Writing Center Class Fall 2018

I really appreciated reading the chapter "Helping Students Read Difficult Texts" from John Bean's book, Engaging Ideas (even though I found the fishing metaphor in the beginning a little contrived). The concepts here were true to what I've experienced teaching rhetoric and tutoring students who are analyzing a text. My students in the past have especially struggled with perceiving argument structures as they read. I hadn't thought of it in those terms before though, so it was helpful to see it described on the page that way, and helpful to get a recommended activity that might help them improve in that area. My plan for next semester, when I'll be teaching rhetoric again, is to make an adjustment to the weekly assignment I've had in the past. Instead of just going out and finding a text and describing the rhetorical elements, I am also going to ask them to highlight the thesis, the supporting points, the evidence, analysis, and conclusion and explain how e...

Hey everyone! I know you all know me already but my name is Kofi, and I'm a first-year in the Nonfiction Writing Program. I was born and raised in New York City, where I got my BA from NYU. Before moving to Iowa, I had been living in Philadelphia for a few years, working at an optical shop and generally avoiding white people. My background is in filmmaking and screenwriting, which I still very much enjoy, as well as Gender Studies, Afro-American Studies, and Environmental Studies. I am interested in writing around ideas of Blackness, diaspora, queerness, and mental illness, but I'm also curious about pretty much everything. In my free time I skateboard, play rugby, go to drag shows, and watch Game of Thrones.

While I was reading Jennifer Brice’s “Northern Realities. Northern Literacies: The Writing Center in the “Contact Zone,” I was pleasantly surprised and thankful to see the acknowledgement that not all stories are told or should be expected to be told on the Western style. That “Phillip” was being asked to conceptualize his story through a Western lens speaks to the fact that, in many ways, assimilation is still a goal of education in the United States. Last year I read an article (which I sadly cannot find now) about how the advice “show don’t tell” is a very Western ideal and doesn’t consider the cultural significance of oral storytelling for certain communities. Brice’s account of working with Native students reminded me of the article and made me wish that our education system valued more styles of writing than it currently does. While I can understand the value of teaching students Western writing styles for the sake of broadening their toolbox, grading adds a layer of complicat...

As a student/tutor living at many points of difference, I was struck by much of the content in "Northern Realities, Northern Literacies." One line that struck me is the idea that "it is one thing to recognize difference, another to communicate across the gulf that difference creates" (171). In undergrad, I developed an Independent Study in screenwriting with a professor in my department, a white woman who specializes in crafting and revising short screenplays. During one of our revising sessions, she noted that I only mentioned the races of white characters in the story. To her, this was obviously a mistake: it was jarring and confusing and took her out of the narrative. "You have to tell the race of everyone or no one ," she told me. She missed entirely the cultural context that I am coming from, one where the only characters whose races were mentioned in screenplays, books, and stories are those of color: the Black criminal, the Latinx gang member, th...

I don't think there are disadvantages to contrastive rhetoric per se - but disadvantages can arise from the generalizations instructors make that are based on CR. In another class, I read a wonderful analogy about the discoveries researchers have made about writing: " As Linda Flower puts it, because we are trying to chart and analyze an activity that goes on largely out of sight, the process is rather like trying to trace the path of a  dolphin  by catching glimpses of it when it leaps out of the water. We are seeing only a tiny part of the whole process; but from it we can infer much about what is going on beneath the surface" (Hairston, 1994, p. 123). I feel that the process of learning more about CR is quite similar - we have learned quite a bit, but there's so much more at play that we cannot see or observe. Has the issue of CR come up in my tutoring/teaching? I'm not sure. Oftentimes, it's not so much a writing issue as it is the culture of the student...

Maybe this is an odd tangent to pursue as a blog response, but one aspect of Phillip's writing that I wish Brice had gone into further detail about (assuming she had access to the information) was WHY Phillip got a B- on his assignment. From what I read, Phillip's personal story sounded endlessly interesting, and I thought his decision to structure this tale of his life using the narrative tradition (the four-act structure) of his culture was ingenious/appropriate, a merging of historical form with modern content. So, even if the writing of Phillip's piece wasn't perfect (Brice notes his control over the piece wasn't universal), it sounds both entertaining and heartfelt, and what's more, conceptually ambitious. Basically, knowing nothing about the professor in question, but given the loose, informal-seeming tone of this project, and given Phillip's obvious enthusiasm for the project (he wrote 12 pages when only five were expected), I was really surprised to ...

