Reflections 2017 by Leah Schell-Barber

Vol. III 2017

In crafting the content for this third volume of Reflections, we were provided an opportunity to review how and why we do what we do. Sometimes we learn things. Sometimes, we don’t. But we persisted. We persist. We will continue persisting, learning, growing, in all the ways being a writing assistant forces a person to call on so much of oneself. In the wise words of Bob Ross, “We don’t make mistakes, just happy little accidents.” And these accidents make us better, but only if we recognize them and accept them as part of a part of us. And with that, I present to you our own reflections, of what we do and what that means.

*Reflections*

Volume 3

Stark State College Writing Center

*staff*

Andrew Rihn Angie Saunders Ben Rafferty Cami Barber Corrie Tate Danny Dalziel Devon Anderson Emilia Kandl Jamie Thompson Jess Beck Jordan Roach Katelynne Shepard Kellie Thompson Morgan Cole Nathan Floom Robin Clark Sandy Dent-Squibbs Steven Fregeau

*table of contents* Andrew Rihn

Annotating Normalcy

Angie Saunders

This is the Title

Ben Rafferty

I Wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t Trained for This: Immature Behavior in a College Setting

Cami Barber

Professional Narrative

Corrie Tate

Personal Narrative

Danny Dalziel

Soaring Over Their Heads and Undermining Our Mission

Devon Anderson

Untitled

Emilia Kandl

The Ticket: Downtown Out- 28 reach and our Raffle

Jamie Thompson

Observations and Comparisons

Jess Beck

Untitled

*table of contents* Jordan Roach

Tutoring Transitions

Katelynne Shepard

Student Personas and the Tutor

Kellie Thompson

Untitled

Morgan Cole

Reflective Narrative

Nathan Floom

Using New Technology in the Writing Center

Robin Clark

Tutoring Effectively

Sandy Dent-Squibbs

â&#x20AC;&#x153;It Was the Best of Times; It Was the Worst of Timesâ&#x20AC;?

Steven Fregeau

A Growing Concern: Of Theory and Practice

Annotating Normalcy Andrew Rihn People voted for Donald Trump, and I'm still trying to get my head around it. In the marketplace of ideas, he won out. And now he is President, entertaining heads of state at his Mar-A-Lago country club while simultaneously doubling his club's membership fees. In the same room, cronies and racists pose for selfies. I am nauseated by it all. I am writing this essay on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the painter Francis Baconâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s death. Best known for his portraits, Bacon's images are characterized by distortions. The features of his subjects are twisted, rended, suppurated: more flesh than face. The subjects sit alone in sparse environments: a field of solid color for a background and just a few simple lines to denote dimension. These lines often read as boundaries, cages, or precarious ledges. Sometimes they look like set markers on a stage floor. Tomorrow, Donald Trump will have been President for 100 days. For whatever reason, I've also been listening to music from around the time of Bacon's death. The early 90s. Grunge. Hole's Live Through This. Nirvanaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s posthumous live album. I listen to Pearl Jam more or less for the first time, because I never did back when they were current. Their song "Daughter" begins with the words: Alone, listless Breakfast table in an otherwise empty room This description of space reads like the setting of a Francis Bacon painting. A setting painted in traces; a stage built from ephemera. Vedder continues his description of the scene: 1

Young girl, violence Center of her own attention The mother reads aloud, child tries to understand it Tries to make her proud Action: First, an act of violence. Second, an act of literacy. But there is a distinction here between these acts. The violence is cast as a noun, not a verb, placing it in the background, the set-dressing, the context. Reading is the verb, the direct action. It's what is going on. The language arts. The last line connects this literacy event to pride: we consider literacy as intertwined with their relationship, as affective, as a means to please. But to say she tries implies she doesn't succeed. The daughter cannot follow the reading, and cannot make her mother proud. As I write this, I consider the real possibility I am also not understanding, that I am misreading Pearl Jam's song, so I look online for some validation. I find it. On the lyric site Genius.com, they include a note from Vedder that the song is intended to be about a girl who has dyslexia, and the struggles she has not only understanding, but in being understood. "It's only in the last few years," writes Vedder, "that they've actually been able to diagnose these learning disabilities that before were looked at as misbehavior, as just outright rebelliousness." The song continues: The shades go down, it's in her head Painted room, can't deny There's something wrong A phrase I've heard a lot of people repeating since Donald Trump's election is "This is not normal." When they say this, they are making an effort to resist nor2

malizing behavior that they consider abusive, destructive, or otherwise detrimental to building a functioning, inclusive, and safe society. "This is not normal" they say when the President is asked about a major bomb strike but cannot stop talking about the cake he was eating at the time. "This is not normal" they say when Sean Spicer says Hitler didn't use chemical weapons. "This is not normal" they say when Kellyane Conway invokes alternative facts and claims that providing evidence is part of her job. This is not normal. In "Daughter," the shades go down so the neighbors cannot see when the parents become abusive. Their view of their daughter is so distorted: they see what they think she should be instead of seeing who she really is. They are so desperate for normalcy that the normalize the distortion. And they punish her for it. The song ends on a sad, loving note: She holds the hand that holds her down She will rise above In her painted room, there is no one to tell her that this is not normal. Despite their abuse, she continues to love her parents, or at least stick by them. The shades go down and it becomes normalized. Hope is pushed into the future tense; the promise or prediction of rising above remains unfulfilled in the present. This is hopeful, yes, but also still predicated on tragedy. Is this what resistance looks like? Rising above tragedy? Donald Trump has been President for 100 days now and I still don't know what to make of it. I'm 774 words into this essay and I haven't mentioned the Writing Center once. Let's map a roadmap of what I do know: 1) The Trump administration is the background 3

for this essay, 2) Pearl Jam is the soundtrack, and 3) Francis Bacon's paintings are the visual aesthetic. So where is this going? I want to write "We are tutoring in troubling times," but I worry that sounds needlessly dramatic. I worry about sounding alarmist. But at the same time, I know it isn't alarmist enough. We elected a tacky reality television star as president, and he brought along an antigay fundamentalist VP and a slew of Holocaustdenying neo-Nazis. I ache for the fake news of Y2K, for a time when we believed a computer-reset would bring down our jet airliners. I try to remember the 1960s, before I was born, when the most the conservative right-wing could do was let William F. Buckley Jr. threaten to sock Gore Vidal in the goddamn face. We are tutoring in apocalyptic times, perhaps. And so we resist this seemingly inexorable political death-drive. Somehow. I took a year off of tutoring to work full time in a small bakery. It was nice, and I don't regret it. I love food and I loved my customers. But I love working with writers, too. I love that relationship with the work. I love when we share a common goal of making some writing clearer, of articulating the points of an argument, of shaping ideas with words. By the end of the semester, and Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m thinking about how much work writing is. I've been working with one student in particular this semester who I've been partially thinking of while writing this essay. She has done a lot of work this semester. We've worked together in the writing center nearly every week. We worked together slowly, but I remind myself that speed is relative. We worked together at her pace, I should say. How quick I am to normalize my own speed when it comes to 4

working, to writing. She has some learning disabilities, and because these went un-diagnosed earlier in life, she never benefited much from school settings. I think about the daughter in Pearl Jamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s song. Learning disabilities were being diagnosed in the 90s; twenty-five years later, I wonder how far have we actually come. My student is making her second attempt at going to college, and finishing her first writing class. In her reflective letter, she talked about how writing personal narratives has helped give her closure. Her essays touched on some painful parts of her past, yes, but they always included endings that were looking ahead, hopeful, resilient. I would be well served to reflect on how difficult writing this essay has been for me, especially in relation to the conditions under which students write. First, no one is grading this essay; no one is formally judging it. No grade or GPA depends upon it. If this essay is flawed, as I assume it is, Leah will not fire me (I hope!). And unlike students, I am not paying for the chance to write it. Just the opposite is true â&#x20AC;&#x201C; as part of my job, I am being paid to write it. Despite all these advantages, I've procrastinated, I've griped, and I've beaten myself up over it. Is this normal, I wonder? Should it be? And so we tutor while Donald Trump tweets; we tutor in the time of Trump. Every day we define what this means, a little each day. Definition is aggregate. And so when I sit down to write a portrait of these times, I think of Francis Bacon's paintings: a few sketchy lines and a subject at once figured and disfigured. World War Two shaped a formative period in Bacon's life, and his paintings often referenced the grotesque theatricality of Nazi imagery. What would Bacon make of Trump? His hands, his hair, his mouth? What would 5

Bacon make of Trump? His hands, his hair, his mouth? What would Francis have seen in Trump’s visage? All this is to say that I don’t have much to say (to paraphrase John Cage). Last year, I got married on a Monday. On Tuesday, Donald Trump got elected. I’ve been caught off guard by the feeling of having the best year of my life during what could potentially the be the worst year for United States. I feel shaken. Questioning everything. Like Dickens wrote, it is an epoch of belief and an epoch of incredulity. I wonder what the impact of fake news and alternative facts will be, especially insofar as higher education and composition in particular is so grounded in reasoned arguments and the validity of evidence. I worry about a political climate that is hostile to fact-based evidence. I worry about a Secretary of Education who is antagonistic to the very idea of public education as a public good. All this tragedy: this is not normal. I want to move forward, to rise above. To let go of the hands that hold me down, and to clasp tighter to those who lift me up. To more fully embody that spirit of resistance and love. I think that spirit is necessary. I want that to be normal.

Technology and the Writing Center Angie Saunders Day in, day out I see a cavalcade of students pass through our door, bringing with them their latest drafts of essays for Introduction to Academic Writing or Annotated Bibliographies for College Composition. Occasionally, I might meet with someone writing an Ethics paper or an article critique for Human Growth and Development. The common denominator between all of these assignments is that they are standard-issue academic essays. When a student comes into the Writing Center with such an essay, the modus operandi is the same. The student and I talk about thesis, transitions, paragraphing, citations—all the things one needs in a proper academic paper. This is the writing most of us did in college, and it’s familiar. Every now and then, though, someone appears— seemingly out of thin air—with a lab report, a PowerPoint, a scholarship essay or (to my great pleasure), a script or story. In fact, I have been seeing more diversity in student assignments during the past two years than I have since I first started working at Stark State. A quick look at the Course Catalogue for Stark State College reveals a wide variety of academic offerings that directly involve different forms of writing: Business Writing Creative Writing Scriptwriting Technical Report Writing Writing for Media Writing for the Web 7

I have personally seen at least one student working on an assignment for each of the above courses. In addition, students sometimes come to the Writing Center for help on resumes, cover letters, and scholarship letters. The appearance of these types of writing is still less common than standard academic essays. Let’s face it—Intro to Academic Writing and College Comp are the bread and butter of the Writing Center. And that’s okay. But… little by little, students are seeking out the Writing Center for different styles of writing, and when they do, we should be ready to meet their needs. As everyone in the Writing Center likely knows, different types of writing—from business memos to lab reports to creative pieces are… well… different. The language and conventions required for a lab report or a piece of journalism differ from the standard academic essay, and the students writing these pieces likely have specific concerns. How, then, can we as a Writing Center be equipped to give these writers the best advice? And for that matter, how can we draw more students from these courses into the Writing Center? Obviously, writing assistants themselves should always be learning about and exposing themselves to different styles of writing. That goes without saying. We can also offer quick resources—both for the student and for the writing assistants—on writing conventions that we might not be as intimately familiar with as the standard academic essay. I did a quick inventory of the Writing Center and discovered that we do have a helpful brochure on scientific writing, as well as a sample copy of a business letter. A few more resources—course books, brochures, a list of great websites—could be useful, as well.

