see a word of the day on the whiteboard each day in our future. As the lab becomes a place for students to gain power for themselves, our motto slowly shifts to something about empowerment and the alliances that continue to shape the lab. There have already been alliances made between departments. Further alliances should be made or strengthened between us and the department that controls our IDS classes, our Technical Comprehension and Critical Analysis classes, where a large number of our ELLs are dumped after performing poorly on COMPASS reading tests. Alliances should be made between any adult education classes catering to foreign learners. As the efforts for the Adult Diploma Program attempted to establish a pipeline from GEDs to college degrees at Stark State, connections with institutions such as the IIA or Project LEARN in Akron should make it clear to administrators and students in those organizations that when they feel confident enough, the natural choice for them would be to pursue their first degree at Stark State. Of course we will not neglect our usual duties at home. The lab should have a table at all student events. There should be a small guide for instructors that can be disseminated over email, in coordination with DSS and Title IX that reminds instructors of the responsibility that they may have to let students record their lectures for comprehension sake as well as provide assignment sheets for all assignments, among other issues. One thing that I am starting to understand is just how many life problems and student issues our ELLs have because of language difficulty. This semester and last I have done several things out of my job description, 22
from helping students switch classes, to walking them here and there, to arranging email correspondence or personal appointments with faculty or even other institutions. I’ve worked as part student success coach, basically, and even life coach, simply because I know how to listen and won’t assume that I know what the student means. It is all well and good to be constantly giving referrals and suggestions, but I hope that one day the lab becomes the place where international students go for one-stop help of this nature. I’m aware that we have the Multicultural office, so what I’m suggesting is that that office eventually merges with the lab, or that office ceases working with ELLs. The missions of both offices are simply too similar to pretend they should be different. This will be part of a restructuring I envision that will hopefully continue with my greatest hope for the school: a full-fledged ESL program and department. We are at a strange place. In this presidential election cycle, in 2016, we’ve been hearing so much about who can get things done and what is too unrealistic, and the question that keeps popping up is who is going to pay for what. Our school is a sort of microcosm of this contemporary debate, the debate between what is desirable, and what is doable. In the ideal, the students would be paying for all of this. After we’ve abandoned COMPASS, it’s on us to use the entrance ESL tests being used all over the nation to place these students in specialized ESL classes that they pay for. They will pay for them; the desire and need is there, with no one to fulfill it properly other than institutions several miles away. If the college can get public monies to accomplish this, even better. Either way, it will be financially profitable for the college. We see how our tests place students into at maximum two developmental reading classes and at maximum one developmental writing 23
class for poor COMPASS scores, when a developmental ESL reading writing speaking and listening regimen can last two full academic years... and no student would even bat an eye at paying for this if this program is of high quality. There are reasons why these programs are popping up all over the country, much like the reasons for the writing center boom a while back, though the reasons might be even more financially motivated than the motivations behind the WC here. There are, of course, statistics to support Stark State’s continued investment in ELLs. There are the statistics that point to greater completion rates by foreign students. There are statistics that point to the exponential population growth of these students in the Akron area, and to think that some of this growth will not come to Canton and surrounding areas is foolish, at best.
To recap: better staff, better stuff, better friends, more support, more autonomy, more students, more money, more power, Or something like that. When I was first finishing up this short essay, I thought to myself, “I’ve written a bunch of garbage.” I chewed my lip in angst and I wept. “It’s not really saying anything,” I cried to no one in particular. I found that the essay’s largest fault (besides being pretentious as fuck) is that I became trapped by my thesis, believing that I could write something about the lab’s potential and that I would know anything about that. I don’t. Maybe I’m too hard on myself. I realize what I was talking about at the very least is that I hope for research upon research upon research so that the lab can be what it is meant to be. And that I hope that this goes on under people who care about it as much as I do. I envy those people who will find tremendous rewards in pushing this vision (or their vision) for our ELLs, failing, failing, succeeding, failing, and winning, because this project has tremendous value… not least in the opportunities and peace it 24
can give people who are lost in another world, far from home.
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In it for the Long Haul: Long-Term-Minded Tutoring at a Two-Year College Emilia Kandl A routine scenario: a couple weeks ago, a student from Downtown’s Intro to Academic Writing section came in for help with her second essay, and I worked with her. She was behind in the course; the essay was overdue, and her instructor had expressed concern at the prospect of grading what she’d handed in so far – one very incomplete-looking draft. Now that she’d been granted more extra time, we’d have to prioritize in addressing some of the problems she was having with writing and with meeting the expectations of the course at this stage. For one thing, this student was having trouble getting a handle on the idea of a drafting process/needing to turn in multiple drafts of each essay. We talked about this some while I showed her how to create what would be her “new,” final draft in her Google Drive. Using a computer was entirely new to her as of this semester – her first – and although she’d been to the Writing Center before and we’d discussed formatting, she didn’t seem to have any memory of needing to set a particular font, put her name on her work, etc. I walked her through some of this again before we read through what she’d typed, which could use a lot of revision. I questioned her to help her reflect a bit more on the stories she told and what connected them. We also spent time on a sampling of the word choice, spelling, and reoccurring grammatical errors that frequently impacted her clarity; she’d tell me what she meant, and we’d go from there. This was representative of so many of my sessions Downtown – not only in content, but in length. Particularly because every action using the mouse or keyboard 26
took a long time/several tries for the student to execute, and it seemed to work best for her to add the info she was relating in response to my questions while it was fresh in her mind (only a sentence or word change here and there, but these took quite a while to talk out and then type), it took about an hour for her to end up with something that just a little bit more closely resembled an essay than what she’d had before – along with maybe a slightly improved grasp on some skills and things to consider the next time she sat down to compose. She expressed a lot of gratitude and scheduled a follow-up appointment to discuss her next assignment. For a moment following this, I wondered if I’d been thorough enough in covering formatting, of all things, with the student. I’d let double spacing (something she would need to know about) go by the wayside because the “highlighting” motion was proving to be so tricky for her. While I felt we’d made progress in more important areas – the paper’s content and her confidence level – the sooner she learned formatting basics, the better, especially so there wouldn’t be the chance of her writing being automatically dismissed because it didn’t look presentable. Since the paper was past due, of course, just getting it in was likely much more important at this point than perfect formatting. My worry was more rooted in her being so far behind in general, with so few skills to her advantage – concerns that are typical of the aftermath of my sessions. Then, as I was lamenting the time it would likely take for all of the basics she needed to “stick,” I had a thought that might sound a bit sarcastic, but wasn’t. One step at a time: I’m sure she’ll be here for many years to come.
