Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Jeff Brooks article Minimalist Tutoring which described what would seem to be the perfect face-to-face appointment. Students comes in. Tutor edits grammar, moves around a few paragraphs, and changes opening thesis. Student gets an A and feels forever indebted to the tutors marvelous work. That sounded like an ideal scenario to me, but Brooks squashes all similarly thinking tutors dreams by saying that that particular appointment is flawed and, in fact, slackens the UCWbLs values. He explains that the whole point of the writing center is to create a better writer, not a better paper. I want my writers to feel this personal change after an appointmentand several appointments. I want them to feel stretched as writers and encouraged to take these processing steps and put them toward every assignment, not just the paper they worked on in the UCWbL. I want them to think about their writing like they think about Hemmingways novels and Shakespeares sonnetsto value their own texts. I want them to be fearless about reading out loud and asking for peer comments and using big words or small sentences. I want them to be open to a writing makeover. This change does not happen in an hour appointment, and I think that is something I am learning to accept. I am so tempted to search for this immediate transformation that I think I could be easily caught up in Brooks perfect scenario. Perspectives from Outside Scholars (& Sister)
My older sister just recently started her job as a secondary English teacher in Harlem, and when I called her to update her on my new job, ask her about her new job, and chat about life, we talked about teaching philosophies. She mentioned this scholar she learned about in her undergrad, Paulo Freire and the authoritative schooling called the banking education. In this education, there is this looming social hierarchy with the teacher at the pyramids peak. The teachers have all the power to present a topic through a certain lens, leaving the students absolutely powerless. The teachers job is not to stand in front of the class on a kinglike pedestal and pass their somewhat biased knowledge down to the students. Instead, teachers should embrace outside sources for learning, like having constructional peer conversations, watching educational videos, and reading texts from different writers. They (teachers) should refrain from a singular knowledge source, i.e. themselves. My sister asked me, do you ever remember Mrs. Kleinour favorite high school teacherjust standing up in front of the class and lecturing the whole time? Besides biweekly notes, she always sat in the back, reclined in her far from throne-like swivel chair. I remember learning so much from that class from peer presentations to NPR podcasts, but not from her transcending her knowledge into my high school growing brain. I learned from my peers, genius radio speakers, and even myself. I want my tutoring philosophy to be like this. I want the writer to come into our appointment and understand, through my language, questions, and similar scenario examples, that we are on the same level as writers. I want to express this idea that, like Freire explains, I am in no way the authority in this tutoring appointment. Sharing my struggles will connect me to the student as a
DePaul University 10/21/13 9:19 AM
Comment [8]: I
really
enjoyed
the
visual
you
painted
here,
and
I
think
many
readers
can
connect
to
the
feeling
of
being
stuck
in
classrooms
with
this
sort
of
learning
environment.
fellow student. For example, struggles like how I am still tempted to sway towards that three point thesis and have a hard time with conclusions. Not that I do not want writers I meet with to learn anything from me,not at allbut I want those students to understand that I am going to be learning from them just as much. As selfish as this may sound, I want to come away from appointments feeling like I have some new techniques I can use to improve my own work. I just hope this idea of knowledge circulationI learn from you, you learn from meis present in the appointments I step into. This idea strings along with Andrea Lunsfords love for collaboration. She presents this idea in her article Collaboration, Control, and the Idea of a Writing Center that writing is a collaborative process whether through talking things through with a peer or joining together texts and idea with another writer. I know that my time spent in WRD 396, the UCWbL, and even my alone time spent writing feedback for fellowing students has been rewarded with enlightening conversations with fellow UCWbLers and paper organization from the written feedback. Understanding Genres
I want to help students understand genres and break the stereotypical five
Admin 10/21/13 9:23 AM
Comment [10]: Truly
beautiful
idea,
and
I
dont
see
the
selfishness
behind
it!
One
of
my
favorite
aspects
about
the
UCWbL
is
our
ability
to
work
together
and
learn
from
one
another.
I
think
that
is
what
differentiates
peer
tutoring
from
a
classroomwere
all
on
the
same
level,
collaborating
to
produce
knowledge
and
just
overall
awesomeness.
J
paragraph, three point thesis paper. We talked in class about Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis article on genres Introduction: How a Genre Approach to Literacy Can Transform the Way Writing Is Taught. For the class I am fellowing for (HAA 240), this common high school styled paper is irrelevant to the topic. The paper is a formal analysis on any selected artwork and does not necessarily require an argument and, in this case, a following thesis statement. I am having to review students papers
differently from the typically intro, body, conclusion format and encouraging them to write according to this formal analysis genre. This is something I am trying to take into account for every text I will be receiving, art history or not: lab reports, creative writing, or theater reviews.
Emily, I truly, truly enjoyed reading what you have so far for your tutoring philosophy. You have established a strong presence and voice throughout that helped me connect with your goals and practices. I liked that you included a personal experience, outside scholarship, and core readings within your understanding of your work as a peer writing tutor. I found myself nodding through many of your points and just thinking, RIGHT ON, GRRRL! Thanks for that J Moving forward, it would be beneficial to focus on being a bit more specific. If you look at my marginal comments, I have touched upon where you can expand and explain your thought process more. I also think it would be interesting to include a couple examples from your tutorials with writers. How do you approach written feedback, face to face? How do you place theory into action? I am very excited to hear what else you have to say about your experience, and Ill see you at our face to face! Best, Cynthia M.