Week 7+ Week 8 Reading Response

“Peer Tutoring and the ‘Conversation of Mankind’”

It was observed in earlier years that a symptom of classroom learning was the fact that students were poorly prepared for college-level work, and when college professors offered help, were refusing it. In order to remedy this problem, peer tutoring was born. Students benefitted from being tutored by their peers, and the tutoring act itself helped both parties. Human beings are natural conversationalists, and “reflective thought is public or social conversation internalized.” The act of reflective thinking, Bruffee argues, is learned from others. Since thoughts can become words (writing), then the act of writing is externalizing internal thought. The main goal of peer tutoring is a conversation between knowledgeable peers.

Bruffee makes a good point that tutoring can overcome knowledge barriers because tutor and tutee “pool” their knowledge together. I agree that act of tutoring does in fact help both parties succeed in gaining knowledge, resources for learning, and honing the art of conversation.

“Collaboration, Control, and the Idea of a Writing Center”

The act of collaborating helps in problem solving, learning abstract ideas, interdisplinary thinking, critical thinking, and higher achievement through active learning. This article was advocating for a collaborative writing center in which tutor and tutee learn from each other. Lunsford argues that collaboration can be negatively used because it can contain a hierarchy, and in a writing center’s case, the tutor would pose more power. Also, collaborations can be inhibitory because groups of people must put aside their differences. I think Lunsford makes excellent points in favor of collaboration, and the negative points can easily be remedied. A handful of our class discussions have centered on creating a balance between tutor and tutee so that the tutor does not gain power, authority, or a belittling demeanor towards the tutee.

Researching the Writing Center Chapter 2 and 7

A writing center’s purpose is to improve a student’s writing, but not necessarily focus on the graded results. In other words, writing development is prioritized over a better grade. This, however, can be correlated. It comes as no surprise that one-on-one tutoring can result in higher grades, as quoted in this article. It seems reasonable to question how individual achievement via individually completed work may have hindered writing growth. The point of the 27-page Chapter 7 WC article is research support for the fact that peer tutoring does help students, and collaborative learning is also beneficial to academic growth. Chapter 2 discuses evidence based research/practice, in which previously completed research is used to answer new findings or studies. The chapter explains how ebr has been used in a wide variety of healthcare settings. I think this reading was boring, and too much of it was dedicated to compiling other studies and outside resources to drag out a simple point. However, I understand the reason for this assigned reading, being that we will be researching an area of tutoring that has been thoroughly discussed and reporting the information in a similar manner to these articles. 

Field Report #2: Live Tutoring Observation in Learning Center

Summary of Session:    

Sits next to her, rather than across from her

·      Student is facing tutor, but tutor had his hands crossed for some of the appointment, actively works on her laptop with her

·      Was already familiar with parts of the assignment

·      First questions asks:

·      What course is it for?

·      Who is your professor?

·      Tutee starts explaining: child Gambino video and about a media that shows a problem in society

·      Stops her, and asks if it was a chosen assignment and if you could choose it?

·      Description assignment, and student asks if he wants to read the prompt

·      Student explains she needs help with revising the essay

·      Tutor spends a few minutes reading the assignment

·      Tutor has a notebook in order to write out assignment requirements, but asks tutee if she has this all in her head or else he will have to remember it

·      Tells her she can stop him at any point, he reads the essay out loud, and stops to fix some minor punctuation (commas—eludes to a the difficulty of the professor)

·      Tutee explains that she doesn’t believe the essay is “good as a whole” tutor says he didn’t feel that, and continues reading

·      While reading it out loud, he stops and says “comma” out loud, as a cue where a comma should be added. Mentions that the voice is passive, and most professors want active voice (and asks if the student would like to change it or keep it)

·      Asks for clarification for some parts of the essay “people rioting against the police” and after pointing out some parts that do not fit, he fixes it for her on her laptop

·      Take out semicolon, and put in period, but asks permission first to change it

·      Breaks down thesis statement, and shows what evidence has for the assignment (separation of foreground/background, warehouse representing America, and people rioting) and why it is effective media.

·      And says thesis is clear, but if you want to make it clearer, can add more

·      Tutee explains that the assignment she wanted to focus on gun violence, touched on police brutality, and how America was represented by the warehouse (two body paragraphs total)

·      Student said that teacher had read the thesis and said it was good

·      Said professor said to make the ending more specific

·      He continues reading the assignment out, only stops to fix major grammar issue: Comma

·      Stops to fix words that may be missing from the sentenceà example, “that”, “where”

·      Points out sections to be changed in active voice

·      Fixes punctuation like period

·      Involves me in the session, concerning a section of the essay that the student didn’t like but tutor said was good

·      Word choice and gives words that can replace a word that wasn’t strong “similar” to “mirror”

·      References the assignment’s video to find details that neither could recall

·      Pointed out that not to use the same words in the same paragraph

·      “I would keep it like that., but it’s completely up to you.”

·      Omit some details from a paragraph that don’t fit in that paragraph

·      Always put in punctuation in quotes, makes light joke about it

·      Fixes sentences to get rid of the “ing” in the paper

o   Explains why: Professors like it

·      Clarifies what the student said, “So you’re saying...”

·      “I can’t give quick answer off the top of my head”

·      Asks tutor for quick ideas on how to fix some paragraphs, “big idea stuff”

·      Quickly in three minutes, reads another paragraph, says it is good, no problem

·      If there was a part he doesn’t remember clarifying earlier, puts the blame on himself, as a job

·      Clarifies a paragraph idea, and says a sentence in that paragraph doesn’t follow the main idea of the paragraph, and asks the student to tell him “show me how this fits with the paragraph idea.” Student explains why it belongs

·      Ran out of time:

o   Told her he would be happy to continue after his next session

Pre-session questions:

How are you able to make split-second corrections, and have confidence about your suggested correction?