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Though I’m obviously not actually sure about this, it seems highly possible based on my experience to date. I’ve now worked at the Downtown campus for about five years, and in any given week, most of the students I see will be ones I have known for the duration of my time at Stark State – a primarily two-year institution. On top of this, I know that quite a few of them started here before I did. When I lose touch with these students through the school, I usually continue to run into and talk with them on the bus – but most of the bus riders I no longer see here haven’t graduated; they’re taking a semester or a year off, or have already done so and intend to re-enroll. They have a lot going on – families, jobs, and volunteer work; health concerns (especially since most of them are middle aged and older); stints of relapse of chronic illness or addiction; sometimes periods of hospitalization or incarceration – things that interrupt and/or coincide with their attendance. At times they “go missing” and I worry about them, not least because they’ve lost touch with the community that the school provided – an important support system for many, and, I’ve suspected over the years, the only support system for some. While coming to school adds another stressor for these students, I’m also able to see each day what more it provides in terms of support, purpose, and a routine that can be a comforting alternative to the more chaotic – often traumatic – events of their day-to-day lives. When awhile passes and I don’t see one of them, I wonder if they are okay, if/when they’ll return – and what state they’ll be in then. In addition to their emotional well-being, I’m concerned by the effects it can have for their learning process to be so protracted. Considering the session I described above – with the time it took to accomplish what we did in one session, weighed against the amount of “catching up” the stu28
dent still needs to do, she may not be able to complete her degree within two years. A the same time, having their education stretched out and broken up over a longer period can make the students we see – who already have a lot on their minds, and many of whom have learning problems – even less likely to retain what they learn, and each time they resume their classes and by extension, visits to the Writing Center, it can feel like starting over. Under these circumstances, the endurance and persistence of some of these students in working to complete college – with an end goal of one or two associate’s degrees – over such a long span of time astounds me, as does their daily endurance in completing their schoolwork; many of them know that it takes them a long time to complete tasks and will plan accordingly, camping out from the building’s opening to closing at a computer to work on a single assignment. Since a set of these computers is outside the WC, I can usually count on some combination of people I’ve known for years being nearby for the entire day. In and out of sessions these people chat about their lives, joke, complain, argue in front of and occasionally with me, and sometimes tell me they love me. There’s an inevitable intimacy to the overall situation, as well as the nature of much of the writing they do for their classes, along with the vulnerability that comes with conversing about their writing. It’s personal while also having an element of removal from their lives – they can come here to “escape” in a sense and be part of a different, academic community, where they have the chance to communicate and process their experiences in new ways through their writing and coursework, and through the relationships they build with their classmates, teachers, and us. 29
Adaptability is always vital to our work, and I continue to adjust my approach to tutoring day after day even with the same group of students, even – in fact especially – when their needs and questions don’t seem to change. However, I’ve also grown aware over time of myself and what I provide being constant, consistent factors in the students’ lives, and they ways in which this in itself seems to help (or at least reassure) them. In part this is sustained by preserving professional boundaries – knowing and caring about what’s going on with them while also keeping our interactions writing-focused and productive. One student I’ve known for a long time recently complimented my “bedside manner” after overhearing me in Studio Session. I’ve noticed this before, students using language that compares me in some way to a doctor. This aligns with the type of presence I hope to be for them – maintaining a somewhat clinical, yet approachable demeanor while discussing topics of an often personal nature and reminding them what is vital to their “survival” in this environment – how they need to adapt to being in school. With the long-term bunch, I don’t struggle with assertiveness as much as I used to in my sessions, in terms of ending a session that ceases to be productive or “nudging” students to do the work themselves. Knowing them well allows me to comfortably, sometimes humorously, let them know that today they can try following the steps on the APA setup worksheet on their own, now that we’ve been over it thousands of times. Usually they get it; they laugh or at least agree; sometimes they become agitated but have completely let go of this feeling by the time of our next interaction. I don’t tend to worry, or need to, about “losing” them – losing their trust and their business as a result – by reminding them of their autonomy at this stage.
The students who have been here for several years have 30
made various levels of progress. Some have been around seemingly forever, but I also don’t doubt they’ll move on. With the amount happening in their lives, just because they are smart and hardworking doesn’t mean they’ll move through the college quickly, and in fact, some who now stand out as the “best” students had the rockiest beginnings. I can think of at least two who started off defensive, unwilling to work with most of us, and at times openly combative and hostile – and they still have moments where they revert to this behavior and/or seem to forget everything they’ve learned. In these instances, the trust-building we’ve done in the past – the time we’ve spent on helping them understand that they and their work have value – generally comes to our aid. I’m generally happy to do the type of tutoring that does take a lot of time – in helping students at low literacy levels through the frustration of not being able to even basically spell out what’s on their minds, it becomes necessary to do some work at the sentence level interspersed with higher-order concerns. While this doesn’t always feel productive, I’ve witnessed students who started off writing borderline incomprehensible essays reach the point where they can write confidently and correct most of their own errors due to time spent working with us. This is clearly rewarding and has largely been possible because our student body is smaller, allowing more time to spend with these students. Still, low numbers are increasingly a concern, and the integration of students from the Early College High School seems to be a positive change. They add diversity in terms of age and have different skills and challenges; working with them has provided some welcome chances to “switch modes.” I recently heard 31
them discussing how they are generally in the majority in their Stark State classes, where the nontraditional college students look up to them and ask them for help comprehending course material. In my Studio Session last semester that was largely comprised of recent graduates of this program, I noticed a similar effect – the older students who struggled with basic literacy learned a lot about traditional essay structuring from the 19-year-olds. This has made me think it’s a good idea to pay attention to outreach with this group – several of them are likely to continue taking classes at Stark State after high school, which will both boost the numbers and enhance the community at our sparsely populated satellite. I didn’t know when I started working here that I was going to know so many of these students for so long, or how much that would shape both my experience and theirs. I’ve been committed to helping as many as I can build their overall literacy, writing and learning skills over the long-term time frame we’ve been provided. At times, it’s certainly been alarming how much of a backward crawl this can feel like – but at the same time, while it may signify a problem in some ways that many of these students are still here…they are also still here, living and changing all the while – and I’ve learned to measure progress differently with this group. Some of them were never going to learn all the skills they needed overnight – or, if we’re being honest, in the length of time they were originally intended to spend at the college. Within several years, though, they’ve certainly been able to learn some of them – alongside many other, less measurable human gains – which may be the best we can hope for.
