I honestly don’t know if I’m worried about anything that we haven’t discussed in class. However, I am certain that many concerns, challenges, and struggles will come up as I start working as a writing fellow. One question I have is that I am still not sure what my role is going to be. However, I know that Dr. Naydan, Dr. Horwitz, and writing fellow community will help me if I need anything. I also think it is a good idea to keep in touch with other writing fellows to see how they are doing. This is because other fellows might be able to help with my struggles and vice versa. One thing that I have been worried since the beginning is about the difference of opinions. Even though I consider myself as an open-minded person, there may be topic that I am not comfortable with or topics that I find wrong or offensive. And this may apply to the writers that come to me for help. Of course, it would be best if we can talk to each other and solve the problem, it may be difficult. I understand that everyone will be there to help us, I don’t want to do anything that could ruin the writing fellow – writers relationship.
When we were working on the second essay, I learned that Penn State library system is very useful for research and finding scholarly articles. In addition, the librarians are very kind are there to help writers find essay topics, articles, and with citations. And I know that if the writer ever needs help with their research and essay, I know where to take them.
I personally think that it is better to have face-to-face tutoring than online tutoring because it is easier to communicate and understand each other when both the tutor and the student is in the same space at the same time. According to Bell and McKinney, online tutoring often omits a writer’s identity and presence. I agree with this statement because unless you are using Skype or FaceTime, tutor won’t be able to see the writer’s face. If the tutor and the writer already know each other and are fairly close, it may be different, but if they don’t know each other that well, it would be very hard to convey your messages and opinions. I experienced this problem when tutoring one of my peers for Assignment 4 and About Page. I also think it was harder to tutor someone about presentations online because the presentation doesn’t necessarily include all the materials. In addition, we didn’t have a good time to video chat, so we used email to tutor, which made it even harder. However, after a few emails, I understood her intentions and her suggestions on how to improve my presentation.
I think I did a good job listening and asking questions. Writers do not necessarily have questions all the time, so it is my job to ask questions that get the writer thinking. Because, if the writer is not engaged, they are not thinking about the essay. Which means that it is hard for the tutor to guide the writer to become a better writer. On the other hand, I had trouble complementing or praising some components of the essay. I feel this way because I’m not sure if my praise meant anything to the writer. So I want to better at giving compliments because that would help writers to be more motivated.
I also found interesting that Bell and McKinney talked about different training for face-to-face tutoring and online tutoring. I think that it is true because they are completely different modes of tutoring and need different skills.
Even though I was born in Norway, my parents are Japanese and I was raised in Japan, I consider myself Japanese. However, as I lived in England for about six years, I also have some pride in the U.K. I am fluent in Japanese and I think that I am becoming closer to fluent/native and I will work hard to further improve my English. Through my experience, I believe that I became more open-minded and that I can address topics from different perspectives. Also, I think that I am not amazing with grammar but, I try to learn and use different techniques. I ask my friends, teachers, and look online to see if the way I used is wrong.
As an international student who struggled to speak and write when I moved to England, I want to help others who need help. In addition, I think I am open-minded enough to understand different views, opinions, and ways of writing. As Denny, Staben, and Nordhaus, Foss, and Griffin, and Matsuda and Cox mention, every student is different as they have their own identities formed by their experience and cultural backgrounds. Also, having conversations is very important as it helps both students and the tutors to get to know and understand each other. Also, by communicating with each other, writers can express and explain their ideas. Furthermore, many writers tend to focus on grammar when coming into the writing centre. However, talking about the essay will help the writers gain more perspectives and find the core improvement point.
As a big basketball and NBA fan, I understand that WNBA has been a big target of discrimination and prejudice. However, WNBA players are athletes who are doing what they love just like NBA players. I think that without our support, WNBA won’t grow and there will always be offensive comments towards them. But if we can create a community where they can play at a higher level with better facilities and funding, it can lead them to represent more independent, strong women.
When I lived in Japan, I had English classes in elementary and junior high school. I always thought that the system was strange because it focused on grammar and not speaking. However, when I moved to England, I didn’t learn much grammar. The teachers taught the use of comma, semi-colon, colon, and apostrophe. However, they did not go in detail, but made us do some worksheets. One of the teachers told me that I was not allowed to use but or and at the begining of sentences and I thought that was the absolute rule. However, as I read more books, articles, and academic writings, there are so many use of but or and at the begining. In addition, I always used Oxford comma, but some teachers find it annoying, which makes it wonder what the “right way” of grammar and usage of punctuations.