I was really struck by Brice's ground rules, especially rule #4 (be polite). As we touched on in class last week, in my tutoring experience so far I have sometimes had difficulty balancing what I perceive to be polite behavior (lots of positive affirmation and praise for student work, giving critiques and suggestions as gently as possible) with being a helpful and direct tutor. I appreciated Brice's point that politeness varies among cultures and that using "deference politeness" over "solidarity politeness" can help tutors to avoid imposition. The idea of drawing out a quiet Alaska Native student by "answering reticence with reticence" makes sense, but I'm struggling to find a parallel for my own experiences in the contact zone. Is this as simple as taking a moment towards the beginning of a session to step back and let students "lead," or does it necessitate a deeper knowledge of the different cultures that we're encountering, a...

This week, as I was reading chapter 4 of Ryan Leigh and Liza Zimmereilli’s The Bedford Guide for Writing Tutors , I knew I wanted to focus on the following sentence: “As you work with individuals, your words and actions should convey sensitivity and understanding; each writer deserves to be treated fairly and with respect.” This feels like something that does not really not to be said, something that should be instinctual. But I am glad that it was included, and I think that it was necessary. Sometimes chapters like these can feel othering and like peering at people with experiences different from our own. So a bulleted list of ways to help writers who are visually and/or hearing impaired, or writers with learning disabilities or physical challenges, can carry a tone of, “This is how to deal with those people .” And that’s really uncomfortable to read or see published where you know other people will see and take it to heart. So a line reminding the reader of the respect they owe to ...

I really appreciated this week's readings, and enjoyed the specific and easily transferrable approaches from the Bedford Guide. It's quite easy to get caught up in my own dominant mode of thinking/seeing (reading/writing), and lose sight of the fact that students are coming from different backgrounds, modes, and areas of strength. I can see ways to check in with my enrollment students about their modes during one of our sessions, but I wonder about what sorts of questions I might ask a one-off student who maybe hasn't thought about these ideas before. I also really enjoyed the grouping of student concerns -- these are all things that 'float' above conversations in the Writing Center, but it's great to be able to think about them as separate, individual concepts, and to see the case studies of the specific types of writers. Since I have just my two enrollment students, I haven't encountered any of these types yet, but I did sit in on a session with an adult...

I was very surprised to learn about Fei’s preference for online tutoring. In my experience so far, I’ve found the face to face contact really crucial to my tutoring style, especially for identifying global issues in student work. Often, casual conversation about the work will clarify the source of a specific mistake, so create opportunity for more profound teaching and learning moments. This is much like the difference between giving my GEL students written feedback on their papers vs having them come in to office hours to meet with me - the students that meet face to face very often have more success grade-wise than those who just rely on margin comments. I’m curious if there’s any outreach for international students who are online tutoring “frequent flyers” to encourage them to sign up for an in-person session.  I understand the appeal, thanks in large part to Lei's case study, but I wonder if the intimidation or social anxiety of in-person support isn't a part of th...

The Fei case study provided me with useful insight into a sample writing process of someone who might submit their work for online tutoring. I was especially interested to learn that Fei first writes her drafts in a single sitting and then revises her drafts in a second single sitting after receiving feedback from online tutoring. I'm wondering if it would be useful to add a space on our online tutoring system for students to offer how much time they've spent writing and/or revising before submitting their drafts for online feedback (I know there's already a space for students to say how much time they plan to set aside to revise AFTER receiving feedback from a tutor). In my experience with online tutoring so far, I've encountered a few papers that seemed to be in the very early stages of drafting. One of these papers was a research paper where the sources that the writer was drawing from weren't credible, despite the prompt's stipulation that all sources need...

One line in Bedford that really rang true to me was the line "As a tutor, try to frame the negative aspects of a paper as good first steps toward improvement and offer lots of encouragement." This is a key component of the workshop model in my MFA program, and I think it sounds obvious and maybe frilly, maybe unnecessary, but I don't think it's mundane or obvious to the process at all. Sometimes I think praise can feel inorganic to the consultation process: particularly when I'm working with a student to improve their writing, and especially if that writing isn't "strong," per se, it feels natural to focus exclusively on what isn't working - there's even an altruistic justification to do this, as you could argue that a session is more beneficial to the student if they leave with a list of things to improve than with a list of compliments. Combined with the fact that time in sessions flies by, I often have to remind myself to offset critique ...