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Sustained Tutoring Jon Silvey Something that is really interesting and does not much get discussed is the idea of sustained tutoring. Many folks who tutor, whether it be peer or professional, only do so for a short number of years. This happens for a number of reasons: the tutor finds a full time position, they go on to graduate school in one form or another, or they simply cannot stand the idea of a part time job that will never become a salaried one. I can only speak from my personal experience as this is, in fact, a selfreflection, but certain traits seem to be adopted by those who tutor long-term, part time. These traits are not wholly unlike the long-term adjunct and certainly parallel long-term tutors in some aspects. Patience is required in any job and tutoring does not exclude itself from this virtue. Flexibility is vital as the schedule each 16 weeks will change drastically within the confines of the operation hours and sometimes within the semester itself. Finally, (and not at all definitively) a long-term tutor must have the self-drive to further their training for the betterment of not only themselves, but the students and center itself. These skills (and many more) all must be employed by a tutor if they are to remain useful in a long-term sense. Patience is crucial in the Writing Center. From technological deficiencies to students who simply are infuriating, a tutor must find ways to calm themselves in frustrating situations. Beyond this the tutor has to keep the student calm to ensure that the value of the session remains clear and that he or she actually gets something from the time. In experience of mine a student with learning disabilities uses the center frequently. While this may seem the ideal place for such a student to re33
ceive help, it has become clear that this person merely comes in for the social interaction. The student is made well aware of the time limits and number of visits that can be made in the center, but still stays over, even after being asked to finish his or her work. This can easily frustrate the tutor who worked with the student and the entire staff. I find I must do something to calm myself, say, take a lap around the building and get a drink of water while the student is hopefully packing up for the day. A less experienced tutor might remind the student (perhaps sternly) a third or fourth time that the student is well over the allotted time, but experience says this will only frustrate the student. This is merely one example of the many ways a tutor will need to remain calm and welcoming to the students during frustrating times. Flexibility is another skill vital to surviving in a Writing Center for a good amount of time. In the almost six years I have worked for this center I have had to drop hours, pick up hours, and shift whole schedules around. In fact, this semester alone I have picked up 9 shifts (so far) that were entirely outside of my schedule. In addition to this when other tutors either leave or have kids someone must be adaptive enough to pick up the shifts. This semester had one of the longest-term tutors leave mid semester as well as another take maternity leave at the same time. My schedule afforded me enough flexibility to allow for picking up of most of their shifts. These shifts were both in the physical center and online. This does not just mean that a tutor has to flexible with shifts alone, though. Tutors must be able to adapt to multiple learning styles and even multiple sessions at once. Far more than once this semester alone I would run 3 sessions simultaneously. Sometimes the center is quite busy and understaffed which means the tutors who are there must still try to help as 34
many students as possible. Allowing one student to free-write for 15 minutes while helping another find a citation while a third student reads an article for their Reader’s Response paper. This last example shows how skills like patience and flexibility need to also intertwine.
The last skill this reflection will discuss is that of a constant thirst for knowledge. This is a trick subject. If a seeming majority of tutors are short-term, it would make sense that a certain amount of repetition might be found in their short time in the center. Certain seminal articles to read and community building exercise might be as deep as time allows. What of the tutor who has been in the same center for more than half a decade? It follows logically that this long-term tutor would have to explore far more in-depth. Just in this semester I have helped with the creation of the Writing Assistant Satisfaction Survey, completed the Basic Online Angel training, the Online Teaching Training (despite being told specifically by the Director of Composition that no more courses would be offered for me to teach in that department nor the possibility of full time employment for anyone in the near future), have uploaded the Collaborate Ultra link in preparation for the conversion to BlackBoard Learn, and continuing to collaborate with another tutor to ensure Collaborate Ultra works smoothly when implemented. These actions go well above reading Elbow and North’s seminal pieces. This is the sort of professional development that is required for a long-term tutor to remain self-driven in a center sustainably. The skills mentioned in this reflection are barely a fraction of all that tutors, both long-term and short, need to adopt in order to be useful in a center. It would be interesting to compare my experiences to that of a full35
time salaried professional tutor (if such a position even existed) or a full time instructor to see if these same ideas paralleled. I certainly know from experience that they do with that of an adjunct. Every job requires adjustment and continued training and long-term tutoring is no different. Patience is required to deal with frustrating situations. Flexibility is required to ensure that all the extra shifts and schedule changes can be accommodated while overlapping with patience. Selfdrive is vital to making the tutor continuously increase their knowledge and usefulness. The skills of the longterm, part time tutor need to be constantly honed if they expect to make it academia without burning out.