In addition to providing additional resources and con8

tinuing to develop ourselves professionally, we can also reach out to students in classes such as those listed above (as well as subjects across the disciplines). All too often, I hear students say that they would have come to the Writing Center earlier, but they thought it was just a place for remedial students. Or they might say that they had no idea we would look at resumes or poems for their Creative Writing class. Perhaps we could create posters or literature specifically geared toward letting those outside of the traditional IAW and College Comp classes know that the Writing Center can benefit them, as well.

I Wasn’t Trained for This: Immature Behavior in a College Setting Ben Rafferty Coming from an education background, I was used to dealing with poorly-behaved children. I learned many techniques in undergrad about how to manage classroom issues in an effective way, and how to focus the attention of adolescents to avoid interference with learning. What I did not learn was how to deal with poorly-behaved adults. Working in academia at a school like Stark State is not all that different from working with young adults in a public school setting. The transition was, frankly, not all that harsh. Many of the skills I acquired are still applicable. Still, I was not expecting to have to handle immaturity like I did with high school-aged kids. There is obviously a huge difference though. People in high school, though they may be classified as “young adults,” are still effectively children. When they misbehave, it is the misbehavior of a child, bringing a specific set of complications. The teacher is an authority figure, someone to fear or defy; they may be insecure or attention-seeking, or generally trying to “find themselves” in their formative, hormonal tidal wave years. When people in college misbehave (it’s embarrassing to type that), it is the misbehavior of an adult, with a whole different set of complications. Even the younger students are technically adults, taking steps (allegedly) to advance their lives and careers. Perhaps their misbehavior is the result of rocky formative years, or financial problems, or a challenging domestic life. Some may deal with issues of addiction, past mistakes or jail time, etc. The particular mix that we have at Stark State, with 10

students ranging from young and immature to old and cranky (but also immature), is what makes it such a specific kind of frustration, one that is very difficult to assess and remedy. We have to deal with privileged youngsters, fresh out of high school and knowing everything about the world, as well as older folks who are “too old for this shit.” Both are theoretically adults, just on different sides of the same jaded and angry coin. Regardless of the reason for the misbehavior, as teachers/tutors, we are not often viewed as authority figures. We are nothing more than roadblocks to their goals. We’re simply assholes telling them what to do. This semester has, oddly, seen an uptick in immature, childish behavior from students in the Writing Center and the ELL Lab. The most pressing of these issues originated in the ELL Lab, but bled directly into the Writing Center. A large group of Nepali students started to abuse the freedom of the ELL Lab and use it for socializing. They talked, laughed, and watched videos, all at unreasonable volumes, talked back to the tutors, and were generally disrespectful of anyone else using the room. They also disregarded the fact that we are directly next to the Writing Center, and that their behavior was also affecting students seeking help there. These students were asked many, many times to follow the few unofficial rules we had in place (be respectful/ don’t disrupt, sign in and out of the log book), but they became more and more defiant with each request, eventually leading us to establish hard-lined “official” rules, and close down the lab when it’s unstaffed. Effectively, immature students got to dictate how we run our lab. But was there a better option? “Is this some sort of cultural difference?” we wondered. “Do they not respect us for some hidden cultural reason?” We determined that this was not the case. 11

There were plenty of students from a Nepali/ Bhutanese background who were very respectful when using the lab, and even some of the students in that large group were fine when isolated from the group as a whole and the influence of their peers. Instead, it was clear that this was indicative of a larger problem: adults (young ones, but still adults) not following the rules/social boundaries of the school because they feel a sense of superiority over said rules. The Writing Center has seen its fair share of disruption and disrespect this semester too, with students refusing to leave at closing time, staying beyond the allotted hour before or after a session, excessively complaining about WC etiquette, and simply refusing to cooperate on a basic level. Surely these are isolated incidents, but it seems there’s been an overall upward trend over this semester especially. Also, outside of the Writing Center, there’s the group of men we not-so-affectionately refer to as the “Klan Rally” – they wait for a class together in a high traffic area of the hallway, wear hunting apparel and occasionally “Make America Great Again” hats, and have been known to gawk at women, make racist and sexist remarks under their breath, and generally intimidate everyone unfortunate enough to have to walk through their path. I’m a straight, white man – not at all the target of their scorn – and I still find their presence quite disconcerting. I’ve offered no great thesis, no suggested solution to this problem. That’s because I don’t think there is one. As cynical and misanthropic as it may seem, I think this just might be the climate that our current culture has fostered, one of self-centered entitlement, longgestating and now coming to the surface. With the ebbs and flows of society, one hopes that it won’t last. All I know for now is: I wasn’t trained for this. 12

Professional Narrative Cami Barber Working online affords me a different set of priorities and tasks than working face-to-face in-center. I have the luxury of not needing to be professional in appearance, but that means my words carry more of an impression than they would otherwise, since they are the only impression I give. We have had discussions online about the merits of being supportive and positive in our sessions. Since we cannot see the students to monitor their attention or reactions, we posit that leading with praise and amiability will connect us better to the student and garner better results overall. While I concede the need to make connections and meet the students where they are (making those positive statements can help the students open up, presenting us with more valuable, workable info), I also contend that students are often looking for quick answers. Overpraising simply for the sake of a positive initial reaction can lead the student to write off what comes next, since what they have is “good.” I have come to the conclusion that the “tough love” approach ends up being far more effective in the long run. This is especially true of our College Credit Plus students, who make up about 95% of our current online demographic (at least for me, anyway). They are used to being told by their peers that everything is “good” and- if you believe themtold by their teachers that they are doing well. It often comes as a shock to them when I tell them their first and only draft is, in fact, not that great. I do encounter resistance and explanations of what they are “trying to do,” which then becomes the perfect teachable moment. I can tell them, yes, I see where you tried to do that, but here is the effect it actually had because of x, y, and z. More often than not, the student has a lightbulb 13

moment, and we can make interesting and effective changes. I have had some students laugh and say “well, I appreciate your honesty.” I have had some say they were extremely happy someone finally told them what they could improve. And, yes, I have had some that fight me tooth and nail til the bitter end. For those students, I think back to my own most effective teachers. The ones who told me to knock off the attitude and live up to my potential. I hated them. Now though, I love them and see exactly what they meant. When we don’t let a desire to avoid conflict supersede what is truly needed in a situation, people can make important realizations. I do think praise is warranted in circumstances where the student is a tentative writer, or comes in with heavy doubts about the value of their work. Struggling writers benefit from a kind, nurturing session, and I have supplied my fair share of those (and gathered a few repeat customers because of it). But strong writers, and those who think they don’t have anything left to work on, are better served with honest appraisals of their weaknesses, and direct attention to improvements in their current work. (I have earned repeat customers from this, too.) Yet I sometimes wonder if my perspective is skewed? Working online is isolating and disconnected. I have no idea what the impression really is of our work. I have feedback from a few teachers that is highly positive and supportive of the above approach. But I need more than that to be able to make positive changes in my own work. I need teacher feedback. Student feedback. Administrative feedback of my techniques and their results. One cannot work in a bubble and expect to advance in relation to the outside world. So I could read journal articles and research and try new things. But 14

what is the point of trying new things if I have no objective measure of its benefits or detriments? The feedback I have is all positive, which leads me to believe no changes are needed- the status quo is “good.” But, like the students I described above, that can’t possibly be true. The status quo stagnates and needs to be refreshed. Without any kind of constructive feedback from the outside, some “tough love” from those around me, how will I ever improve? I feel like one step is to get feedback from teachers. See if they will provide us with honest, blunt assessments of the services we offer, and (if they’re feeling brave) impressions of individual tutors. I would like to see the same from students. We do have a function on our scheduling software to leave reviews, which are overwhelmingly positive. But constructive assessments from them would help as well. I also think non-self-led performance reviews from our peers/superiors would help immensely. Self-evaluations have a purpose, and help us reflect, but on what? We don’t know what we don’t know, and that is where honest evaluations from others is essential. We cannot move forward as tutors without accurate views of our own work. Rather than avoid the conflict of potential offense at a negative review, I personally would rather be told bluntly what I am doing well and, more importantly, what I am not. Because right now, just like those cocky students, everyone told me I’m doing great, and I’ll believe them. But I’d like to know the truth. That’s probably going to come back and bite me in the butt, so here’s my “self-improvement” answer. As the online platform has been improved, I have resisted the new technology. Online tutors do our jobs the way we do by reading the papers and typing in a chat. We have grown confident and comfortable with that method. 15

However, we have an array of integrations that allow us to view the paper real time with the student. Some tutors are already doing that by giving comments in the Google docs the students upload. For the sake of fairness (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it) I didn’t use those options. I wanted every student to receive the same session as every other. But after a few end-of-theyear sessions where students shared essays in the chat room, or told me they were typing in Google docs and I could check it out, I realize those options are helpful to those who understand them already. Our regular Stark students don’t tend to adapt well to those technologies, but as I said above, 95% of my sessions are College Credit Plus. Those kids are tech wizards, and if I am truly going to reach them where they are, this is the way to do it. It won’t give me the option of my established notations; I usually download the paper and highlight the things I want to bring up, and type notes as I go. They are not necessarily all things the student needs to know upfront so I can’t do that in a shared mode. But I can figure out a new way to keep my thoughts straight in my chaotic home/work environment, and have the benefit of both looking at the same paper. This kind of professional development will help my students, and keep my practice from stagnating. After that, I will consider pedagogy. My degree is in secondary education, and I am comfortable using my high school teaching experience while working with the CC+ kids. How much of that is beneficial, and how much does it hold them back, since this is supposed to be a college class? Is there really a noticeable difference between secondary and post-secondary methodology anymore? Is integrating my experience what makes my tutoring helpful to them? These are questions I will consider moving forward, unless someone has a better idea? I am open to suggestions. 16

Personal Narrative Corrie Tate This year was different for me. While it began like any other, it ended with minimal hours while moving on to a full time position at another organization. While I was excited about the new opportunity, I did have to consider the impact that had on the people around me, especially the students. The students are the reason I come to work each day. Many of us build relationships with students over the course of the semester that grows for the duration of their stay at the college. We become the only tutor that student wants to work with. At times it can be overwhelming and rewarding simultaneously. It helps the tutor know what to expect from the student, as well as the student from the tutor. This helps with the flow of the sessions. As the paper grows in length, having a growing relationship helps both the student and the tutor get the most out of a session. By the end of the semester, the tutor is already familiar with the topic and suggestions made. The student is able to jump right to the changes made and ask new questions. With only a half an hour to review an ever growing paper, building the paper together and having an established rapport can make all the difference. Leaving the majority of my shifts mid semester meant breaking these relationships at a critical time. I had been a part of the process for composition 2 students since the onset. I had helped them brainstorm paper 17

topics and consider research. I had been a part of the smaller papers and helped them consider ways to grow the topic into a bigger project. Breaking that relationship midway through the semester meant the student attempting to find a new tutor they were comfortable with and taking the time to review the process. Selfishly, it would also mean missing the answers to some of the research I had suggested and not getting to read the narratives I had looked forward to reading. In my effort to create a smooth transition for all, I gave as much notice as possible to my supervisor as well as the students. I tried to help them as much as I could with the paper. I also tried to suggest alternate tutors who I felt would match well with their personalities and paper topics or interests. I was able to be joined in my studio session by the tutor who would be taking over. This allowed me to introduce the group to the tutor and allowed the tutor to see where the group had been thus far. I believe this made for an easier transition. I was able to fill in gaps for the tutor and reassure the students. For studio sessions were this was not case, it left the class feeling a bit alone. The idea of not knowing what to expect mid semester can be hard on students. I was glad to avoid that feeling for many students, and I tried to reassure the others as much as possible. While tutoring is not a full time position, it creates a strong connection. In many ways the relationship the student builds with the tutor can be stronger than with a particular instructor and can span the length of their academic career. For the students impacted, it is not a 18

part time position. It is a relationship with a mentor they have come to rely on. Students will check their schedule for the upcoming semester against the tutorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s availability to create a study calendar. They will plan their week to make sure they have the resources available they feel they need. Although I did need to make the change for myself to full time employment, I tried to be sensitive to the needs of my co-workers and the students I would be impacting with my decision.