I really enjoyed the Crossing Cultures with International ESL Writers article -- it was reminiscent of so many experiences I've had tutoring international students in American curricula. This was a huge issue at NYU's Abu Dhabi campus -- while our student population was 95% non-American, the faculty was extremely homogenous -- most of us were liberal-artsy East Coasters who were surprised by how hard it can be to get out of your own set of biases about what sort of topics are approachable and accessible for students from all backgrounds. I'll never forget reading Richard Rodriguez' essay 'Complexion,' about the challenges of being a darker-skinned Mexican American, and the blank looks from the students, who found the way the writer dug into the emotional components of his childhood frustrating and uninteresting. The professor in the course made the mistake of assuming our one very fair-skinned Spanish (from Spain) student would find some identification with the ...

This week's readings were particularly illuminating to me as a second-language French learner. Although I don't currently have any L2 students in the Writing Center, I was able to contextualize the material through my own experiences, since I am taking French this semester. I am something of a Generation 1.5 French-learner, in that I grew up in a household that spoke English, French, and Haitian Creole, and took many years of French in high school and undergrad. "Possible Transfer-Based Problems" felt very familiar, in that I became aware of how many of my own problems with writing and speaking French stem from phonological and grammatical transfers: the long "I" sound in English (as in "Iowa") is all but absent in French; at the same time, the nasal "R" in French is very difficult for Anglophones to master French is spoken (and written) in a steady, staccato rhythm -- individual words within a sentence are not emphasized by tone b...

I found the "Possible Transfer-Based Problems" handout to be a helpful crystallization of some of the patterns I've seen in the past few weeks, as I've begun working with a non-native speaker from China. The handout helped to localize and categorize some of the patterns of error I'd noticed in this student's early writing, most commonly in the grammatical transfers, including a difficulty with tenses, difficulties with modality, and a continual tendency to drop articles. Speaking to this student has further revealed a few issues with phonological transference, particularly in regards to parsing apart the vowel sounds I produce. What I most appreciated about this handout was that it gave, in a concise, efficient way, names to so many issues I previously could only feel my way through. (For instance: I have dealt often with students who have issues with modality, but did I ever call it by that name? No. In this case, classification feels very grounding and usefu...

In my first year of teaching, I had just two Chinese students across three courses. However, my Rhetoric course this summer was nearly 50% non-native speakers including six Chinese students. I wish that I'd read some of this week's resources before giving feedback on their written work, especially "Possible Transfer-Based Problems You Might Observe When Working With Chinese Students." I'm especially intrigued by the idea of "positive" transfer and have definitely noticed examples of positive transfer in student work. Syntactic transfer-based problems are something I've definitely encountered in the Writing Center. Before reading about transfer-based problems, I wasn't aware that Chinese syntax was looser and doesn't require subordination and explicit connections. To me, the word-for-word rendering of a Chinese sentence into English seems like a logical way to write in another language, despite the lack of clarity that might emerge in transl...

How does the case study in "Crossing Cultures" bring to mind experiences you have had as a teacher of and/or a writer in a second language? A few things came to mind as I read the case study (and articles in general). First, when I studied abroad in Germany and wrote in German, I didn't realize at the time (but do now) that my German writing ability was restricted by my English writing ability. This was not an issue of transfer or my German language development. Rather, the issue stemmed from the fact that age 20-21, my English writing ability was still quite embryonic. In hindsight, I realize that even if my German had become as good as my English, it would not have been able to convey what I know and am capable of today. I also thought about international students' cultural knowledge (e.g. "...international students may know more about American history and culture than we suspect they do..."), but I feel that the use of the word "more" is pro...

While reading through "Possible Transfer Based Problems You Might Observe When Working with Chinese Students," I recognized grammatical and syntactic transfer features that I have been seeing in the papers of students who I have worked with in the Writing Center this semester. It was actually super helpful to learn the technical terms for the constructs I only have only known the function of up to this point. For instance, placing adverbial expressions after the object they modify. I've had students write sentences where the adverbial expressions before the object they were modifying and all I knew to say was that the sentence needed to be rearranged. Or, another example,  inverted word order and modal auxiliaries. Before, I didn’t know that Chinese questions are expressed with tone whereas English questions are structured differently to express the state of being interrogative. It was also helpful to learn in this course that in Chinese there are no articles. It makes i...