I agree with J. Stephen Sherwin, as he states, “instruction in formal grammar is an ineffective way to help students achieve proficiency in writing”(p. 135). As a student, when a teacher correct my grammar, it feels like the teacher is picking on me and it leads me to lose confidence and motivation. When there are more than ten, twenty, or more grammatical errors, it becomes a bigger problem, but when there are few I don’t it is a big deal. In addition, as an international student, I sometimes use an unusual way of forming sentences just because it is the way I contructed my idea. It may not make sense to others without explanation, so if this problem comes up, I personally think that it is best to talk to each other to clarify. Also, this is closely related to identity issues. When a teacher corrects a student’s grammar just because it is not normal or usual, the teacher could be erasing the student’s identity. If he/she is writing a professional academic writing, it is hard to ignore the genre and the format; however, when a student is writing a personal narrative or an essay, it is imporant that the writing represents the writer. In addition, it is difficult for students to differentiate or connect the 5 meanings of grammar, because many teachers teach the common grammar or usage so that students can get the general idea. But, there are many situations where those common ways do not apply. And I think that could lead the students to be confused. As a writing fellow, I would like to be open-minded and flexible in terms of grammar. Especially, as Dr. Naydan always says, “there are almost always bigger issues than grammatical errors.”
I wrote my Major Essay 2 on Vershawn Ashanti Young’s “Should Writers use they Own English?”, and Agnieszka Szczypińska’s “Who Gains More Power in the EU After Brexit? *”. Young’s essay is an essay written for the English community, whereas Szczypińska’s essay is written for the Economics and Finance community. As I read and analysed two essays, I noticed how different they are, yet they both have a similarity. Young uses code-meshing and broke down each paragraph short, but Szczypińska uses British English and keeps her paragraphs fairly long. I really liked the fact that they both had many differences, which were used effectively to convey their messages to their audiences. However, I also learnt that the use of references and citation will always help the essay to be more reliable.
I tutored my friend in one of my classes. The essay was for American Studies class and the format was MLA, however, the professor was not concerned about citations, so we agreed that we were going to ignore citations and focus on the main message she wanted to convey. She had an idea of what she wanted to write, but she wasn’t sure how to get started. I helped her to look at the essay prompt deeply, then brainstorm some topics. Since we talked about the difference between tutor, editor, and teacher, I made sure that I was doing what I was supposed to do by looking at the guidelines. As I was tutoring her, I got a feeling of “working together” rather than “I am helping her”. This is because we had conversations about the essay, instead of reading and writing. I know that I am not a good tutor yet, but in-class tutorials and the first tutorial helped me to have better ideas of how I can approach the writers. On the other hand, I sometimes have difficulty analysing essays and pick what can be improved. I believe as I read more articles, write more essays, and get used to the formats, requirements and disciplines, I can improve this skill.
As I am a Japanese citizen, who was born in Norway and spent my teenage years in England, it is hard to find where I stand. When I go back to Japan, people tell me I’m not “Japanese” enough and when I go to England or America, I’m too “Asian”. However, I recently accepted the fact that this is me and this is my identity. Because of my experience, I know there are many people with many different backgrounds and identities. This leads me to be curious and be more understanding when it comes to communicating with others. There are always sensitive topics or taboo topics to talk about, and those topics change depending on who they are.
As Denny talks about in his essay, different people have different identities and we need to respect them. We also have to adjust and assist the students as they needed. Meaning that we cannot assume or judge things and push our opinions onto them.
This is because, as Young points out, many people “code-mesh” and that is who they are. By tutors and teachers telling them they cannot use their own English or even their own languages not only erases their identities but it also limits their messages, which Suhr-Sytsma and Brown points out as well. In Suhr-Sytsma’s and Brown’s essay, “Theory In To Practice”, it is pointed out that there are ways in which class differences influence people’s perspectives on oppression. But it is also said that they learned to question their assumptions about demographics. As a tutor for English 015 students, I would like to be open-minded and be understanding to the fact that everyone is different and that the differences should be respected. I also want to be as helpful as possible by being genuine and friendly, leading people to feel free and welcome to talk to me.
Providing tutorial was very hard and it was a little awkward for me. One of the reasons for this was because we both we in the same class, given the same essay prompt. Also, I felt like it was hard to critique my classmate’s essay. However, I had fun after a while because we got to know each other more by having conversations. We sat next to each other and we basically talked about the essay as well as about out personal things. I am sure that this applies to tutoring English 015 students, and I will try becoming their friend as well as a mentor and a tutor. I am happy that my peer and I didn’t focus on the grammatical errors and other minor errors, because there were more important, major topics and areas to discuss. Moreover, by complimenting and praising a few aspects of the essay, the student can gain confidence and the motivation to work harder and improve the essay. As Jeff Brooks states in the essay, that the worst scenario of tutoring is when a tutor points out mechanical errors and organizational problems, the student fixes them, and gets and A. Even though many people think of tutoring this way and this scenario is hard to avoid, I agree with Brooks’ opinion that this is not tutoring. This is because I have done the work for the student, but the student haven’t done anything other than fixing the things that were pointed out.
In addition, Peter Carino uses Coagie’s quote, “[f]ostering student authority is not a
matter of following a single approach and avoiding another. The authority of students may grow from moves as diverse as asking them tough questions, providing summaries or terms to help them conceptualize points and build confidence, and helping them negotiate assignment demands, gain the necessary situated knowledge, or try out aspects of the writing process. (47)” I agree with this, because I think the tutor should mentor the student and help him/her to improve the writing skills rather than focusing on getting an A on that assignment. I believe that by asking questions and letting the student think him/herself, a tutor can achieve the ultimate goal.