Soaring Over Their Heads and Undermining Our Mission Danny Dalziel As a tutor who was cultivated as such in a writing center which served a demographic that, with reference to Stark State’s, forms a distinct juxtaposition, my overall experience of acclimating to the student population here has not been without challenge. I’ve had to consciously adjust several of my second-nature tendencies (the speed at which I speak, my degree of direction, the general tactics I employ, and, most importantly, my diction) in order to properly fulfill my role as an effective writing tutor. This process of adjustment required me to be superlatively mindful of how well my tutees and I were actually communicating, which is a mark that is easy to miss. As a result, I tried to pay very close attention to every perceivable aspect of my tutees’ verbal and nonverbal communication in order to evaluate how well my intended messages were being received. Eventually, I discovered that many of the ideas I was trying to convey were marred by verbosity, or demographically-inappropriate diction, thereby undermining my ultimate goal as a writing tutor: to provide substantive educational supplementation to every student who visits the Writing Center. This realization was fairly epiphanic, because I hadn’t considered the notion that many students would rather pretend to understand certain words or phrases I used, than admit that they were ignorant of their meaning. In effect, the students who fit this description possibly left tutoring sessions feeling confused, intimidated, discouraged, frustrated, and the like; which, in turn, could have negatively influenced the likelihood of such students staying in college at all.

Such an observation should have been obvious, but I initially approached my job here with two (of maybe many) distinct characteristics: a nervous desire to demonstrate my competency to my peers, and an aversion to possibly disrespecting students by assuming ignorance on their part. The former characteristic would’ve pertained to me in any setting, but did especially at the Main Campus’ Writing Center, where privacy is sparse and my intelligent, critical peers are predominantly present. Because of the immediate presence of my co-workers and my formerly-infantile relationships with them, I found myself using superfluously academic language in order to impress them and demonstrate my knowledge. What this amounted to, however, was a disservice to the students. It was bred by narcissism and insecurity, and markedly impeded my efficacy as a tutor. To be clear, I wasn’t just excessively spewing an onslaught of polysyllabic academic nonsense to students. However, I would use words like “indicative” or “precedence” without even considering how they may be confusing or frustrating students. I avoid terms like that now, and I do my best to speak to each student in language that I think best suits their understanding. This tactic has yielded much more fruitful results, and has allowed me to fulfill my goal of genuinely helping students learn and feel confident enough to see their college education through to the end. Throughout my career in this field, my chief concern has always been with not only refraining from offending students, but with actively reassuring, comforting, and encouraging them. This motivation takes an instinctive precedence in my subconscious, and subsequently guides the rest my professional behavior.

Even so, that motivation was temporarily overridden by my selfish desire to earn the respect of my peers. Once I realized that I was allowing my mission as a tutor to become compromised by my ego, I was able to process the corresponding guilt and use it as impetus to adapt properly to Stark Stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s demographic. I am no longer too insecure or proud to use very simple terms, especially because I needed them when I was first learning certain literary concepts, and I still often process thoughts with very basic terms and phrases. I also still wish to not offend students by assuming their ignorance, but there is nothing inherently offensive about simply analyzing each studentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s academic abilities, and then tailoring my diction appropriately.

Untitled Devon Anderson Working in a unique environment such as the Stark State Writing Center presents various opportunities for growth - not only for students who seek our services, but for the tutors and other staff as well. This year I have been blessed to see many of these experiences unfold right in front of my eyes. I always find these to be little gifts - gifts that do not need opened but ones that I can relive in my mind, over and over, to serve as a reminder as to why I am here. As someone who has the chance to work at two different learning center environments (one here at SSC and another at Wayne College), I can honestly say that I never really understood the purpose of tutoring until I lived it, nor was I aware of the breadth of these services and how much they actually DO help the students who seek them. I was never a student who felt she needed help, and to be honest, I would have had no idea where to find it if I did need it. Student services werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really promoted, and help was never just a walk down the hall away. Our students are incredibly blessed, whether they know it or not, with our services, and I have been part of many of these moments here at SSC, this semester being one of the best to date. I have seen students walk through the doors full of confidence just to be informed that theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re doing their assignment wrong. That always is a blow to them, so I 23

try to show them where they went wrong and how to correct it. They leave with a battle plan that consists of the right direction to travel in terms of the assignment and the knowledge of how to proceed (or at least they appear to have a plan; sometimes, even the best laid plans can go awry). Conversely, I have witnessed students come in completely assuming they have no idea what they are doing only to find out that they’re absolutely on track and should keep going. Students I have worked with, time and again, want to come back to work with me because of the way I speak with them really getting to know them and what makes them tick instead of just what they write on a page - and they tell me that no one ever takes the time to do that with them. I want to know their major, why they’re here, what future they want to have, and not because I am a writer and thus by my very nature, nosey. I really care about the students and want to maximize our time together when they come in for a session. In truth, I couldn’t care less about their terrible grammar or their punctuation mishaps – those don’t define them. I care more about them as people and want to make sure they know that. In fact, just today, I had two students in a row that came to me for help on their assignments. We ended up talking about the assignments and then things outside of the classroom, and I made meaningful connections with both. I ended up setting up the first student with a conversation with one of my friends who has a successful business in an industry the student wants to potentially move into after college. The other student 24

and I had a wonderful conversation about my alma mater, where she works, and the people and events there; she commented, “Thank you so much for not making me feel stupid.” I reminded her that she is not stupid and that we are here for her, at any stage of her process, as she moves along in her coursework. It is through these connections and moments with students that I feel I do my best work, and I feel that this is one of the biggest reasons I am here, on this planet not just campus. Mistakes, I’ve made a few. And no one is perfect, thank God. But I feel that it is in the imperfect moments that lessons grow like weeds. My time here has shaped me and molded me into the tutor I am today, for better or worse, I suppose. I have confidence in my abilities to work with students and help them in the best way I know how, but I also have confidence in my team and my ability to call upon a colleague when a question arises I am not sure of myself. I have no problem admitting my own inadequacies (I will throw myself under any bus I deserve to be tossed under without hesitation), and that has come from working with a solid team I know I can trust. I never would have had that trust in others if I did not work here. I used to think that I alone could handle all of the things thrown at me; now, I know better, so I do better. I trust everyone here to have my back as much as I would have theirs. And that is huge for me. There’s something to be said about a job that doesn’t feel like work. For me, that is our writing center. I think 25

this is a unique environment where people - students and staff alike - can come to learn something (I feel I am still learning APA!!) and have a good experience. It is in this last year that I have really gained an appreciation for that. For me, Stark State is like home. I know I can walk in and talk to people who genuinely want to be here, who have a vested interest in me as a person as well, and who share more than a common knowledge of the basics of English. We share a passion and love to serve the students, and it is because of that passion that students continue to come back and work with us. There is no greater feeling for me than a student who wants to continue to work with me personally because it shows me that I have made that connection, we vibe and work well together, and that is half the battle really. I love that about this place, and I hope to continue to have those moments. Working here doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t feel like another job, and for me, that speaks volumes of the people, the environment, and the drive for service here. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t come to work; I come to spend time doing what I love with a team of people I respect and admire. That says something. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s always precarious to try to evaluate yourself and not sound like a pompous ass or full of insecurities. In all, if I am looking at my performance here honestly, I can say without hesitation that this is the year (especially spring semester) that I have come into my own as a tutor here. I have really hit a good stride with students, I have learned to trust my team, and I have seen the immediate benefit of growing relationships with students that goes beyond the written assignment. I have confidence I may not have known how to appreciate before, and I use that to assist students in the best way I can. I may not do it 26

perfectly all the time, but I try my best and do what I know how to do. In terms of the work output of the students and the relationships I have developed, I don’t think I’ve done half bad. Then again, I may be full of shit and only seeing sunshine and rainbows, and I suppose that’s up to others to inform me of. For now, I’m going with it.

The Ticket: Downtown Outreach and our Raffle Emilia Kandl Last semester, our writing center received exciting news. Funding was in the works for us to host a handful of special “events” – we’d plan and implement these promotional activities to draw students in, spread awareness of the center, and help foster a connection to what we do. Then through post-assessment, we could learn more about how to achieve these aims going forward. Two events would be held at Main Campus; at the Downtown Satellite where I work, we’d host one event that we could tailor to our specific, smaller population. Because Downtown and its goingson are somewhat disconnected from/less visible than Main, and because I feel this opportunity gave way to some of the more valuable work we’ve been able to do at this campus – and I’m hoping to keep building on this experience – I’d like to reflect here on the reasoning and steps that went into organizing our event, share some of what we learned about our students and institution in the process, and discuss the potential significance of doing something like this on a continual basis and what could make this possible. If outreach was the overarching goal of these events, this carries some different meanings for Downtown. There are fewer students here, a large percentage of whom have been taking classes for quite a while and are well aware of the writing center; we see the same faces day to day, semester to semester, year to year. These “regulars” tend not to schedule appointments in advance, opting instead to simply come find us when they need us (and if we’re busy or not open at that time, to catch us later). We’re viewed by this group as a campus fixture, and our routine promotional efforts – 28

posting our hours, talking to classes, and frequenting the common areas (since our office location at the new building is somewhat hidden away) – seem to do little to influence their usage of our services one way or another. These students do not need to be made aware that we exist; however, many of them could benefit from a reminder of what it actually is we’re here to provide. For numerous reasons, we tutor on a less tightly scheduled basis here than at Main – and while this flexibility can be necessary in working with our student body, in the midst of all the questions on how to format a document or email an instructor, we’re always striving to wrangle more “real” sessions: traditional, roughly 30-minute sitdowns where the conversation is strictly focused on writing, and we can feel at the end that something writing-related has been accomplished. In hopes to encourage students – regulars as well as newcomers – to engage in more official sessions, we decided to have a semester-long “raffle” that would culminate in an end-of-semester drawing/event. Tickets (a limit of one per day per person) would be granted in exchange for participation in a session: no less than 15 minutes and up to an hour that, we stipulated on the event/Fall hours flyer, “must be writing-focused and constructive.” As with written reminders of our hours every semester (via our pamphlets, the dry-erase board, etc.), I’m not sure anyone read the flyers we posted around the school. Downtown where literacy levels are lowest, word-of-mouth tends to be the most effective means of communication, so we also talked to classes, instructors, and all the students we saw. We couldn’t announce (because we didn’t know) yet what the prizes would be, but students did seem enthused by the general idea. 29