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When Peer Reviews Aren’t Katelynne Shepard We’ve all been there. You start your session — whether online or face-to-face — by asking for details of the assignment and what in particular the student would like help with. The student’s class has been using Google Docs, so he pulls the paper up there, and that’s when you notice the comments on the side from other students. The tutee tells you he just needs to work on final proofreading the night before it’s due because the paper has been read by others in the class to rave reviews. Sure enough, as you read through, you see things like: “Very clear thesis J” “I like this sentence.” “Great example!” Except, it’s not a clear thesis, the sentence has three different grammar errors in it, and the example has no follow up. Now you’re stuck telling an overconfident student that there’s actually much more than “final proofreading” to be done, and he probably should have come in with more than 24 hours until the due date. In theory, peer reviews should be very helpful. As a writer, it’s difficult to see the gaps and holes in your writing — from missing words to missing transitions — because you already know what the train of thought is supposed to be. It makes sense to you because you wrote it. Getting a peer review is one step better than the age-old advice to put the writing aside for a day or so and pick it up with fresh eyes. A peer review pro37
vides entirely new eyes, which means an outside and often illuminating perspective. Having another writer who is not intimately familiar with your topic and style of writing can help point out lapses in logic, spot missing or inadequate follow ups, and provide suggestions for tackling the ever-elusive introduction and conclusion. However, more often than not, peer reviews fail to deliver meaningful and actionable feedback to the writer. One reason for this is that students — particularly those in developmental writing or first-year composition courses — lack the knowledge needed to review a paper and provide constructive criticism of any substance. They may be able to recognize something as “good,” but they won’t be able to say why it is good. Maybe a certain sentence or example sticks out, but when pressed, all they can say is it has good “details.” Similarly, they may know that the writer’s topic isn’t coming across, but not understand that this is because the thesis is unclear and the organization is scattered. Instead of being able to provide constructive feedback, the reviewer may just stick to short comments such as “good job here” or “nice detail” or parrot the teacher’s instructions whether or not they are applicable — for example, saying the conclusion needs to summarize the argument when the writer has chosen a solid forwardlooking conclusion instead. Even if a student does have the knowledge to recognize problems and the tools to communicate these issues to the writer effectively, the peer review may still be lacking. Peer reviews by students in the same class involve so many outside dynamics that it can make it difficult for even the most conscientious student to give thorough, constructive feedback. Students may be worried about how much or how little they should mark, 38
whether they will come across as know-it-alls, or if the writer will disagree with their suggestions. They may fall back on noting just one area that needs improvement and going overboard on the positive feedback in an attempt to overcompensate. When students come in with a false confidence after getting glowing peer reviews, it can make for difficult and unproductive sessions. The student’s initial reaction is often to be defensive or to assume that the tutor has misinterpreted the assignment. Because the student’s peers are actually in the class with him, hearing the same directions from the instructor and seeing the same examples, the peer comments automatically carry more weight in the student’s mind than the “expert” tutor.
While being able to pull up the assignment sheet and actually copy and paste the directions for the student is helpful in proving that the tutor has valid concerns, the effect that follows presents another problem. When the student finally realizes that the comments left in the peer review are incomplete or totally incorrect, he may feel like the paper is a lost cause or that he needs to scrap the entire draft and start over. It can be difficult to bring students back from this ledge, especially since quite a bit of time has often elapsed at this point. Even if most of the paper can be saved and the student just needs to make adjustments to the thesis or expand on the body paragraphs, he may be resistant to actually complete those change because all the work and revisions he’s done so far have been for naught. Add in the very real possibility that the paper is due the next day — because the student didn’t think there were any “major” revisions needed — and it’s a recipe for disaster.
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Obviously, one way to fix this is to revamp the way that peer reviews are handled in classes. Adding in more instructor oversight of student comments to make sure they are thorough and helpful and giving detailed guidelines not to focus solely on the positives or small typo-like issues may help in the classroom, but it doesn’t help the writing tutor who has 20 minutes left in a session with a discouraged and overwhelmed student. Often, we end up having to tell the student that the peer comments just weren’t correct, and in doing so, we confirm the idea that peer review is busywork and not helpful to the revision process. However, this may not be a bad thing. Students must learn to take responsibility for their writing and actively seek out people who are willing to provide construction criticism and go beyond surface-level praise, such as those in the Writing Center. They must learn that writing is not a linear process, and each paper is a beast all its own. They must learn that what works in one may not work in another, and something is not good just because someone else says it is. By being willing to critique the peer comments ourselves and provide the honest feedback that is so often missing, we can help students learn to better analyze comments in peer reviews and decide what should be integrated, entertained, or ignored. In doing so, we help create writers who understand the importance of outside perspectives and constructive criticism and are better prepared to provide both to their fellow students.
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Building Confidence Morgan Cole Tutoring students can be very rewarding in and of itself. Whether it is seeing a student finally understand an important concept with which they have been struggling, or come up with a topic they are passionate about for a paper, it is nice to have that type of immediate gratification. However, many times with tutoring, the assistant does not get such instant satisfaction. As a writing tutor, I am often left to wonder what the students take away from the sessions or how much they actually retain from sessions. Sometimes a student says he or she has new ideas to add, but then comes a second time with the same draft or shows up to studio session without having made any changes. Therefore, the times when I am able to see the long term effects of sessions are not only extremely rewarding but also remind me why our work as tutors is so important. Reflecting on some of my most rewarding experiences as a tutor both during this semester and throughout my career as a writing tutor, I have realized that often the greatest and most lasting gift I can give students is to build their confidence. At the beginning of this semester, I had a student come in who was very nervous and explained that she had anxiety. I tried my best to reassure her and started reading her paper. I was really positive about her paper and complimented her topic and what she did well. She had a great topic and once I told her this, she seemed to open up and relax. I was then able to help her clean up and develop some other sections of her paper. She seemed to leave more encouraged and confident with her plans for revision. Typically, as a tutor, that is the only way for me to gage the success of the 41
session. However, with this particular student, I got lucky. She came in again the next week and was very excited to report that she not only received an A on her paper but was also asked to read her paper out loud to class if time allowed. She seemed like a totally different student this time. She was excited and confident about her ideas for her next paper. She had specific questions and a strong sense of ownership over her work. This student even remembered the punctuation rules we had gone over previously, was catching them as we went through her paper, and had more questions about those rules. She continues to come to the writing center on a regular basis and reports that she is doing well in the class. Her case is not necessarily unique. I have had a couple students in studio sessions come to the first session who are quiet, nervous, and not wanting to share the work. After receiving positive feedback from me and their classmates, I see a transformation. There were a couple different instances where these students went on to blossom in the class. They not only exceeded academically, but also ended up being leaders in their studio sessions. These students came to studio sessions ready to engage with their classmates and to take advantage of the benefits studio sessions can offer. They were able to not only receive suggestions and praise on their own work but felt more confident in giving suggestions to the peers. These students who were initially quiet and nervous began coming to the sessions excited about their ideas and confident in their abilities as writers. When I am given the occasional opportunity to see the long term effects of tutoring a student, a common theme is evident. The common theme in these past situations was confidence. When I started, I thought by 42
helping a student become a better writer, that would in turn increase his or her confidence as a writer. I do still believe this be true, but have often found that it can also work the other way around. Frequently, a student needs a boost of confidence and that in turn improves their work.