Getting tutored by a peer was a strange experience for me, especially because we had the exact same essay prompt. On the other hand, I think it was very useful to be in the shoes of English 015 students who are going to get tutored by me next year. I also felt like it was easier for me to convey my feelings about the essay, because I felt like we were on about the same level. In addition, I think my tutor in class gave me precise and effective advices to improve my essay. I also liked the fact that we went through the process according to the worksheet given in class.
I also liked getting tutored by the instructor, because she helped me to come up with more ideas and structures to make my essay better. It especially helped me because I had an arduous time developing the essay. Not only that, she made me think about my essay rather than her doing the work for me. We discussed the feedbacks that I received from my peer and I think for most part, the peer was on point. This is because the instructor developed the ideas and advices based on the peer’s comments as well.
I revised my Major Essay 1 by reading the syllabus first so that I understand the essay prompt clearly. After that, I started writing, but I got stuck, so I asked my instructor for help, where she gave me ideas to further improve my essay.
When I first hear the word “revision”, it means going over the materials from the course and making sure that you understand. However, I think that revision is a process and if you do not understand something, you need to ask either your friends or professors, because the aim is for you to grasp all the knowledge and information. For example, when I was in high school, I took IB(International Baccalaureate) and I had to take six classes: Business Management Standard Level(SL), Chemistry Higher Level(HL), Economics HL, English B HL, Japanese A SL, and Mathematics SL. My exams were in May and I started revising from around January. The first thing I did was to look over the worksheets and notes, which was very helpful since it clearly showed what I understood and what I didn’t. After that, I turned to textbooks and started reading the chapters and solving the problems. Then, I went to the teachers to get some help on the questions that I didn’t understand or I didn’t know. However, this is not the end of revision, because in order to fully understand the materials, I had to start the process from the beginning. Meaning that I looked over the notes and worksheets again, read through textbooks, and solved the questions. By repeating this process, I was able to gain more knowledge, information and trends of the questions.
Comparing to “revision” for tests and exams, “revision” for writing is a little bit different.In terms of writing, revising is a process of writing a good story or an essay. Even though I said that revision for tests and writing is a little bit different, I personally think that they revision for exams and for writing is essentially the same thing, or at least very similar. This is because repetition is the key for both process. What I mean by this is that you need to repeat three things over and over again,which are read, write, and edit. For example, if you are doing a research paper, you need to do your research, write your essay, and edit. After you finish a round of that, you have to go back and start reading the essay, write more, and edit again. By using this system, you can improve the quality of your essay.
System for good essays
According to Perl’s study, “[t]he most salient feature of Tony’s composing process was its recursiveness. Tony rarely produced a sentence without stopping to reread either a part or the whole. This repetition set up a particular kind of composing rhythm, one that was cumulative in nature and that set ideas in motion by its very repetitiveness” (Perl, The Composing Processes of Unskilled College Writers, P324). Despite her opinion, I strongly believe that the important thing here is recursiveness. As I mentioned earlier, by repeating the process you are essentially revising your own work, leading you to produce better essays.
Also, I can relate to Meaghan’s video where she talks about how she writes essays. As she mentioned, there should be a system when you write essays. For example, outline your essay, summarize the sources, writing paragraph by paragraph and relate back to your thesis. By writing your first draft, you have an idea of how you want to write and convey your message. However, first draft tends to be messy and not well written, meaning that you need to keep editing to write better ones. This could be your second draft, third draft, or even tenth draft, but by revising your essay over and over again, you can write your best essay.
Tutoring is when a tutor guides through a tutee to her/his goals, but more importantly, it is when they talk to and ask each other. Watching both Sample Video 1 and Sample Video 2, the tutors and the tutees talk to each other about their essays to find out how the essay can be improved. Not only do they have conversations, but they also ask questions to each other. By asking questions like “What’s your assignment?”, or “Is there something you’re worried about in your paper?” they can figure out what they should focus on or how they can approach the assignment.
Mind Map of Tutoring
In addition to this, I strongly believe that letting the tutees read their own essay is a very effective way for tutoring. Even though I was surprised to see tutees read their own essays, I realized that it is more efficient than tutors reading. This is because both tutors and tutees won’t be engaged in the process. As proven on Sample Video 1, the tutee was making notes and fixing her essay while she was reading. This helps the steps of tutoring because they can find their own mistakes such as grammar or comma errors. Once they fix their minor errors, they can focus on more important points; for example, they can focus on making a stronger thesis or conclusion.
Moreover, the consultants passing and pointing out what the writers did well is crucial. Not only does this motivate the writers, but it helps them to have an idea of what a good component in an essay is. Also, I personally think that not many students come to writing centers with questions, which is why I believe that they should have gotten compliments the fact that the writers came with many questions.
In spite of the consultants doing an amazing job in the sample videos, I think they need to adjust to each writer. After reading “The Tutoring Process” by Gillespie, Lerner, and Sommers, I realized that it mentioned about how to approach the writers and that all writers need different preferences of communication. This means that if a writer refuses to read her/his essay, the consultant needs to find another way to read the essay together, such as the consultant reading it aloud or both consultant and the writer reading silently together.
Yu's English Project 