In fact, our numbers were higher this past Fall than they’ve been in a long time. In considering the raffle’s possible role in this, I don’t think the incentive of prizes generated more requests for sessions, exactly. With the students we see most often, what they ask us for is driven by immediate needs – “I forgot how to save my paper;” “What’s PowerPoint?” “My teacher just told me I did this wrong;” “Is this a reference?” – in which kernels of full sessions can usually be found, but it’s also usually up to us, the tutors, to decide if and when a session has begun. During these occasions I encounter every day – when I know a student has more questions than he or she is asking, or likely knows to ask – the raffle tickets became an aid for me, personally, in initiating sessions with clear-cut parameters. After digging in and talking about an assignment for half an hour, I could reward the student with a ticket and end the session with the promise that if they came back tomorrow and we did the same thing, they could earn another ticket. Offering reinforcement (the ticket) helped enforce this pattern we try to nudge the students toward, already, but in a more fun way. This is not to say anyone viewed the tickets as concrete reinforcement. The same people did keep coming back, and the tickets helped encourage an overall agenda of discussing their work in manageable session-chunks, and this helped boost our session count. But the students didn’t seem to care much about the tickets themselves. At that point, I think the prospect of winning yet-unnamed prizes in several weeks’ time had to be far too abstract to provide motivation. Probably adding to this, we were keeping the physical tickets (having recorded names and contact info on them), suspecting the students might have trouble keeping track of them. Throughout the semester while we collected tickets, we worked on procuring more concrete “reinforcements”: 30

prizes and supplies for our event/party. Since we knew funds were limited (we were initially given a $50 budget), we hoped to primarily gather donations from area businesses. We brainstormed a list – McDonald’s, Fisher’s, Walmart, Campus Bookstore, SARTA – with emphasis on what would be of real use to our students: gift cards as well as school supplies, winter gear, bus passes…and, most importantly, food. Of course, free food is always good for drawing people in, but among our student demographic it bears a greater importance – to say the least. In my Studio Session last Summer semester – fresh in my mind during event planning – there was a lot of talk about hunger. One student was responsible for cooking and stretching leftovers for a house full of people and was always the one who ate last and least; another, relying on food stamps and the occasional donation to feed herself and her kids, would regularly come home to find her boyfriend had eaten everything. Hunger impeded these students’ focus in class, but it also built camaraderie when they shared favorite dishes, described what they planned to make that night, or wrote essays about cooking. This has been a constant theme in my time spent working Downtown: food (or lack thereof) as a problem, but also a unifying force among the students. If we wanted to reach people, we had to get some food involved. Considering how closely food and community are entwined here, we especially wanted to collaborate with Mom’s Kitchen, the small, inexpensive restaurant attached to our parking garage. Despite the flyers Mom’s has posted in the building, our students – many of whom are routinely here and hungry all day – don’t seem largely aware that this option exists, relying instead on the vending machines and whatever snacks 31

they might have brought with them. Since this campus has no cafeteria, this seemed like a good chance to connect our students with a very local resource; we hoped, in particular, that Mom’s might help us with the semester’s-end event. Unfortunately, obtaining business cards and letterhead from the college proved trickier than we’d expected – and for this semester’s run, ultimately impossible – so our plan to ask for donations fell through. Despite this, we ended up with a wonderful array of prizes. From the Campus Bookstore, Leah brought us two donated jackets plus an umbrella, winter hats, and flash drives for our $50 (the original funding plan also fell through, so this came out of the marketing budget), and we supplemented a few more things (school supplies, bus passes). During the last few weeks of the semester, our seven “prize bundles,” packaged in Stark State bags, sat on the table in our office and sparked the first real interest in the raffle. People saw the bags when they came in, admired them, and remarked about needing those things. Having prizes on display – something concrete to entice the students – before we drew the winners was excellent because we could say, “And there’s still time to earn tickets!” With a couple weeks left in the semester, we drew seven names from the nearly-100 tickets we’d collected. We sent the seven winners a, “You won!” email containing numbered, labeled photos of the prizes they could choose from (Steven’s idea, magnificently executed by his and Robin’s combined wizardry – Steven did many, many things), then chased them down by phone and/or in person to tell them to check their email and tell us what they wanted. A first-reply/first-choice method seemed fair; this way, people who couldn’t claim a prize at the event wouldn’t be penalized/ 32

shafted for their schedules, transportation issues, or anything outside their control. As a bonus, this method would reinforce the email skills we’re always trying to help the students cultivate. To add extra incentive to respond, we awarded the five flash drives, loaded with our pamphlets and other resources, to the first five winners who got back to us. Once we started contacting the winners – we posted a congratulatory list of their names around the school and, since Downtown is such a tight-knit community, enlisted other students’ help in finding/informing them – more people took notice. Some asked for the first time how they could’ve gotten a ticket; a few were disappointed they hadn’t won and had to be reminded that they hadn’t come in for a session all semester. The list of people who did win was, to quote Steven, “superb,” as it included students with a range of difficulties, needs, and progress made in their time at the college, but all of whom have used the writing center frequently and in ways that exemplify what we hoped to encourage with this event. We were able to contact all of them, and all but one picked up their prizes before the end of the semester. The event we held the week before finals felt successful as well. We set up signs leading to the common area, where we spread tables with WC literature and our party feast. This provided a festive setting for giving the winners their prizes and talking with students before break; we thanked them for participating in the raffle and reminded them to keep visiting (in addition, several spontaneous sessions happened due to our highly visible placement). The food was produced by a pooling of resources – we bought a few pizzas that were rapidly devoured; Cindy, the Satellite Coordinator, helped enormously by supplying drinks and 33

snacks; and Leah swooped in with cookies when we started to run low. No funding was available for this stage of the event, and if we were to continue doing this, funding it ourselves on the same scale wouldn’t be a sustainable option. However, if we can secure approval from the college to ask for donations, we can possibly combine forces with the local community to host something similar in future years. At our small Downtown campus where community is everything, it felt we accomplished something of value this year in rewarding and thanking our students for using the writing center, and in bringing food and festivity to our environment. In planning our first event, we also learned a great deal about the aid that can be available to us if we venture to ask. Now that our students have witnessed the tangible outcomes of this trial run and we’ve sparked their interest, we have the chance to keep building on what we’ve created – and we will keep venturing.

Observations and Comparisons Jamie Thompson I have worked for a couple months at the Stark State Writing Center, so I will have a limited review. However, I have worked in a writing center before, on a different campus, and even spent a couple years teaching Composition I. Therefore, a lot of my observations will likely be comparing Stark Stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Writing Center with the University of Akronâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s writing center. The first and most notable difference between Stark State and the University of Akron, is the amount of computer access. At the Akron writing center, we had only three or four computers, and they were not the best either. During most sessions with students we never used them, and on the occasions we did need to use them it would be a very long and tedious process. Most of the time this worked out okay, since Akron classes also rarely used computers, so the students were usually working with paper copies of their work. Stark State, on the other hand, has a lot more commuters, for both the students and the tutors to use. Although I am still a fan of pen and paper writing, and will encourage my students to hand write when it comes to outlines or listing down ideas, I appreciate the access to computers. In todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s digital age, computers are practically a necessity. A significant part of every class takes place on line, even if it is not an online class, and students do most of their work on their computers. It would be very inconvenient if students showed up to the Writing Center with all their work online, and had no way to access it and show us that work.

Another difference I have notices between Akron and 35

Stark, is the use of MLA vs. APA. Stark State leans more towards APA, while the University of Akron mostly uses MLA. While tutoring at the University of Akron I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t remember a student ever bringing me a paper that needed APA formatting. However, this semester at Stark, only one student brought me a paper written with MLA. Neither APA nor MLA is better than the other. In fact, it is a good idea for students to know both, but that brings me to my question. Why is there not an equal use of MLA and APA at both universities? Different types of classes would require different formatting, so why is there so much of only one type of formatting. Depending on where they go to school, students are going to come out of their education knowing either MLA or APA, but probably not both, and as I said earlier, it would be much more beneficial to know both. On the subject of citation, when I was a tutor at Akron, when students brought in papers the assignment sheet would usually require them to have a certain amount of print sources and a certain amount of web sources. During my years teaching, I also followed this, and required my own students to always have a certain number of print sources for each paper. This was to stop them from filling their essays with questionable web sources and nothing else. That is not to say that books are infallible, but a book on a library shelf at least has the assurance of having gone through a publishing company. Anyone can put a website up online. A lot of students that come into the tutoring center do not know how to sort out good sites from bad sites, or how to fact-check what they read online. They just slap the information into their paper and assume it is right so long as it sounds good. A lot of time these students do not even know how to find print sources, how to cite it if they do try to use one. I would like to see 36

more students required to use both print sources and web sources, so they know how to use both, and can learn to recognize what makes a credible source. However, as a tutor I do not have that kind of authority, but I can try to persuade students to use more print sources whenever they come to me for help in that area. Observations are not just used to compare what has happened in the past, however, but to project goals for the future. As a tutor, one of my weaker areas is when a student comes in with a paper that is mostly written, but has so many problems it is hard to know where to start, or so little substance I am not sure what they are trying to say. This is not the same as having nothing. If they come in with nothing I can help them get started. My strategies for helping a student with very little quality work written is to mostly disregard the paper and get an open communication going about the topic. If I can get them talking about what they are trying to say I can hopefully inspire new ideas, or at least better ways to explain the ideas they already have. For the most part this seems to work, but I do wish there was a way to better incorporate the students paper in these cases, so they can get more out of the work they have already done.

Though I have not even tutored at Stark for a full semester, I can already tell that the fellow tutors I work with are all very knowledgeable. I have never had a student relay information given to them by another tutor that was wrong. Although, incidents in the past where this has happened, it could easily be the studentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s interpretation of what the tutor said that was wrong. Either way, those kinds of situations are always very awkward, and I am glad it has never happened (to my knowledge) here at Stark. 37

There was one moment, however, when my opinion differed from the other tutors. One time when I came into work I was warned for several minutes about a student I would be having a session with. English was not her first language, and despite taking regular classes, she really could not speak English very well. Because of the warnings, I was expecting this student to be very difficult to work with, but it turned out to not be the case. Yes, her English was very poor. She should not have been taking regular classes and should have instead been in an ESL class, but I have worked with some students at her level before and did not find her to be any different. After the session had ended I realized the warnings I had been given were not because the student was particularly difficult (for someone with her level of English skill) but because my fellow tutors did not have a lot of experience with ESL students. At Akron we see ESL students, if not every day, then at least several times a week. I have always assumed dealing with ESL students is a typical part of working at a Writing Center, but I see now that for some people this might not be the case. Overall I have found it to be an easy transition into the Stark State Writing Center. Honestly, the biggest difficulty I have faced is dealing with the scheduling book. When a student wants to schedule an appointment, I always feel awkward scheduling them with another tutor without first getting that tutorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s permission. I worry that I might be unknowingly setting someone up to work with a difficult student. This is a minor thing, and if it is the biggest problem I face then I truly have nothing to worry about.