I have found many sessions ultimately revolve around the root of confidence. In more obvious ways, it involves encouraging the student about an idea or pointing out a part of their paper or writing technique that is strong. However, sometimes it just involves boosting their confidence in asking the right questions. When I hear, “I know it is stupid but I don’t understand or can’t figure it out,” I find that just by telling them they are not the only one who struggles with that area, I often notice a favorable change. When possible, I speak from personal experience, “it took me years to figure out there was an option to select ‘hanging indent’ in Word” or “I always struggle with conclusions myself.” As a result, the student not only seems less apprehensive about his or her question, but also seems more apt to ask additional questions. Therefore, if I can make the student feel more confident about asking questions during the session, they will feel more confident in asking questions during their classes, as well. They might also be more likely to come in to the Writing Center for help when they have issues or questions in the future. Ideally, building confidence in a student ultimately leads the student to take more ownership of their work. In my experiences mentioned above, I noticed that instead of looking to the tutor or instructor for handholding and step-by-step directions, students start to make decisions for themselves. They tell me where they want to go with their paper, what their goals are, and what topics they are passionate about. Additional43
ly, their questions become more specific to an issue they are having in reaching their end goal instead of an overall question of, “is this paper any good?� As tutors, it is important that the students take ownership of their papers and not rely on us as the authoritative director. Good sessions end up being more of a facilitative conversation instead of a step by step list of solutions or answers. In the specific situations with the students mentioned earlier, what brought about change in these students was a compliment or encouraging word. I wonder what would have happened with those students had I just answered their general questions? Would there have been that transformation and growth? Looking back, I do not think there would have been. Maybe that growth would have been evidenced down the road with a different tutor or their instructor, but not in that particular session. It makes me realize how important it is for me to really find ways in each session to build the confidence of the student, even (and honestly, probably mostly) if it is not in the traditional sense of complimenting them. I do not think it is necessary to compliment every student’s work and be dishonest about the quality of their work because that would be doing the students a disservice. However, we can encourage their topic ideas, critical thinking skills, or even encourage them by telling them they are asking good questions. Thinking about those students and their transformations makes me wonder how many opportunities I have missed to have that effect with other students. It is critical as a tutor to look for and find opportunities and ways in each session to encourage the student. Even though we do not usually have the opportunity to see long term effects of our sessions, I believe the most lasting gift I can give students in order to help 44
them become better writers is to build their confidence. When writing, it is scary to put our work out there for others to see, so if there is any way I can ease that process for someone else, then I consider it a success.
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Make It New Nathan Floom This June marks the start of my fifth year at the writing center. Time feels like it has gone really fast, but yet, it feels like just yesterday I started. Looking back on it all I feel I have grown a lot in this line of work. Each year, each semester even, is just a little bit different from the one before it. Each new year I try to commit myself to learning something new or doing something old (or that has become old) in a different way. Working online for the writing center comes with its challenges and this semester was no different. I tend to always say the thing that messes me up online is not being able to “read� people, as in, read their emotions, pick up on their feelings, that sort of thing. That really came into play this semester in the writing center. This past year I know that we serviced many ELL students, and for me working with them online was a challenging experience. I teach ESOL and GED in the ABLE program where I’m at now and I love working with ELL students (refugees in particular). I love the interaction with them and love them as students. They really are the best students in the world. Our communication in class sometimes is done completely through emotion, expression, dancing around the classroom, using visuals, charts, audio, etc. Working with ELL students online though is a completely new ballgame for me. All my tools of expression, of visuals, body language, emotion, or speech (which is huge) etc, are removed from me online when working with ELL students. We rely on our chat box and being able to type and read sentences. This is really limiting for someone learning a language for maybe the first time. My greatest chal46
lenge this semester was trying to figure out new ways to work with ELL students in the online setting. Sometimes it was awkward because I didn’t necessarily know they were ELL students (I can’t “see” anybody online). I didn’t feel comfortable asking them “Do you speak English?” or “Is English your first language” in a session. But usually I saw the tell-tale signs in grammar that helped me figure it out. I started to attempt to do some sentence diagramming by breaking down the sentence into its basic parts for those students. That worked sometimes, but other times it became a little complicated and things were “lost in translation” from time to time. My future goal is to work on bettering my strategy when working with ELL students online and finding different methods that can help benefit them in the online setting.
I’ve had quite a few rewarding experiences this semester. As always, I really enjoy working with the CC+ students from Jackson and a few of the other local high schools. They have their moments of teen angst, but my sessions with them always lead towards interesting conversations and dynamic questions from them that interest me. I enjoy the ability to truly challenge them and to even be a little tough. I find that by challenging them and being tough on them their papers take on new shapes and new levels of understanding on their topics and of their arguments. That doesn’t happen all the time in a session and it’s the best. Besides, I have to mention how funny it is when they call me “Mr. Floom”. At the same time, perhaps this is one of my weaknesses, I find myself seeing the same thing in many of their papers and challenging many of the students with their work in a similar way. I feel a little bit like I’m on a factory line when all 100+ of those students show up for three weeks straight. I do try my best to differentiate and try new approaches. Each writ47
er is different and I try to keep that in mind. I’ve had a small collection of moments that really make me love my work. I had one student, new to college, and I believe over the age of 60 work with me many times on her discussion board posts for her online political science class. This is probably a class she would have had a better time in if she had taken College Writing in person first. She was a wonderfully dedicated student and really enjoyed working with me. Also, a few of the CC+ students brought their college entrance essays to the writing center in the past. I always feel privileged to get to look at those if they come by. I truly enjoy working with all the students. They make it worthwhile, challenging, interesting, and that constant flow and complexity they bring always keeps me engaged to my work. Despite all the positive and exciting things that I experienced this year there were a few things I would say are my weaknesses. I know we talked about this at the beginning of the year, but I feel that I have really fallen into a routine when it comes to tutoring students. I know the specific things that teachers are looking for. I know how to “triage� different elements in a paper. I have little tricks with grammar that I use. For example, being online I frequently copy and paste sentences out of their paper when working on grammar. I have different questions and ways I go about helping the student develop their ideas and shift ideas around, etc. Looking back on my last narrative and evaluation I mentioned my weakness was becoming a bit more directive in my practice. That is something that I continue to work on, but I do feel I use the Socratic method of questioning a lot more and the result with the students, in particular the CC+ students, has been good. My new goal is to really work on developing a variety in my 48
practice. I want to do the same things I’ve been doing that work but in new ways to see what works best. I don’t want to fall into a safe sort of “rut” in my practice. Not “rut” in a negative sense, but “rut” in that it is the well-traveled, easy to follow, straightforward path ahead on a road. I’d love to get out of the routine, shake things up a bit with my process, see what happens. I’m not entirely sure what that might be or look like, but it’s something I’m conscious of. In my evaluation this year I believe I excel at punctuality, reliability, and job knowledge. I’m always ready, on time, and engaged with students. I try to be a team player with those online employees around me and step up to support them in any way I can. With my present experience and starting my fifth year I think that brings a lot of job knowledge to the table. I feel at this point I know what works and what doesn’t with my practice, but I’d really like to step it up and change things up to keep it interesting. I’m always looking to grow both as a person, an intellectual, and a teacher. I love finding new ways of doing things and never want to just “settle” for the basics or what is safe. This being said, I think continual growth is important and something that I want to commit myself to improving this year.