How do you pace the session so that you can get through the entire paper, but do so in an effective way?

During the session, I realized how important it is to know how to make quick decisions while reading a paper, and understand how to explain those changes to the tutee. Understanding that tutoring is a time-sensitive process means that learning how to make a craft from it would greatly benefit. Making a craft refers to making a routine out of tutoring, and this can be done by knowing what works and what doesn’t work (through lots of experience/practice). For example, a tutor might use the same greeting or have a list of greetings in their arsenal that they can use without fumbling or making the session awkward. A tutor can prepare for each session by having grammar rules printed out that the tutor could refer to at any time during the session (visual aid) in order to clarify something. This, I believe, comes with practice. Tutoring is essentially honing a skill.

         The tutoring session I observed spoke a lot about a rhetorical analysis approach. The tutee had to make certain that her essay had ethos, logos, and pathos. These ideas were mentioned in the Backpack vs. Briefcases assigned reading. During the session, I also observed the tutor expressing many roles, such as ally, commentator, and collaborator. The ally role came out when the tutor had mentioned really specific requirements of the professor that the tutee didn't even know was essential. The commentator part is especially crucial in the sense that the tutor should make comments on the paper, but not be the one to act on them. The collaborator refers to the fact that the tutor should never enforce their beliefs or ideas into the paper, and squash the voice and tone of the tutee. These concepts were mentioned in The Bedford Guide reading Chapter 2. At first, I didn’t see how the tutor had to take on such roles, but after observing the session, I realize Chapter 2 made an excellent point about the dynamics between tutor and tutee.  

         Some criticism I had about the tutoring session was the fact that the tutor did not delve into explanations when he inserted a comma or swapped a semicolon for a period. I think it would be invaluable if he were to explain why he made those changes for the tutee. In each 250 class, we stress the importance of establishing life-long writing skills, and this is an effective means of practicing that ideology.

Field Report #1: Mock Tutoring Session with Peer

Note: 
This assignment has been directly copied from the original post in order to correct formatting issues. This assignment was first published on September 14. The author was UNAWARE of formatting issues until recently reviewing the post, and creatively fixing the issue. 

 Summary: In the first few minutes of Asia being tutee, and my assigned part as tutor, Asia jumped right into describing her paper writing assignment for her English class. She started with describing how the paper was about a specific book she was reading in class, and that she didn’t have a thesis yet, but knew which direction she wanted to take the paper in. She said she wanted to have the paper look at the female perspective of a major character in the Shakespearian novel, rather than focus on the male leads the professor was always discussing in class. After talking about the main female character for some time, together we generated some thematic elements that she could explore and find supporting evidence through quotations and passages. In the first few minutes of being tutee, and Asia’s assigned part as tutor, I showed her my lab report that I completed for my Mammalian Physiology course. After showing my lab report, and after she spent a few minutes reading the first page, she asked me to summarize what the lab report was about. After summarizing it, she asked me what the requirements of the lab report entailed. I pulled up another document that contained the outline required for the lab report. We went back and forth discussing the lab report, and then she asked me what my biggest concerns were. I told her that the length of the lab report was bothering me, and she gave me a few suggestions about how to break down, for example, the abstract of the lab report into parts that model after the lab expectations document I showed her, and fill it in as parts, and make sure that each part has a few sentences of explanation.

Pre-session Questions:

How do you help a writer brainstorm about a topic you don’t know anything about?

In addition to the previous question, how do you strengthen a thesis if you aren’t familiar with the topic?

Preliminary Answers to Questions: Brainstorming can occur through simple explanations of the topic that the student writer can explain to the tutor. Asking open-ended questions, like the what, when, where, why, and how can help with the brainstorming. As for the thesis, the thesis can be modified after the brainstorming is complete.

 Post-Session Questions:

What seemed to work?  I think asking about the assignment and discussing it in great detail within the first few minutes of the session is imperative. If there was no writing down for the assignment yet, brainstorming was essential to the tutoring session, and the tutoring session focused on that instead.·      Allowing the tutee to explain what direction they wanted the assignment to head

What didn’t work?

Brainstorming about an unfamiliar topic.. NO prep?

What did the “tutor” say/do that was effective?

Asia did a really great job of giving me suggestions about how to complete the assignment for a professor that grades strictly. She recommended that I approach other professors, and ask them to look over my lab report and mention the professor that I am taking. I thought that was a really great idea that can contribute to a solid second lab report. She also suggested that I try to rewrite/edit the lab report before getting back the graded lab report to see what corrections the professor may have made to the graded lab report. This will allow me to see the mistakes before being told what they are. The last recommendation Asia made was to ask the professor for a previous lab report that was an “A-grade.” Asia’s ideas were fabulous, and I definitely will look into utilizing them.   

What did the “student-writer” say/do that was effective?

I’m not sure how I can possibly answer this question because this requires Asia’s POV and her feedback for me to know my effectiveness in the tutoring session. I think I may have helped with brainstorming...

When you stepped into the tutor’s shoes, what did it feel like?  Describe the interaction. I didn’t know if my word choice was good. I caught myself saying “you should focus on this or that...” and didn’t let the student writer come to that epiphany on their own.

·      I was really struggling with formulating a plan for the student because I was unfamiliar with that particular book/genre.

When you stepped into the student-writer’s shoes, what did it feel like?

      I felt better about my writing because the tutor gave really nice encouragement.

·    My tutor mentioned creative suggestions on how to get feedback for a strict grading professor that I never thought to explore.

Assigned Readings Connection: All of our assigned readings discussed strategies during the session, such as spending a few minutes and breaking down the writing in stages (Bedford Guide). When Asia was the student and I was the tutor, we spent the majority of the time in the "pre writing" stage.