Untitled Jess Beck I love my jobs. I do. Sometimes, however, and some days, I just want to reach through the computer screen and punch someone in the face. When a student comes to the writing center with literal minutes to spare before a paper needs to be submitted or a student comes in "just because he needs it for a grade," it really gets my blood pumping. But then it hit me. I needed to ask someone for help recently, and I realized that sometimes, somedays, that someone didn't know how to ask for help. Toward the end of last week, I received an offer of contract for my teaching position. Have you ever opened an offer, read the bold words, laughed without feeling it, and placed the contents of said offer immediately back where you found them? Well, last week, I had just that situation. In short, I do a great job. I know the importance of individualized education because of the work we do here with individual tutoring. I teach a combined class of 4th and 5th graders, so that means double the prep, double the testing, double the grading; in short, it's double the work. Don't get me wrong, I feel appreciated beyond belief for what I do. My supervisors, my peers, my parents, and my students are all unbelievably open with their gratitude. However, my offer didn't quite reflect what I was hoping it might. This brought me to my moment of weakness. It was the moment when I started to have self-doubt. I looked at what I was doing, and I said, "Who cares?" I questioned if I the work I was doing was really worth it. I lost sight of what really makes me get up and go into 39

work every, single day. I struggled with what to do for four days. Literally, four days and nights of worry and contemplation, pride and self-consciousness. Last week happened to be Teacher Appreciation Week. And that's what finally gave me the strength to do what I feared most--- ask for help. I came in to work on Friday a bit frazzled, not caffeinated, and overwhelmed. I had no idea how to tackle my concern. I have 17 students in my class at a private school. No one was wearing a uniform... Just my favorite color, purple. Many kids brought in beautiful flowering plants, others brought in my favorite granola bar or fruit, while others still brought in that much needed morning cup of java and a mug. I can't even tell you how many kids spent painstaking hours crafting pictures to tell me how much they love me and how I am their favorite teacher...ever! My desk was overrun with homemade cards, tiny canvases with our names and flowers, large posters with stickers, and (my favorite!) a simply drawn picture of the mountains from the kid who despises art. Simply put, I was overcome. It's them. THEY are the reason I found the courage inside me to enlist the help of my principal to ask for just a tiny bit more from the board. I get it. They function as a ministry, and I know it's not all about the money. However, the pay they were offering wasn't even a little bit competitive. Keeping their mission in mind, I built up the courage to ask my principal for just a little bit of help. Do you know what happened? She reiterated what I am constantly telling our students whether they are in person or online...it never hurts to 40

ask for help. And then it hit me. THIS is what I have been missing with some of the faceless names that blink across my computer screen. True, not every student that comes in last minute is afraid to ask for help. We legitimately have kiddos that just don't care and are way beyond our scope of help at that time of the semester. However, we also have the students that are afraid to fail, look dumb, or ask for help. I needed a reminder, and I think it came just in time.

Tutoring Transitions Jordan Roach As of this year I will have been tutoring at some capacity now for five years. I have worked as a tutor in a myriad of different arrangements, both as a private tutor, and as an academic tutor. Now it should be noted that these are two completely different arrangements that each come with equally difficult situations, that have to be handled in different ways. Tutoring is highly intrapersonal, so even if you don’t want it to be, no matter what you end up knowing more about someone’s life than you often want to. Starting the summer after I graduated at the age of 19, I took on a private tutoring job for a friend of the family’s daughter. At that point I was untrained, had zero direction and was operating on little more than a good memory and some mild academic talents. I was tutoring a 15 year old high school sophomore, who frankly did not give a damn. She and I had been at some capacity friends and her mother chose me because L and I had similar backgrounds and interests. This, I now know, is the worst reason to hire someone to tutor anyone. In a situation where you are supposed to exert some type of authority the line becomes blurred and difficult when you as a hired professional, want to do your work, but also don’t want to hurt the person you are working with. The thing with private tutoring is that you are completely in charge of yourself and your schedule, which is great in a number of ways. As a freelance tutor you can cancel with much less worry, turn down who you want, and have no supervisor so you do what you want and never have to clock in. I am not saying you 42

should do things last minute or show up late, but with a solo team with a one-on-one interaction, it is much easier to manage lifeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s spontaneous situations. The first time I privately tutored, L and I had some difficult moments, but that was between us and occasionally her mother. Our difficulties often stemmed from L needing an older friend to help her through hard times, and my needing to do the work I had been hired to do. With no training and at 19, I was just not equipped for all of the factors of what became a personal interaction. Fast forward about a year and a half; I had decided to go back to college, and during my second semester, was enrolled in a tutoring class and then hired at the university's writing center. I loved it. I was able to shape a natural talent into a professional one, and more productively funnel that into a larger part of my college experience. The Writing Commons was my favorite place. There were constant and progressive conversations about educational theory and politics, and people to ask when confronted by something I did not personally understand. Even better, when something crazy happened or someone I was tutoring was being difficult, I had an entire written policy to back me up, cementing that I wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t to be taken advantage of. With the training of being a non-directive tutor, I learned the difference between helping someone facilitate their learning versus doing the work for them. This makes a huge difference in creating autonomy and a sense of responsibility for those I tutor. The latest chapter in my journey tutoring is joining a writing center that employs professional rather than student tutors. I have only been here about two months or so, but I have noticed a different atmosphere when it comes to this area placing authority directly into my hands. Honestly I find this next step to be quite nice as 43

my competence is questioned less often. As I continue to tutor for Stark Stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Writing Center I am sure I will find more and more that I like about being here. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m excited to see what changes within a year's time.

Student Personas and the Tutor Katelynne Shepard After almost 5 years of tutoring at both the main campus and online writing centers at Stark State College, I can honestly say that I've seen a lot of students and conducted a lot of sessions. One thing that sticks out when I think about those years of 30- to 60-minute blocks is that it almost always comes back to the same core issues: thesis, so what, follow up, and citations. After a few semesters, it's quite easy to get almost formulaic in your approach, and I can usually tell which of those four issues the session is going to focus on within the first 5 minutes or so. However, there's another main component of tutoring that can also be almost universally divided into a few main categories: the students themselves. In my experience, students fall into one of seven categories, and each carries a different challenge for the tutor. "Honestly, my teacher said we had to come here." We all know them: the slip grabbers. They usually walk in without an appointment â&#x20AC;&#x201D; may or may not having anything to work on â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and smile sheepishly when the tutor asks what issues they're having with their papers. And that's if they even brought the papers with them at all. With this type of student, you might get anything from confusion to outright hostility: "I didn't realize we had to actually bring our paper in." "Oh, so we have to talk about it?" "Having to come in here is stupid." "I already turned it in, so I'm not going to change 45

anything anyway." For tutors, these sessions can be especially difficult because unless the student realizes he's already there and might as well get some feedback, it often devolves into the tutor just talking at the student. "How do you turn this thing on?" In an in-person tutoring session, the tech-challenged student may take 5 minutes to figure out where to put the flash drive or not know how to log in to the computer at all. In the online environment, this is the person who pops into the session, mic and Webcam blazing. These situations are taxing on the tutor because so much of the session time gets eaten up in just getting the paper/Angel page/website pulled up and ready that there's not much time left to actually work on the paper. This is magnified further if the student has typing problems and is trying to work on the paper during the session. While there's really nothing the tutor can do other than take a deep breath and consider it an exercise in patience, I personally think it would be great if we had a question or some way for students to rate their tech proficiency before the session — such as when they make an appointment — so the tutor is prepared ahead of time. "Ok…Ok…Ok…Thanks!" These are the students who never really have any responses to your statements/questions and are doing their absolute best to say as little as possible. These students may be slip grabbers, but they might also just be trying to multitask (I'm talking to you, online students trying to drive and session at the same time) or have a language barrier. While it's tempting to just let these students slide and finish the session quickly, the 46

more involved the student is in the session, the more learning is actually taking place. For concepts to really sink in, students need to be introduced to the concept, understand the concept, and then PRACTICE the concept. An example of this is a student who is working on getting a solid thesis statement. The student may have heard about a thesis in class, and then the tutor explains what constitutes a thesis and how to approach it. However, it is in the actual active practice of the concept, writing and refining the thesis, that the learning actually takes place. Sometimes an open-ended question and silence on the tutor's part will force the student to participate. In others, it may come down to the tutor saying, "Ok, well you go ahead and work on that, and let me know when you're ready for me to take a look."

"My paper is great. My friend said so." These students are usually overly confident and have a general disdain for the writing center. They don't think they need help, and they certainly don't want it from us. The student may have had nothing but positive feedback from a peer group or may have been told her whole life that she was a naturally great writer. Spoiler alert: these papers are also usually some of the worst. So what's a tutor to do when the student is totally convinced that a C- (being generous) paper doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t need a single change? One of my favorite approaches to this type of session is tough love. Giving a long list of everything that's wrong with the paper all at once can sometimes overwhelm and shock students back to reality and make them see that there really is work still to be done. Otherwise, you're probably in for a tedious, combative session that results in reinforcing the student's idea that the writing center is a waste of time.

"It's due tonight." These are the last-minute procrastinators, either on coming in to the writing center for the required visit or on the paper itself. If you're lucky the student will just want another set of eyes for a final proofreading, and everything will be smooth sailing. However, more often than not, it's a total mess. It's tempting to tell a student in this situation to give up and go get some sleep instead, but it's our job to still be helpful. Giving the students an actionable prioritized list can help them see how the mountain of work they've created for themselves can be broken in to pieces. Maybe they can't start over (like they need to), but they can solidify the thesis and make sure they haven't plagiarized anything. "I have 17 questions." While at first these seem like great, interactive students, 10 minutes and as many questions into the session later, they can start to be a real drain on the tutor's patience. Students in this category may come in with a huge list of things they want to cover in a 30-minute session, or they may want to work on the paper in the writing center and just stop you every 5 minutes to have you "come take a look" at the two sentences they've written since the last time they called you over. This is when the time and number of session limits we have give the tutor something concrete to fall back on, but it can still be difficult â&#x20AC;&#x201D; particularly for more timid tutors â&#x20AC;&#x201D; to basically tell the student that it's time to move onâ&#x20AC;Śnow. "It looks like you've done a really good job on this paper." Every once in a while you do get hit with a really wellwritten paper. The thesis is clear, the supporting points 48

have plenty of follow up, and even the organization is working well. What could be the problem here? Because we're so used to seeing papers with extensive issues that really need more than one session to start fixing, it's tempting to get a little too excited when presented with a good paper. This can lead to glossing over minor grammar/proofreading issues or small punctuation problems in citations, such as periods that need to be commas. Every paper can always be made better, and we can still make these sessions productive by focusing on higher-level writing issues like tightening phrasing, getting rid of passive voice, or choosing more engaging words. While a tutor is never going to eliminate problem sessions or students entirely, having a better understanding of the types of students you're likely to encounter and what to watch out for can help both new and experienced tutors focus on more educationally sound â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and enjoyable â&#x20AC;&#x201D; sessions.

Untitled Kellie Thompson As the academic semester comes to an end, I am once again stuck as to what to write for the narrative. After six years, I am not sure what else to say. I am not in the Writing Center as often as I used to be, and am, therefore, not current on day to day events. However, looking back on the year, two things stand out: covering an on-line writing center shift and new faces in the writing center. This past year, I had the opportunity to cover a shift for the on-line writing center and work with college prep students. Having never worked at this writing center, I was unsure of what to expect and the nuances of it as well. I was able to quickly adapt, and found the students to be engaging and have interesting papers. The students definitely retained the hallmarks of being high school writers, however, their grasp of grammar made the sessions run efficiently. I do hope as I continue with Stark State, I will have more opportunities to select online writing center hours, as I believe it could be a place to further develop my tutoring skills. This year saw the addition of new faces and talents to the Writing Center. If anything, I would want the newest members of the Writing Center to be aware Stark State has a unique student population. Many of our students struggle with addiction, other mental health diseases, homelessness, and other issues which will impair and impact their ability to succeed. Many have low reading/writing abilities, and have concerns about not being embarrassed about their skills rather than whether or not they have a thesis for their â&#x20AC;&#x153;story.â&#x20AC;? To that end, our student population has a unique idiolect, 50

and often, our students don’t quite know how to discuss their assignment(s). Because of our knowledge and their idiolect, it is imperative we as tutors understand this, and make the effort to meet them where they are at. It is also important to realize because of the “language barrier” you may spend more time explaining the assignment rather than actually working on it.