When I first started working at the writing center I wish I would have known and better understood the struggle that some of our students face coming into college for perhaps the first time. I never realized the enormous struggle college and life can be for someone. I’ve gained a lot since I started almost five years ago. Stark State helped me discover my passion for helping people understand writing better. It’s led to me going to grad school, furthering my education, and becoming a teacher for a nonprofit program. It all began at the 49
Stark State Writing Center. Having students come back to work with me at the writing center is a great reward. The fact that students trust me enough to have me look at every one of their papers is a great feeling. I always try to do the best I can with students, and dedicating myself to doing my best is something I look forward to continuing at the writing center for years to come.
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Robin’s Untitled Performance Review Paper Robin Clark This last academic year has been one of massive change for me. Over the summer of 2015 I’d been employed at the North branch of the Stark County Library system and thought I’d stick with working in libraries as I began working on my Master’s in Library and Information Science at Kent State. When I was hired at Stark State College, I chose to leave North and seek a different library job. I worked for the Kent State Performing Arts Library for about two months before I figured out that the degree I’m pursuing doesn’t limit me to working in libraries. Working at Stark State’s writing center helped me come to the realization that the role of a writing tutor is very closely related to the spirit of the field of Library and Information Sciences. So much so that another tutor I know who is also in my program and I are working on developing a presentation and research paper on the correlation between these two areas. Though I have come to notice these similarities in these areas over the course of the last year, it was through a lot of trial and error. I’m the sort of person who enjoys learning independently, but needs some sort of learning material to refer back to. There were several things I wish I’d known or had some way of finding out when I started at the SSC Writing Center. My first semester, I was lucky enough to be scheduled with someone I knew prior to working at the Stark State Writing Center who could answer some of my questions, but that person was only answering my questions as a favor rather than specifically because he was worried about my professional development. Additionally, I was only asking him questions when we were working together. 51
When a question arose when he wasn’t around, I simply didn’t ask my question out of fear of coming off as stupid to my new coworkers. Either having some sort of training material to refer back to or an assigned mentor would have been incredibly helpful for that first semester.
Having a mentor program would have been helpful for me when I started. A tutor with more experience at the Stark State Writing Center being assigned to a new hire for the first semester would help said new tutor adapt more quickly to the specifics of this writing center. Were an existing tutor assigned to me when I first started, I would have been able to ask questions specific to the Stark State Writing Center rather than potentially doing something wrong in regards to myself, another tutor, or a student in the process. This was an issue I dealt with (and honestly still deal with as I don’t feel as confident in my role here as I probably should after an academic year) quite a lot in my first semester. Though I feel comfortable using various tutoring techniques, having some way to discuss issues like how to access the database, what sorts of papers instructors are required to assign, and what level of writer we work with most frequently would have been very helpful to me as a new tutor here. Some sort of idea exchange, whether a weekly/ biweekly meeting of sorts where a group of us can discuss challenges, a message board, or even just an email thread where we can discuss matters such as database troubleshooting or odd sessions could be potentially useful. Recently, I discussed an issue I was having with the database with a coworker I’m not usually scheduled to work with this semester. She told me she’d been having the same problem, but neither of us was sure how to resolve the issue. Later that week, I figured out 52
what the problem was and how to resolve it (in most cases) after spending several hours playing around with the database. Though this coworker and I just happened to overlap and discuss this issue, it’s unlikely our schedules will sync again before she figures out the issue as well. So, it’s on her to figure out independently, or I may be able to tell her if one of us covers a shift that puts us in the writing center at the same time as the other. The way that this will play out based on current factors is not an effective use of our time. Were there some way for either of us to have let our coworkers as a whole know that this was an issue and discuss it in some way, this could have been resolved in one or two conversations. Instead, we both will have to spend several hours of our work time coming to the same conclusion.
