I think the title really says it all this time: "Making Sure the Student Does All the Work"
I was blessed with the opportunity to visit the Writing Center at Boise State several times while I attended there. It was a wonderful place. Though I never got a lot of help there (the tutors would always say something along the lines of "This paper is awesome, why are you here?") I overheard a multitude of consultations that went a little something like this:
Tutor: So, how do you feel about your paper right now?
Student: I feel like it sucks.
Tutor: Well, what do you want your paper to be like in the end?
Student: Can't you just tell me what I need to fix?
Every time, I would walk away from the scene laughing a little bit to myself. It seemed almost comical to me that a college student would think that someone would baby them through a paper like that.
This essay, by Jeff Brooks, sums up what every tutor should live by and what every student should know about tutoring: "When you 'improve' a student's paper, you haven't been a tutor at all; you've been an editor. You may have been an exceedingly good editor, but you've been of little service to your student." Now, this may be conjecture, but I presume that when proposing the Writing Center to a college, this vision of a place where scholarly writing is discussed and formed was presented to the college board, or whoever is in charge of making the decisions. The college decides to put some money into the Center because it feels it will contribute to the Institution of learning in a positive way; by instituting learning. If we were to sit with a paper, pull out a red pen, and tell the student exactly what to do, not a single ounce of learning has happened, and I imagine the college would stop funding the Center. Colleges are places for advanced learning and sharing ideas. Rarely do you see a professor tell a student the exact answer to every exam. The point of an Institution of learning is to teach students how to think and come up with the correct answer themselves.
From this essay, the main advice is to get students interested in their papers and their writing! Again, students can not succeed in writing if they are not invested in it. We have to get them in an active conversation about their papers. We must let them come up with ideas to run with! The first battle is getting them to participate in their writing, not just battle with the pen and paper to compose something using robot-like mannerisms. There needs to be a human element behind every piece of writing that not only gets the writer interested in WRITING, but the reader interested in READING!
An interested writer usually results in an interested reader!
I was blessed with the opportunity to visit the Writing Center at Boise State several times while I attended there. It was a wonderful place. Though I never got a lot of help there (the tutors would always say something along the lines of "This paper is awesome, why are you here?") I overheard a multitude of consultations that went a little something like this:
Tutor: So, how do you feel about your paper right now?
Student: I feel like it sucks.
Tutor: Well, what do you want your paper to be like in the end?
Student: Can't you just tell me what I need to fix?
Every time, I would walk away from the scene laughing a little bit to myself. It seemed almost comical to me that a college student would think that someone would baby them through a paper like that.
This essay, by Jeff Brooks, sums up what every tutor should live by and what every student should know about tutoring: "When you 'improve' a student's paper, you haven't been a tutor at all; you've been an editor. You may have been an exceedingly good editor, but you've been of little service to your student." Now, this may be conjecture, but I presume that when proposing the Writing Center to a college, this vision of a place where scholarly writing is discussed and formed was presented to the college board, or whoever is in charge of making the decisions. The college decides to put some money into the Center because it feels it will contribute to the Institution of learning in a positive way; by instituting learning. If we were to sit with a paper, pull out a red pen, and tell the student exactly what to do, not a single ounce of learning has happened, and I imagine the college would stop funding the Center. Colleges are places for advanced learning and sharing ideas. Rarely do you see a professor tell a student the exact answer to every exam. The point of an Institution of learning is to teach students how to think and come up with the correct answer themselves.
From this essay, the main advice is to get students interested in their papers and their writing! Again, students can not succeed in writing if they are not invested in it. We have to get them in an active conversation about their papers. We must let them come up with ideas to run with! The first battle is getting them to participate in their writing, not just battle with the pen and paper to compose something using robot-like mannerisms. There needs to be a human element behind every piece of writing that not only gets the writer interested in WRITING, but the reader interested in READING!
An interested writer usually results in an interested reader!
I especially appreciate your ending comments upon making our writers into better readers. This supports my strong feelings about how a writing center is an essential part of learning and education. A writing center helps the students become better writers, but also better thinkers and overall better learners. As long as we do our job, focusing on making them as you said interested in writing, then the students will come out better learners overall.
ReplyDelete"We have to get them in an active conversation about their papers. We must let them come up with ideas to run with!"
ReplyDeleteI really like the way you phrased this, Sasha. I hope that I'm able to get our students to be active in the conversation and run with their ideas. I think I've been a little jaded by teenagers who slump over their papers and stare morosely at the page, waiting for me to give them their next idea.