Reflective Narrative Morgan Cole Self-reflection is essential for growth, essential for growth in life and in writing, just as it is essential for growth in tutoring practices. It is important to reflect on highlights and challenges to be able to develop, adapt and be able to best serve our students. I have had many memorable and learning moments this past year, moments that reaffirm why I do this work and moments that remind me that there is always room to improve and grow. We often see students in the writing center on a regular basis and some of those â&#x20AC;&#x153;regularsâ&#x20AC;? like to work with the same tutor. I have a regular student who started coming in last fall for her college composition dual credit class and has continued to come in for her college composition II class this spring. When she started coming in last semester, her first couple sessions were pretty normal. She already had another teacher who she was having proofread her papers, but she wanted to make sure she was following the assignment requirements and wanted to focus on content. I remember her being worried about the paper and reassuring her that she had a pretty solid paper. We discussed some different ideas she hadnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t considered to incorporate in her next revision, and she was very receptive and pleased with having new ideas to consider. After those first couple sessions, she not only started requesting me, but I started to notice a change in her sessions. She started coming to appointments with more focus and with specific questions and concerns, sometimes questioning 52

the proofreading teacherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s notes. I was impressed with her work ethic and how seriously she took her writing. It helped that she would report how well she was doing in the class, as well. I was happy to see her name on the schedule again this semester and once again, she came in with focus and specific concerns. She really started taking ownership of her writing, and this semester, along with receiving help, she has started evaluating her writing on her own. It is refreshing and rewarding to have a student start looking at his or her writing more critically and to revise on their own, instead of waiting on the instructor or writing tutorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s feedback. I believe these skills will not only continue to bring her success in her writing but in her college career, as well. It is a good reminder of why it is so important to reflect on our work. Like most semesters, this year has brought some learning moments, as well. We have a regular student who has a disability. When he first started coming in a couple years ago, we spoke with his instructors, and I believe Leah spoke with disability services about how to best help him. He has worked with several different tutors over the years, but had begun working with me on a more regular basis last semester. I had to approach his sessions differently than other sessions, but eventually got into a routine of what seemed to work best for his sessions. This semester, I have worked with him several times, but he has also been scheduled with a variety of tutors this semester. A few of the times, I either spoke with the tutor about the session or was in the writing center and able to listen in on the session. I realized I had fallen into a comfortable rut with my 53

sessions with him. Listening to the questions or approaches being used by the other tutors, reminded me how important it is to keep challenging myself and him with new tactics. Even though, I will always have to approach his sessions or other students with a disability like his a little differently than the average student, it is not an excuse to become complacent. In order to best serve him and all of our students, I have to be willing to adapt and try new approaches. One of my studio sessions this semester showed me that there can be valuable truths learned in those sessions that are more far reaching than mere writing lessons, proving why education overall is so important. Studio sessions can go quite well or be difficult, depending on the group of students, the instructor, and even the time of day. Usually, I gage the success of a studio session based on how willing the students are to give and receive feedback. Typically, at least a few of the students seem to grasp the concepts and realize how studio sessions can benefit their papers and writing. During a recent session, the students were discussing ideas for their next paper. There is a student in the class who is from another country, and he was describing what life is like in his home country compared to life in the United States. A student, who is from a very small local town, spoke up with surprise. She explained how shocked she was at his description because of the way his home country is typically portrayed in movies and television. At first, I was a little nervous that she might unintentionally say something offensive to her classmate; however, the other student did not seem offended at all and some of the other students seemed to agree with her. He explained how often those portrayals are inaccurate and explained the reality of life in his country. I realized how important 54

this moment was for these students even though it was not directly related to their paper topics. The students were given access to a world and a perspective outside of their own, causing them to reevaluate their preconceived ideas. I believe this will ultimately help them grow as writers since being able to change ideas when confronted with new evidence is important. It is also one of the reasons why education is vital; it allows us to see a world outside our own and challenges our beliefs. Self-reflection is vital in succeeding as a tutor. I am thankful for the challenges and memorable moments not only this past year, but in the past several years, that have allowed me to grow as a writing assistant. These types of moments, highlights and challenges, contribute significantly to making this work rewarding.

Using New Technology in the Writing Center Nathan Floom This June marks my sixth year in the writing center. Each year at the writing center is just a little bit different with new students and new experiences. Working online this year has been a really pleasant experience with the new Collaborate program. This program has allowed me to grow and streamline the different things I can do in online tutoring sessions. This year I also noticed an increase in the amount of ELL students who came to the online writing center. This new program really helped me to develop my practice working with them on tricky English errors in their papers. In the end, I am excited with the developments being made with technology in the online writing center and enjoy adapting my practice to them. This year Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll focus on how I use some of these new features in online tutoring sessions. With the new program Collaborate I have been able to do more in my online sessions than ever before. One observation I used to always write about when it comes to tutoring online is the separation you have from the student: the fact you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t read their body language or pick up on any other signs/signals. Everything is basically limited to a chat box. With Collaborate Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been able to use the screen share function that has really helped to change that. I can pull up the student's paper and we can both focus in on very specific parts of their paper. When paired with google docs the student has been able to do things like practice writing a thesis right there in google docs and we can both see the results in real time on the screen. These simple technology updates really have enhanced my interactions with students. I think, at the core, having your paper open 56

on a screen-share and seeing a tutor scrolling through reading it helps make the session seem more real. Students seem to enjoy it as another interactive element. I’m always interested in ways that I can improve my practice and the writing center. This technology upgrade has made such a big difference. I’m excited that we will be upgrading to Blackboard in the summer. Change can always be a bit frustrating, but I think in the end the use of Blackboard will be good for the staff and the students. I can’t wait to say goodbye to Angel. Each year I have some really cool students and read some engaging papers. That, really, was one of my big draws to this line of work. The good students make it worth it. The papers that are unique and challenge your way of thinking are a constant way for me to be challenged in the best of ways. This year I feel like I saw more ELL students in the online writing center than ever before. These sessions are always pretty difficult just because of the separation that technology presents. Using the new screen share function and google docs has helped though. Being able to come together with a student to find and fix grammar mistakes that way has really made the quality of these sessions improve. As always I am truly impressed by each and every one of the early college seniors that come through the writing center. They are a privilege to work with. This year in particular I felt that their papers really took on a new level of complexity and challenge. I appreciate how they develop papers in different ways using different forms. Their instructor would sometimes want their thesis to appear at the end of the paper or perhaps to begin with overcoming a concession. I honestly enjoyed developing these different concepts. What’s cool about these particular students is how generally recep57

tive they are. A few can be resistant and have that certain angst I’ve mentioned before, but most of them are earnest and willing to listen in the same way that I am to the different concerns they might present in a session. I think this is probably one of the tricks to tutoring. Sometimes just listening can be a great source of strength for both the teacher and the student. When I started at the writing center over five years ago I didn’t have any experience in the writing center, per se. My experience came from group workshops in various creative writing classes that I took. At first I thought this was a bit of a handicap for me in this profession. I was surrounded by people who spent more than a few years as writing assistants at Kent or somewhere else. Now that I look back I can see that was I thought was a lack of experience really helped to form the way that I tutor. During sessions I always find myself asking the students questions about the reader and how they consider their audience. I tend to pay close attention to narrative structure and depth of thought as opposed to the fine grit of grammar all the time. When it comes to grammar I found myself working with students not on the hardcore rules of it but practical ways to help language function correctly, convey meaning, and serve a practical purpose to them. I use the socratic method a lot and help the students discover things on their own now more than I ever did before. I help guide them with questions and different ways of thinking to come to their own conclusion: which is the way I think writing should be in the first place. In my experience, what I first thought was a weakness of my own experience turned out to be something useful. It’s guided my tactics in tutoring ever since. In the end, it’s not just the joy of working with students but also learning from those around me. This semester 58

I had the neat experience of helping out a little bit with our center social media page. Managing social media is something I have to do a bit of for the other schools I work for. I never felt that I was very good at it. Seeing what Katelynne is doing with our social media page and learning about the “Canva” program that she uses has helped me become better in this role not only in the writing center here, but also in my other roles at other schools. This is part of what I love about the writing center: learning from those around you. This has been another great year at the writing center. Even when things are busy and student after student books session after session for weeks on end, I still get a joy out of reading their papers. I’ve reached the point where the little things that used to get to me don’t anymore. I feel more comfortable with the assignments/ papers I encounter and how to correctly assess them. I’m looking forward to developing my practice and serving these students for the years to come. I consider myself an eternal student. I never want to stop learning or evolving and this is a great place of work to foster that spirit.

Tutoring Effectively Robin Clark Through the five years I’ve been working as a writing tutor, I’ve always sought experiences that challenge me and help me become an increasingly effective tutor. For instance, this last year has seen me take on a leadership role in my other tutoring position at the Kent State University Writing Commons where I’ve been able to help new tutors enter a fairly large writing center. As I conclude my second year at the Stark State College Writing Center, I’m able to reflect on the experiences that I have been able to have here. Presenting at NEOWCA, beginning to work in the ELL Lab, and co-chairing the creative writing event committee helped me to develop my leadership skills, but developing these skills shouldn’t mean I lose track of what makes me effective as a tutor. Though I’ve continued to develop my tutoring skills through these roles this last year, my goal for this upcoming year is looking into how I can help students develop skills as well as helping students and colleagues alike to see me as less of an editor in my service to our campus community. I have worked with ELL students for nearly the entirety of my time as a writing tutor. As I wrapped up my first year at the Kent State University at Stark Writing Center in 2012, the opportunity to work with a gentleman from South Korea presented itself. He and I met several times a week independent of the writing center and we would work on the sort of things I currently do in the ELL Lab; we would work on presentations, speaking skills, grammar, emails, or even discuss differences between cultures. This job lasted another year and a half before he took a job out of state and we had to end our working relationship. Reflecting on this recently and comparing it to my current work in the ELL 60

Lab and writing center made me question just how similar these experiences actually were. Do I actually help students gain new skills, or am I viewed as a proofreader, checking a student’s work before they turn it in? My essay last year compared starting at two different writing centers serving two different populations in the same semester. I’ve continued to notice differences in these writing centers, but more importantly, in how my function is received by students. Though I have the same job function at both Stark State and Kent State, I believe we are not valued by the student body in the same way here as tutors at Kent State are. I see more students coming in asking for their papers to be proofread or checked over before they submit it immediately after the session. Students aren’t worried about building their skills; they’re worried about what grade they will receive on a particular assignment. This isn’t to say I don’t hear the same things at the Kent State Writing Commons, but recent data from voluntary surveys distributed to students after their sessions showed that they believe that they have gained new skills from their time with a tutor that they will be able to apply to their writing. Do our students feel that way? Given my personal interaction with students, I’d definitively say no.