Starting at the Kent Writing Commons a month after starting at Stark State gave me an insight into how other writing centers take in previously trained tutors. They do a lot of things differently than Stark State. I wouldn’t classify one as being better than the other, as both have definite failings and achievements. However, I feel that one way Kent State’s Writing Commons excels that Stark State could implement is a feeling of support from tutors with more established tenure at that particular location. They do this by requiring new tutors, regardless of training, to go through an approval process. That would be impractical to implement at the Stark State Writing Center, but the idea could be helpful. Were tutors who have worked for SSC to guide a new hire in a loosely formal way, that new hire would not have to spend as long as I have not feeling comfortable doing a job they are otherwise comfortable doing. Having that support system in place would help make that new tutor confident more quickly and in turn result in that tutor feeling at home in this job. 53
Oh, and by the Way Leah; I Think I’ll Retire Sandy Dent I am not being serious and yet, at times I am. I can sense the age just behind ready to shove me off the tutorial precipice. The nerve; I don’t want to leave. I want to believe I have much to offer. I have improved in some areas and have decided that others might never be attained and the continued struggle with them will hurt the strategies I find workable. By far I am a listener extraordinaire; if I may be so bold. I can adapt to situations presented rather quickly these days; avoiding the deer in the headlights outcome. I am not sure if this is attributed to the brain sneezing or the medication for thyroid doing its job, perhaps a bit of both. I find myself with more energy, less effected by distraction and the bad head days have lessened. Unfortunately, they remain unpredictable and when they decide to appear, it is disastrous yet they last only two days rather than four to five which allows me to return to work in a more timely fashion. I find myself being placed in different work environments. This would have been a reluctant acceptance in the past. Now, it is adventuresome and I find there is always something to learn. I still want to be a part of the Downtown campus, but am finding the East High School PASS Grant experience a unique experience of its own. The most intimidating is navigating the hallways which I accomplished by bribing a student with a candy bar in order to emerge safely from the school after class. So far, so good. As I work with the collection of students, I am continually impressed with the creativity of their writing and 54
their willingness to accept constructive criticism. One of the breakthroughs in this environment occurred last week. There was a time during the studio session where the definition of collaboration was visible throughout the entire meeting improving with each group. The classmates were there to help each other and I just added a word and an open-ended question or two when conversation came to a standstill. It was elating; something that will remain with me as I continue to progress. The papers of the high school students and clients with whom I work is the reading I do. Books and reading for enjoyment have yet to return; the words begin to move on the pages. For some reason this does not occur with an essay. I read aloud as it helps me focus and the student benefits as well. Living with an assignment day after day becomes tedious and the writer is not clear as to what has actually been written. When the reader slows down and sees what is actually on the paper revision is possible. I developed this method many years ago and find it works well still. My greatest weakness is infamous within the confines of the Writing Center; that of technology. The computer keeps evolving; I do not and apparently never will. There are times when I find it understandable then that knowledge is gone within days. This is the most frustrating thing that plagues my employment as a tutor. I knew technology well at a point in my life and it haunts and teases me showing no sign of stopping. I am fortunate to have co-workers that endure my repetitive questions and for now, that seems to be the way to deal with this particular lack of knowledge. Should a technological miracle occur that allows computers to be installed in the human brain; I am first in line.
If I had been told the first day I entered into Dr. Jay 55
Sloan’s Tutoring Writing course at Kent State University – Stark Campus in 2004 that I would be employed as a professional Writing Assistant at Stark State College in 2016; I would have scoffed and walked away. I did not. I am still here. I still have a purpose that gives me great satisfaction and joy. I will still learn in spite of, or to spite my difficulties. I had a conversation with my employer regarding a way to better operate in a conference presentation, something I find challenging yet want to be involved. I will explain my deficits outright rather than hoping they will not be noticed. I will invite interruption for necessary explanations for information misunderstood due to my distraction, forgetfulness, repetition and so on and so on. I’d seen it done by a presenter with a speech impediment while at a conference at Notre Dame. She instructed her audience to be sure to stop her should they not understand and she’d be happy to repeat or explain. I have found a way to continue to present at conferences, something I love to hate as I fear public speaking yet enjoy the comradery and process. The visits to the various campuses and cities are educational not to mention rubbing elbows with the writing elite. Tutoring is ensconced firmly in my brain and blood and I will do my best to evolve with the inevitable changes tutoring brings. Indeed there are days when I would like to toss the computer, client, and myself out the window and never return. Luckily that has yet to happen and never will; probably. I want to continue doing what I do well and enjoy; what I find challenging and frustrating until the day I realize the purpose has been fulfilled. Until that time makes itself known, I will continue to listen and learn until there is nothing left. I am however, considering auditing Mrs. White’s class as I am the facilitator of her studio sessions; that is another essay altogether. 56
Is This Therapy? Steven Fregeau Motto: Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. During the second or third week of classes this year, a student in one of my studio sessions asked, “So, is this supposed to be therapy or something?” (I’m not reporting verbatim.) I said, “No, but you might find some therapeutic value in writing” The student said, “Only it seems like talking about our lives and being forced to share our personal stories is therapy.” I said, “You don’t have to share anything you don’t want to.” A few others chimed in with claims like, “Then why do we have to write personal stories?” “Prof. —— said the group was going to pick our topic for us; I didn’t want to write about this,” “We’re forced to be here,” “You said we had to write about our lives” and “Aren’t you a doctor?” I let them settle down and then explained how studio sessions (ideally) worked again: “You are writing personal narratives, which simply means essays based on things you know. No one said that the group would pick your topic for you; this is just a way to get feedback to see what topic might be the most interesting to others or to see what might make the best essay. No one is forcing you to share anything you don’t want to, and I said that sometimes it is helpful to write about real events. I am not a doctor. I am not here to tell you what to do, to 57
evaluate you in any way or to judge anyone.� The difficulty was that they refused, and the next groups refused, to understand what I said, even after rephrasing it and reassuring them. Even now, ten or eleven weeks into classes, they in this particular class continue to resist and refuse my presence and reassurance. They still behave as if I am against them, as if I am forcing them to do something, or as if I am a psychiatric counselor. I am not alone; the professor said that they respond the same way to class instruction, discussion, and feedback. We had been fighting the same battle. Even a fellow tutor of mine worked with one of the students from this class in the Writing Center and confirmed what the professor and I had been experiencing. The majority of students in this class resist any explanation or any answer to their questions or objections. I have come to learn, over the past four semesters, that there will be classes where studio sessions do not work out exactly as they are intended to do. This does not put me off; I do enjoy studio sessions, and I acknowledge their value. Some are truly wonderful. I even witnessed the first engagement ever (so far as I know) in a studio session this semester—which was a joke between a girl who dropped her ring and a guy who picked it up for her—and learned that there is still such a thing as Dennis Rodman socks because of studio. This is not a reflection on studio sessions, but instead on that first question: is this therapy? We all know that we are not therapists or counselors. We all know that not only are we not expected to be therapists or counselors, but even that we should not be. This is true, at least in a legal and clinical sense, yet the very nature of our job is to work with people to help them improve. In that more general sense, we are 58
therapists and counselors. We help students get over their impediments, we reassure them, we do what we can to boost their confidence in their own abilities and we uphold their personal dignity and value as often as we can. Concedo. That more general sense, however, is not always as general as it seems to be.