While reading through "Possible Transfer Based Problems You Might Observe When Working with Chinese Students," I recognized grammatical and syntactic transfer features that I have been seeing in the papers of students who I have worked with in the Writing Center this semester. It was actually super helpful to learn the technical terms for the constructs I only have only known the function of up to this point. For instance, placing adverbial expressions after the object they modify. I've had students write sentences where the adverbial expressions before the object they were modifying and all I knew to say was that the sentence needed to be rearranged. Or, another example,  inverted word order and modal auxiliaries. Before, I didn’t know that Chinese questions are expressed with tone whereas English questions are structured differently to express the state of being interrogative. It was also helpful to learn in this course that in Chinese there are no articles. It makes i...

This was my first week as a tutor in the Writing Center, and also my first time tutoring in a WC at all. As such it was very interesting to get a feel for the tutor-student relationship, have those conversations with my tutees, and begin to explore what it might look like to coach my two students through the writing process. Reading Chapter 3 of the Bedford Guide, "Tutoring Writers through the Writing Process" was especially helpful in thinking about my Enrollment session with my second student - she is a senior in International Relations and is in the beginning steps of working on her honors thesis, and is looking for a tutor (me) to help her throughout the process of writing the thesis. Because this student is still in the middle of narrowing topics down, we spent most of the session in the beginning stages of the writing process, particularly brainstorming. We looked through several different examples of thesis proposals and began to build a more concrete timeline. When we...

Hey pals! Here are my questions: 1) Re: the Bedford Guide: Like Lulu, I am also curious about the role of commiseration within tutoring relationships. I tend to gravitate towards empathy in my everyday interactions, and I personally find it easier to accept criticism from folks whom I have developed a rapport with - but I do wonder if there is a line at which this empathy begins to undermine authority and expertise? 2) Re: the Writing Center Tutor's Guide: I noticed that we offer online schedules for Spanish writing, and I'm curious to know if the WC offers any kind of one-on-one tutoring for Spanish writing (academic, creative, etc.)? - Kofi

One line I highlighted in "Serving ESL Students" (from The Writing Center Resource Manual ) is the observation that L2 writers have an easier time writing in "controlled" compositions. I wonder if there might be ways to use the templates encouraged by controlled compositions to ease L2 writers into a greater ownership of their own critical writing. Maybe by using a controlled composition as a "Trojan horse," for assignment content, you could find a middle ground to start talking with an L2 writer about how to formulate their argument. For instance, the L2 student I worked with today at the WC seemed unsure of how to formulate a thesis statement, or what a thesis statement even really was. I wonder if by initially framing the functions of a thesis statement within a controlled composition,  a tutor could more immediately express core function, if not the nuances, of a thesis. So, for instance, the reading provides "If constructions" as one contr...

I'm also interested in the difference between tutoring non-native and native speakers and want to talk a little bit about my experience thus far.  As a rhetoric instructor, I've found myself making minor changes in the classroom to make life a little easier for students who are non-native speakers. These changes include adding subtitles to video clips, projecting free write questions or discussion prompts on powerpoint slides, and clarifying certain instructions on assignment sheets.  However, when giving both written and spoken feedback on assignment drafts, I've struggled to know how (or how much) I should approach non-native students differently. I've noticed that non-native writers taking rhetoric often have incredibly strong ideas, arguments, and  organization in their papers but struggle with syntax and grammar issues that can make these  ideas hard to parse. In the writing center so far, I've noticed a similar pattern. I've had success when using "...

While I'm fairly well versed in how tutoring non-native speakers differs from tutoring native speakers, it's still an area I'm very interested in (and still have plenty to learn), so I'll answer that question for blog post #2. One key difference is the background that the writers bring. While the perception is that native speakers are better writers, this is not always the case. Sometimes I believe native speakers assume that writing is simply an extension of speaking; they thus struggle with writing because there is plenty that does not necessarily transfer from speaking to writing (e.g. register, descriptive vs. prescriptive grammar). Non-native speakers, on the other hand, despite having studied English intensely for years, often lack confidence, due in large part to English not being their native tongue. However - and I mention this based on my tutoring experience - I have found that most of my best students/tutees are non-native speakers. The native speakers I...