Over the course of this semester, I’ve worked with several students regularly in different places, specifically in Akron or the ELL Lab. I note that I interact with these students differently depending on the location we’re working in. One of my Akron regulars was dealing with a brain injury that became progressively worse as the semester went on. She learned new skills, but was unable to apply them in practice due to her injuries. The ELL regular I’d like to discuss would wait until just before an assignment was due to ask for my 61

help. I tried to be as non-directive with him as possible in the attempt to help him strengthen his grasp of English without frustrating us both. In the last week of classes, I tried being completely non-directive with him, spending a dedicated ten minutes on one phrase that illustrated one of the grammatical concepts weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d been discussing all semester. He was clearly annoyed with me as we did this, but by the end he sighed with relief, expressing several times that he would never forget this concept again. I believe that this is what we should be trying to do more often than not in our practice. It isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t enough to be there for our student body as a last minute service; a writing center should function as a place for skill building as well as for checking APA citation or semi-colons. Students should be able to walk away from a session with me having worked on a skill. This should be true of all sessions regardless of writing center site or specific population differences. Obviously I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t tutor at the Downtown campus the same way I do in the ELL Lab, but the outcome should be the same. I should strive to ensure that students leave every session with me feeling that they exercised a writing skill they may not have previously.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;It Was the Best of Times; It Was the Worst of Timesâ&#x20AC;? Sandy Dent-Squibbs Any time that I follow along and assist in a writing center tutorial, the feeling is one of continued success. There are days and then there are days. I feel satisfied with the work I continue to do and yet am conscious of the age factor creeping its way in. Ironically this is both positive and negative. I am everyoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mother/ grandmother, am given appropriate respect and yet am beginning to slow down in the energy/learning new information process. The latter simply sucks and yet, coming into work is still worth the effort. The comradery of a well-run writing center has been my pleasure in which to be a part going on seven years and does not show any signs of deterioration. This is a good thing. We have all experienced those indescribable tutorial moments both breathtaking and not so much. We converse and learn, we question and learn, we observe and learn. The information acquired is consistently being passed on to our clients and ourselves alike. At times, students worked with can be a part of the enlightened group. Many have shown this old girl the wily ways of the computer age. A session where the tutor and client are able to end with conversation intact is a success bar none. My style is still of the listener method, the second set of eyes process. As stated in all other reflections, papers are read aloud, preferably by the client or myself should they be uncomfortable reading their own work. Much is discovered in a non-directive environment; the student in control of the paper. Some of the patience possessed when I began the journey of Writing Assistant has been tested and taken up residence in the cor63

ner; no longer available. I find this disheartening yet not unexpected. There are sessions when client and tutor will not connect. There are occasions when it is felt I have nothing to offer in the way of writing which to me, defines retirement. Usually after a break, a day off, a bottle of Advil or all of the above; the pendulum swings favorably and understanding returns. My nemesis now and mostly likely for eternity, will revolve around the name that will not be spoken (Google). However, I continue to experience tiny moments of intellect regarding the computer and much to my surprise am making slow and steady steps in the context of continued learning. A fellow tutor and I are working on a help document with information available to clients having trouble understanding and accessing Google. We are using me as the token guinea pig; if I can understand it anyone can. So far, I am finding little snippets of information most useful regarding the dreaded Google Drive. All of the moments spent working are varied and anything but boring; there is continuous criteria to absorb and learn in this realm of education. The years spent as a student tutor and now Writing Assistant have not been wasted, exhausting at times, but not wasted. The look on a client’s face is still the most satisfying; the awareness of understanding and “getting it”. Brainstorming remains the favorite aspect of the writing process. The sometimes jittery client will visibly relax when involved in a conversation initially rather than a lesson. Everyone in life accomplishes success differently, a tutor is no exception. We all have our “ways” of letting a tutorial run. As far as the future presence of the Writing Center; it is a necessity. We provide so much more than crossing T’s and dotting I’s, proper punctuation and grammar 64

usage. We provide a calming, safe place for a writer to reveal innermost thoughts and fears of the perceived inability to write. We assist with the initial thesis, help define and strengthen the claim into a viable essay complete with developed paragraphs and all important introductions and conclusions. For my particular writing center, I would like to incorporate one question walk-ins as sessions to boost the overall count of our services. This along with the Guide to Google would be helpful additions to the ongoing evolution of the Writing Center. Also evolving is a sense of subtle tiring throughout this reflection and work in general. This has been the year from hell quite literally. One learns from everything experienced; the completion of work tutorial is becoming visible in the distance. I am useful, I have my own perspective still intact and have discovered in this semester, I am able to work solo, figure out things technical and have yet to deliberately run over anyone; attributes encouraging. I will not regret anything, any delight, any tantrum, anything experienced while working at the SSCT Writing Center. I will know when it is time to leave and will do so with dignity full force. At this point, I serve a useful purpose and for that I am grateful. I want to remain involved and attached, when that feeling subsides; the time has arrived to call it quits as a Writing Assistant; a sad yet satisfying final day of a job well done.

A Growing Concern: Of Theory and Practice Steven Fregeau I do not wish to end on a disappointing note. Truly, I enjoy and value my job, and not a small part of that comes from knowing that we all care about everyone who works with us. I know that all of us who work in the Writing Center do good work—ethically, intellectually and under any other qualification. I am grateful for and appreciate all of our commitment to doing well for students and for writing; tutoring is the first job with which I do not feel ethically like I am participating in evil, and at times, also doing good. Perhaps to avoid gushing out all the cloying sentiments and syrupy feelings about loving my job and the people there—which is all true—and etc., or perhaps from fear that I might be getting complacent, I have chosen instead to address what is for me one of the most difficult aspects of tutoring: the dilemma between practiced actuality and theoretical ideal—the anxious confusion of being caught between the devil and the deep blue sea and the effect that has on my students, my fellow tutors and myself. What follows is the voice of a little demon gnawing the back of my brain; the bigger demons you all have seen and heard already, and (kindly) forgiven. I. The Dilemma Dominant writing center theory may be expressed as: the purpose of tutoring is to improve the student (laborer), not the paper (product). To labor requires skill, while production requires ability. By skill, I mean utilizing words and grammatically relating them using a specific form (which is not indicated, is always known, but may or may not be recognized by a ruling class as a universal form) in order to communicate its 66

contained meaning. By ability, I mean utilizing words and grammatically relating them in order to satisfy a selected form (which must be indicated, taught if unknown, and recognized by a ruling class as universal) of communicating meaning within that form. It has been my experience that dominant theory tends towards assuming that skill as a writer is rewarded, while ability is superfluous. Theory also assumes this correlation to be true: the paper will improve with the studentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s improvement. These things, though, are the luxury of theory, and have no empirical value per se. The process of cultivation, which is the prerogative of theory, rests on a possible outcome for which we have no measurable certainty. At the same time, the academic setting measures the outcome of work (the product), which for writing is a paper. The paper is graded, and the student either succeeds or fails according to the paperâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s subjectively determined quality or deficiency. On a sub-structural (personal) level, every student of writing is thrust into a subjective schizophrenic relation: the cultivating-theoretical against the producingactual. Schizophrenic relations are pure dilemmas, meaning that two incompatible and equally impossible choices present. The demand on the student tends towards an indefinable measure of skill (method of producing); but in grading and evaluating, the paper (resultant product) is more important than the demand because academic success or failure is determined only by means of a definable graded product. Arriving at this dilemma, theory must resolve it or else the schizophrenic condition will enter into repetition of its initial trauma, which is the schism between what is supposed to happen (theory of production) and what actually happens (grading of the product)â&#x20AC;&#x201D;or else theory or practice must be radically dismissed or revised. 67

We face the dilemma, as tutors, that if we adhere to theory (T), then the student will improve without the ability (A) to produce a good paper; and if we focus on the product (P), then the student will improve without the skill (K) to be a good writer. Without the ability to produce a good paper, the student will not succeed (S); and without the skill to be a good writer, the student will not succeed. We must either adhere to theory or focus on the product. Therefore, the student will not succeed. (T → ~ A) ∙ (P → ~ K) (~ A → ~ S) ∙ (~ K → ~ S) TvP ~S

To resolve the dilemma, we cannot go between the horns for two reasons. First, the argument is invalid: (T → ~ A) ∙ (P → ~K) (~A → ~S) ∙ (~K → ~S) ~ (T v P) ~ ( ~ S)

Second, the structure of academic processes is universally (i.e., not particularly) dictated by a superstructural ideal of return on work based on labor contributed accompanied by a real effect of return only on work achieved (i.e., grades). To deny the “either/or” premise and reconcile its two exclusive aspects as “both/and” attains a realized contradiction, and the dilemma begins again. We reach a repetition of the schism. Taking the dilemma by the horns also results in an invalid argument:

(T → ~A) ∙ (P → ~K) (~A → ~S) ∙ ~ (~K → ~S) TvP ~ (~S)

Furthermore, regardless of which conjunct we deny (here, it is not the case that without the skill to be a good writer, the student will not succeed), the argument remains problematic because we would be denying the truth of at least one statement we accept as true under our current conditions (it is the case that without skill to be a good writer, the student will not succeed). These conditions entail the features of academic governances to which we are beholden as tutors, often extending beyond the institutions through which we are employed. Neither ability nor skill can be reasonably denied as essential to student success. The dilemma cannot be resolved this way. We can offer a valid and sound counter-dilemma. If we adhere to theory, then the student will gain the skill to be a good writer; and if we focus on the product, then the student will gain the ability to produce a good paper. With the ability to produce a good paper, the student will succeed; and with the skill to be a good writer, the student will succeed. We must either adhere to theory or focus on the product. Therefore, the student will succeed:

(T → K) ∙ (P → A) (A → S) ∙ (K → S) TvP S

But since it remains the case that the paper (product) is evaluated and graded, and the grade determines the student’s success or failure, it must remain unknown whether or not the skill to be a good writer will result in the student’s success. The student will produce a good paper (R) if and only if the student is enabled to produce a good paper. Therefore, if the student produces a good paper, the student will succeed. [P → (S v ~S)] ∙ (K → ?) R≡A R→S

This does not mean that theory is wrong, but only that theory is in conflict with the necessities that our students encounter in the academic setting. Neither does it mean that tutoring is equivalent to proofreading and/ or editing. Instead, it means that there is a demand for a revaluation and consequent revisioning of the theories, processes and practices involved in tutoring, which is ultimately implied from a need to reassess the functions, behaviors and results of colleges and universities (especially regarding the liberal arts). As economic, racial and political disparity increases, and the cost of higher education increases without a reasonably assured symptotic increase in income, we find ourselves obligated to confront these realities with a far more utilitarian sensibility than we did perhaps even a decade ago, a turn toward teaching ability (production) rather than skill (labor). II. Assessment This transition in actual practice calls for an utter confrontation of our options under current academic procedure. That is, we must either make good on our assertion that skill is tantamount to product, or we must ad70

mit to the fact that we grade papers and reward or punish students according to their ability to produce rather than their skills as writers (which reflects the reality of neoliberal capitalist society in which we— and our students—participate). The problems we encounter in the former case entail a complete social revolution: the eradication of dominant classism, racism, colonialism, and all such things expressed de facto in a neoliberal capitalistic society (and I emphasize here the social, as opposed to the personal). We must agree with Edouard Glissant’s premise that “the extinction of any language at all impoverishes everyone.” Each Creole, pidgin, colloquial and demotic language must be accepted, and students’ work must be graded according to their skills in their specific language—and that is an ambitious project in which we are all too afraid and unable, due to realistically constraining formal structures, to participate. In the latter case, we must begin admitting that we grade according to the product rather than a student’s skills, which creates a problem for the dominant theory which asserts that the student, rather than the paper, is our concern. In this case, we must begin tutoring students with the goal of enabling them first to conform first to a super-structural establishment, a regime of production which rewards and punishes not according to the person but according to the product the person presents, and second to produce according to universalized form. The problems we encounter here are essentially ethical and entail complete social avowal: the endorsement of dominant classism, racism, colonialism, and all such things entailed by default in a neoliberal capitalistic society. In this case, we must begin to teach what Glissant calls “techniques of the absolute,” or “classicisms.” One classical-ized language must be derived out of all, selected as untouchable and taught universally—which is very good for business and global comprehension. 71