Students come to trust and mistrust us based on our reactions, and their personalities, personal lives, histories, behaviors, neuroses and psychoses become a part of our lives by mere association. Sometimes, it is by self -disclosure, as when a student says “I am not being mean; I have Asperger’s” or “I cannot think today. My depression is too bad.” Sometimes, the student does not need to disclose dyslexia or an anxiety disorder, but, of course, we cannot diagnose this; we can only suspect it and do our best to adjust ourselves to it. We react constantly to our students and do not worry too much about these things (in theory) precisely because it is not our job and we are not qualified to do so. Yet we do worry about them because it is our duty to do so whether we are qualified or not—such is the world of human interaction. On the other hand, our own personalities, personal lives, histories, behaviors, neuroses and psychoses become a part of our students’ lives. We, however, do not always find it so easy to self-disclose or to self-diagnose ourselves because it is unprofessional and, to an extent, dangerous to do so. If we are not qualified to be therapists and counselors to others, this is all the more reason that we should not be therapists or counselors to ourselves, nor should we assume that we can assuage a difficult session through self-disclosure or selfdiagnosis. The question raised by the question, “Is this therapy”? is “Therapy for whom?” In a way, it is therapy for us; there is an inescapable responsibility to rec59
ognize our own deficiencies, overcome them and express our own abilities. We begin to act in the world of human interaction, which is also the beginning of being therapists for the students. This is necessarily unethical and contravenes every expectation from professionalism to common decency. Neither a one-on-one session nor a studio group session should admit any of this into its event. Nevertheless, we must do our jobs which entail unintentional unethical behaviors, which puts us in a position of becoming therapists. The test of this is how far into obviousness, into consciousness, we allow it to go; there is no measurable outcome for this, and that makes us very anxious indeed. The measurable outcome is always the canon, but that canon is not established without history, and we act in the present without being able to act in history. The best we can do is to learn from our histories. At the same time, it is impossible to turn our histories into paradigms. We can say to a student, “I understand; I have anxiety, too” but we cannot say, “This is what I do when I have a panic attack,” and certainly not “This is what you should do.” We simply are not qualified as clinicians. We know strategies, and we know our own disciplines, but we do not know how to prescribe.
We do, however, know that a prescription is necessary and expected from us. We mediate this problem with suggestions. In suggesting, rather than applying or prescribing, we wash our hands of the responsibility of being therapists while at the same time being precisely that. We can even suggest academic accommodations or that students go to the “offices” with concerns that fall outside of our experience-spheres. This is vague and even threatening or disheartening for many students who have tried this and been rejected—or who 60
feel that they have been rejected and admonished—or who resist and refuse such suggestions—or who suffer panic attacks in the face of authority or an office setting. Oftentimes, students come to us because they are unsure of what will happen to them elsewhere, how they will be treated or perceived in the “offices” or in academic accommodations. In fact, I myself am not very clear on these facilities and find myself flipping through syllabi to find the information; I find myself simply sending the student out to a vague place called “financial aid” or “student services.” I know, as we all know, that these places are not terrible, but to a student with depression, anxiety or autism it is a terrifying and obscure venture. If it is not what the student expects, then it is up to us to do something in the meantime—to assure the student, to establish trust, to become human according to the student’s definition of what is human—that is, to be casuistic therapists. Then there are all of those other things—the insane papers, the absolute and unshakable opinions, the horrific personal histories—things that we see and hear on a day to day basis, but which we have no experience of ourselves. However much psychology or self-help we have read, I would guess (safely, I think) that we are not qualified in the least to deal with a good many of the situations we encounter. We might have our experiences with this or that organization, theory, doctor, or independent study, and we might even know that when we apply knowledge and analogous experience to situations with friends, strangers at the bar, or ourselves, we see good results—so what? This does not count as good, empirical psychiatry (or therapy), besides which it has nothing to do with comma placement or paragraph structure (writing). Yet, applying our knowledge and analogous experience helps us adjust to the students through diagnoses, and after the 61
insane papers, the absolute and unshakable opinions, and the horrific personal histories, what can we do besides assume that the writer has this or that disorder? Isn’t that also how we save ourselves from distress, depression, despair…? A diagnosis without treatment is merely identifying a problem without going further—it is also a way of excusing a person, a personality, or a situation. Without diagnosis, we would have to be appalled by this psychopath, angered at that slow learner; we would have to be dejected with this victim of abuse, insulted by that spoiled brat. So some reasonable good does come out of our amateur attempts. What we think of a student affects our ability to promote the student’s industry, or ability and confidence to actually do an assignment. It affects our willingness to be patient with the student in a session while recognizing what a student can and cannot do rather than what a student should be able to do. It helps us to recognize where a student’s self-perceived inability lies and what realistic ability this can be translated into (which is necessarily something the student would want it to be translated into, not what we would like to see it translated into). For example, a student who says, “I can’t do this because I am too old to learn” can be taught what to do so that he or she translates the feeling of uselessness into one of usefulness—“I am wiser because I am older, and I can help others”—depending on the student’s particular personality and psychological anomalies. In that regard—in the regard of recognizing how to adjust to a student—tutoring is “therapy”, but let’s not confuse that word with legal or ethical situations, or actual diagnoses, and certainly not with being perfect. I do not consciously go about each session doing psychoanalysis, and I assume no one else does, either; it 62
happens unconsciously and automatically after a little observation; it is a reflection on my entire history and knowledge as this entirety is applicable to a few minutes of getting to know a student. Neither is it necessary to know psychiatry do something like this; there is a wealth of specialized (and entire) knowledge in each of us in the Writing Center that can be (entirely) applied the same way. In fact, our amateurish and unconscious approach to therapy may be a boon to us and our students, since it does not resurrect suspicions and doubts that students may have as a result of a failed and/or insensitive professional system.
We still need to recognize that there are some students whom we cannot help, who for one reason or another have passed by our specialized unconsciouses and bring the whole thing down so that our own personalities, personal lives, histories, behaviors, neuroses and psychoses start to get the better of us. We cannot and must not try to be therapists in these cases. Then we work with another student who builds the whole thing up again. Whether we like it or not, we are therapists in these cases. The success—I see this every shift I spend in the Writing Center—outweighs the failure of our work and demonstrates precisely why we ought not be too afraid of making this “therapy”. Only, let’s not admit directly or openly to that because there is too much risk, too much dubiousness involved in that much honesty.
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