We can, in this regard, produce graduates who are useful, socially adept and objective. We can measure success and failure according to the development of a universal ideal around many cultures, or we can measure success and failure according to the conforming of many particular cultures to a universal ideal. As we assess these options, we should not forget the world in which we live and its implications and demands on the human person: we should consider the multiplicity of our society, as well as its structure and relations. Students of color, international students and/or lowincome students present from distinct social strata which are incongruent with our academic standards and which are themselves based on and in the language of white, nationalist, middle- or upper-class forms. Let us call the first group (for easy reference) “proletarian” and the second group “bourgeoisie.” The proletarian is unable to enjoy the luxury of a theory of skills for the reason that its livelihood depends on general labor which is alienated from production via the fundamental exchange of capital. Having no excess resources, the proletarian cultivates only a skill, since its livelihood depends on the return in exchange for this labor in terms of need (viz. Maslow). Its discourses are therefore contained in forms which are as fluid and unlimited as its contents. The bourgeoisie inherits the form of the ruling class as the primary form for its content and has this from birth as a reserve of resources such that its livelihood is relatively secure and production (ability) is already possible. Return on a product is superfluous to need; the fluidity of bourgeoisie content is directed by its pre-known form towards maintenance of its place in established economic and social systems with only slight and manageable variation. For the pro72

letarian, the grammar of its language concerns itself with “decree,” or that which “affixes laws to us” in the sense of how it will achieve its livelihood and fill its needs—in other words, its educational interest is in acquiring ability. It has no interest in “dictation,” or “an edict now essential” in the sense of how and why a theory is accomplished, or the slight variation in distantly established systems. The bourgeoisie, on the other hand, is born into the decree of language, the ability to produce; this group entertains dictation as a curiosity or novelty of skill. This is not to say that a language which is outside of that which is preserved as classical (i.e., Creole, pidgin, colloquial or demotic language) has no dictation, but rather that, according to the super-structuring of a bourgeois ruling class, the dictation of such a language is anathema—forbidden in the intercourse of capital exchange (e.g., marketability, hireability, professionalism, and so forth.) One of the benefits of developmental writing classes, such as our late IAW program, is that they bridge the gap between an established and unrecognized dictation and the established and recognized decree of the regime class via direct explanation of the regime’s form. In other words, they offer fundamental transitional connections between vulgar language (the student’s skill) and classical Americanized English (the expected ability). The students who are in IAW have strong grammatical and vocabulary skills, but they present in alternate form, such as the grammars of Ebonics, “hill-jack” or even British English; or else use vocabularies of non-European etymologies, as is the case with Nepalese, Parsi, Swahili and Mandarin. When we as tutors participate in developmental writing, we have the opportunity to extend our connections to othered students over a prolonged period and help students transfer the skills they already have (in terms of con73

tent) to the initial stages of ability (in terms of learning form). When we are successful, we present not as foreign and invasive, but as tools needed for their transition to academic successâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;as a means of enabling them to enter into the classisms, racisms and colonialisms which are de facto intrinsic parts of our social superstructure. The ability to become and produce as straight, white, middle-class males (i.e., as bourgeoisie) is, after all, the antithesis to pure labor as skill, which always remains impossibly detached from product as ability. Losing IAW, it seems to me, assumes the impossibility that proletarian students can ever enter into the superstructure of our social systems, more than that by placing them in College Comp they are able to do so. It encourages de facto segregation from a particular level of formal ability which now struggles to maintain its universal status via higher education. On the other hand, its loss allows us to focus more carefully on skill than on abilityâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;on the student rather than the product and on the development of content rather than on the development of form. The elimination of the utilitarian elements of IAW does present what I generally believe to be a more human and less objectifying approach to working with students, which is to focus on who they already are instead of what they are to become. We are called to account for a better bourgeoisie, which may be ethically better than impelling the proletarian to become bourgeoisie. In regards to pedagogy, the gap between labor and product will be closed by some degree, and we, as tutors, will be able to jettison some of the mandate to be proponents of the super-structural form by default or by complicity, which is (under current social conditions) always to some degree unavoidable; the measure of that degree cannot be evaluated before the occurrence to be measured and I do not 74

think we should be tempted to predict it, not having the resources to do so. Still, we have all dealt with the quandary of what we are actually accomplishing long enough to have at least a sense of releasing our responsibility for it back to our students. We remind them that they can do with the system as they please, and hope that they will be able to correct some of the injustice via closing the gap between them and us; in some cases, they do the same with us. Given the current social climate——that our inherent structural classism, racism and colonialism is rapidly furthering disparity between social strata—this will need to remain a hope in much the same way that hope remains in Pandora’s jar: that this hope prevents a general suicide (or genocide, as the case may be). It a hope which is at least workable, not absolutely idealized. As the conditions for communication become confused, so, too, does its content and form, and it may be that rather than fossilizing the form, confusion liquidizes it. In this sense, revaluation and revision take on the aspect of adaptability and integration, so that our dilemma may, invoking Hamlet, “resolve itself into a dew” instead of needing the formal objectivity of logical refutation. In the spirit of Nietzsche, we should do well to remember that logic is not truth (however much it acts like it is), but instead is a way of “facilitating thought: a means of expression.” As tutors, our primary use is to invent an informal logic that builds interpersonal and intercultural bridges; otherwise, we would do just as well to stand in front of the class on the first day and give admonitions against visiting the Writing Center where we work only on organization, purpose and development in writing (in other words, where we teach students how to be white, national, middle-class males as long as they are so already). A studio session does not simply establish the groundwork for writing 75

well; it establishes a sense of safety and security for proletarian students in a college setting as well as confidence in the abilities and skills that they have already. Under the imminent elimination of developmental writing classes, this is still possible, to an extent, but the level of possibility is diminished because it excises the amount of time and the extent of explanation that we are able to be put into teaching the first group what it is that the second group requires of the first in order to help bridge the divide. The opportunity to do so will be there, surely, and we will still have that opportunity, but our students will not. Many of them need more time than we do in order to absorb this information, and in order to build trust with us as tutors, as “outsiders” to their world—even as we also need that time to build trust with them as “outsiders” to ours. That time is now lost, and we revert to the optimism of theory. As tutors, our primary use is to direct students towards ability, which has become equivocal: on the one hand, the meaning appropriated by dominant theory, it means “what to be able to do,” and on the other, the sense that I have been using, it means “how to be able to do.” In terms of the successes and failures that I have seen so far in the three years I have worked at Stark State, without specific statistical evidence of a direct correlation between IAW and College Comp withdrawal or failure rates—including the quantification of all qualitative reasons given for withdrawal or failure—I cannot say why IAW would or should be seen as an unnecessary or useless course. I also acknowledge that I do not understand “available funding,” administrative decisions, etc., simply because I am not a treasurer and not an administrator. However, I do believe that the role of tutor as a professional be76

comes more and more important in the academic community in the same sense that the family nurse practitioner does in the medical. Not now, but as we move forward, I would like to see our roles extend on an analogous level to that of the FNP, with all the financial, statistical and administrative aspects duly worked out. For now, though, we find ourselves party to the loss by proxy, and we are left in confusion and fear for our current roles, and to some extent wonder whither we stand, perhaps occasionally seeing ourselves as failures because we have not produced good products. Hence, we enter into the same economic processes that our proletarian students face, which is the threat against our livelihoods and needs, and the perceived, intrinsically or extrinsically, uselessness of our sundry skill sets. Certainly, our skills and abilities as writers do not, will not, and have never produced a return on the investment. This is why Charles Bukowski wrote things like: take a writer away from his typewriter and all you have left is the sickness which started him typing in the beginning. and if I have any advice on writing poetry, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;sâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t.

The same obtains, by analogy, with essays, novels, short stories, newspaper articles, business reports, emails, letters to our landlords, etc. Our only tenable position, in terms of socio-economics, is as pedagogues: at best, with a masters degree, as a professor; and at the lowest, with a mere bachelor’s, as a tutor. Our roles are obedience to expectations, which is very similar to our students’, and hence, we demand assignment sheets for every essay we approach; hence, also, our anxiety over the advice we give. The options of teaching writing as skill or ability can ultimately be formulated with two phrases: Ex uno plures or E pluribus unum—“out of one, many” or “out of many, one.” That is, we can measure success and failure according to the developing of a universal ideal around many cultures, or we can measure success and failure according to the conforming of many particular cultures to a universal ideal. As we assess these options, we should not forget the world in which we live and its implications and demands on the human person: we should consider the multiplicity of our society. What seems to be at stake here is a matter of privilege, not ability or human worth. The current trend towards resolution of the dilemma is clear: E pluribus unum, but in the sense of exclusivity rather than combination (as perhaps it always has been socially intended—CEO, president, etc.). Rather than combining the many groups into a single community, there is one community extracted from many, modeled on the one which already rules all—a repetition of feudalism, or oligarchy, or industrialism, or colonialism, ad infinitum. As the theory of cultivating the writer rather than what is written—intended to be humanitarian, but when applied manifests as exclusivist—blossoms into actuality, we find ourselves conscious that its faults outweigh its merits. In trying to force the correlation between good 78

writers and good papers, we have demanded an exclusion of good papers from bad papers, and so condemned bad writers to be irredeemable and bad students. In fact, what we have done is propagated the very organs of racism, classism and colonialism that it was our prerogative from the first to staunch and then eliminate. III. Concluding Remarks Always finding fault with Kantianism, admiring Kant nonetheless as a worthy enemy and brilliant thinker, I must therefore decide that an intention cannot be measured by anything other than its ends. Its goal must be the goal it actually achieves, and if by doing evil, I can do good, then I must commit the evil which is to be measured by its results, and say what I have just said. That, I believe, encompasses Marx’s critique of capitalism, which was not capitalism’s denunciation. Rather, the nuances of a condemnation of neoliberal late capital need separating from the product and producibility of capitalism, and capital itself must be revalued and reassigned according to the product. This is our impossible task, then: to reject the theory and acknowledge the empirical reality which is actualized already in history, and to eliminate the alienation of labor with equitable exchange. Must we be racist, classist, colonialist and all the other “ists”? To survive in society, we must, but I also am othered—I do not know what it is not to be white, not to be male, not to be a colonizer; but I do know what it is like to be in poverty (though I have raised myself up to lower class) and what it is to be gay. I expect that anyone of us can add our own “I am…, but….” The problem with destroying a system from within is that it requires adherence to the system and thereby perpetuates the system without ever destroying it. The problem with destroying it from with79

out is condemning oneself. Revisions, readjustments, reorientations, and (from the outset) revaluationsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; these prove historically to be the means of accomplishment, of production. Correcting the system will not entail participation or destruction; it will entail suspicion and adjustment.

End Notes 1.

The concepts of form as, basically, stable but restrictive social dogmas, beliefs, regimes, etc., and content as changing social needs, relationships, knowledge, etc., are adapted from Ernst Fischer’s The Necessity of Art, Baltimore: Penguin, 1970: 12730. 2. E.g., John Waters did not become a better filmmaker by means of improved skills and abilities; arguably, his films worsened. The same could, arguably, be said of James Joyce or Virginia Woolf’s novels. 3. I include the symbolizations for Angie, cheerfully and with a sense of (good, dry-humored) sarcasm. 4. “Dictate, Decree,” in Poetics of Relation, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 95. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid., 101. 7. Ibid. 8. The Will to Power, Vol. II, trans. Oscar Levy, New York: Macmillan, 1924: 50 (sec. 538). 9. “About the PEN Conference,” in You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense, New York: Ecco, 1986, 211. 10. “interviews,” in Play the Piano Drunk like a Percussion Instrument until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit, New York: Ecco, 1979: 76.