Blue Jeans-Good or Bad?

Last week, in class, our assignment was to read a student's paper online, and treat it as if we were in a tutoring session. Beforehand, I didn't know what to think about online-tutoring, but after I worked on the paper, I decided that online-tutoring is not for me.

The paper I read, as I remember correctly, was about blue jeans. Well, what about blue jeans? I kept saying that to myself, the entire time I read the paper. Blue jeans were in some form or another, disastrous to our society. He went on to write about how shoppers should just go "second-hand shopping", whatever that means, but for what reason?

The author behind the paper desperately wanted to provide an argument against a certain kind of blue jean company, but they never said. At the end of this paper, I was left with way too many questions. Why are blue jeans hazardous? What negative effect do they have on society? There was kind of an introduction, but it went nowhere. A thesis statement was nowhere to be found. A title for the essay was also missing. As usual, a majority of commas that should have been used in the paper were missing as well.

At the end, where I wrote my opinion of the paper, I wrote that after you are done writing a paper, always read it aloud at least five times. In the writing lab, whenever I read a student's paper aloud, sometimes, they will stop me, because they feel embarrassed by what they wrote. This usually happens, within maybe three or four sentences into the paper. When we read our papers aloud, we not only find mistakes, but we also find places in our paper where we should have incorporated an idea that might have been left out.

I wanted to actually learn more about this person's problem with blue jeans, but they wouldn't let me, and they stopped themselves from persuading the readers into staying away from buying blue jeans.

I struggled with helping this person with their mistakes online. It's just so different for me. My mind went blank. Anytime, that I am online, and I speak to a person through aim or a message board, I never fully get to say what I intend to say, because our communication is so limited. I would recommend any student(if they can) to always make an appointment with a tutor at the writing center, and not online. I realize that we all don't have the same opportunities, and from what I read from the chapter in our textbooks on online-tutoring, there are some people, who can only communicate with tutors over the internet. I also understand that there are probably hundreds of tutors out there who enjoy working with students online.

Usually, at the very end of a session with a students, I will give them a piece of paper with my times in the lab that I am most present, and also my email. I give them my email, because they might go home, and perhaps need help with other papers. As long as the student recieved the help they needed and learned something new, where does it really matter where we tutor them?

Online Tutoring

In "The Anxities of Distance: Online Tutors Reflect", we get to read about the experiences of tutors who have helped students and the pros and cons of online tutoring. The thing that I liked about this chapter, was the fact that we get to view the sessions between the students and the tutors.

I think that from reading this chapter, I would have to say that online tutoring, is a big no-no. I like the idea of sitting face-to-face with a student and explaining to them what they want to know or learn. I beleive that when a we participate in online tutoring, we become lazy and rely on what we read over the screen over a computer, but not on somebodys paper. I'm sure most tutors do not think that there is a difference, but I do beleive that there is. I am not trying to say that we cannot help an individual with certain problems that they have in their writing, but the dialogue that we use over the net, lets face it, is very limited. Anytime that we talk to someone during instant message or a chat room, we never get to say everything that we entirely intend to. This is a problem with tutoring online; I feel it's impossible to get all of our ideas across the screen. However, when the tutors respond to people's questions and concerns over their papers, they do effectively help, but I still feel that alot is missing.

The way we talk to a student has such a tremendous impact on how they learn what we are teaching them. Online the student doesn't hear our voice, but they see our words. I am curious to try online tutoring; however, I feel like I would not be as helpful as I would in a face-to-face encounter with a client.

Learning Disabilities and the Writing Center

For several years now, I have often wondered about how students with learning disabilites study and learn in high school and college. As a tutor, I think that it would be an honor to help somebody who has any kind of disability that they are struggling with. I have always been curious to learn about their viewpoint in terms of learning. In "Learning Disabilites and the Writing Center", Julie Neff takes us through personal experiences with students with learning disabilites and offers some suggestions to tutors on how we can effectively help them out.

Neff takes us through the personal story of Barb and problems that she encounters in everyday life. In one instance, Barb is asked by her mother to put a roast in the oven at 350 degrees. Barb agrees, and does so;however, she unfortunately forgets to take the plastic covering off of the roast when she lays in the oven. Barb isn't blind or anything, but she makes it very clear to her mother, that she just didn't see the plastic covering.

I think that this situation displays the power and need for understanding the communication of language and how important it is in our daily lives. Had Barb's mother had told her beforehand, that the roast was covered in plastic, then she would have never made the mistake, but she did. When it comes to communicating with people around us who have a disibilty of some kind, whether we're at work, school, church, or home, we have to understand that we always have to depend on the usage of information through words, and not images.

One of the great aspects of this article, is that Neff has faith that students with disabilities can somehow find a certain way to learn efficiently through writing. Neff believes that freewriting for most disability students, can be a very difficult task. Conversation instead, can take the place of freewriting. I think that this should by applied in any meeting between a tutor and a student.

Another problem with students who have a learning problem, is the people around them, usually have a very negative attitude about the way they function in learning. This kind of thinking to me is very sad. I think that they should be able to learn in an atmosphere with individuals who at least try to promote a positive attitude, but I'm sure their are those who do not. We as tutors should help them to find an area where they can find ideas in writing that can help them became more aware of extending their writing techniques.

Culture and Writing

Last week, we got to view a very short and brief documentary about ESl students in America. It was fascinating to hear these individuals talk about the shock of being in a different culture, that was different than their own. This week in our blog, we had to answer two different questions dealing with culture and writing.

I think the environment that surrounds a person does indeed affect the way they write and their viewpoint that is represented in their writing. Their knowledge is obtained through what they have learned in the coutnry they live in. I can write creatively, about a number of topics that deal with anything that I am familiar with. Unfortunatly, during this semester, whenever I have read an ESL student's paper on certain topics, I often struggle to understand the point of their paper.

For example, a student from Kuwait, came in and presented to me a paper that dealt with his experience's with concerts in Kuwait. Before I go any further, I would like to make it very clear, than I have attended many concerts in America, and only in America. So when this student told me the paper was going to be about concerts, I was immediatly excited. Who in their entire life has never been to a concert?

I love going to concerts, and writing about a concert is usually pretty easy to understand, but his paper wasn't. I know nothing of how concerts are conducted over in Kuwait. Normally, to consider the type of audience that is going to be at a concert in America, you look at the music that is going to be played at the concert. For example: A rock concert is probablly going to draw mainly teenagers and younger adults, but I can't imagine many seniors being there. The type of concerts that he was writing about, didn't really make any sense to me at all. It seems that there were different crowds for the different bands that played, which was odd to me. There were also two different stages with bands playing on them at the same time. This was very easy for him to write about, because this was all that he knew. Helping him with his punctuation and grammar was easy, but understanding the topic of his paper and what point he was trying to make was really hard for me to understand. I wish I had asked him questions about what he knew and what was familiar with him from his other country, before we began our session.

I write what I know, and only know. I don't speak a second language, but I wish that I did, so that way I could be more useful with the ESL students. I hope that the next time that I meet with an ESL student, I can hopefully develop a conversation with them that deals with what they have learned about the differences between America and the other country they used to inhabit, and how I can learn from them also.

Make a Plan

I have been working in the writing center, for about three weeks, and I have had alot of interesting encounters with students. Although it has been fun and eye-opening for me, any time that I get an ESL student in the writing center, it is always a struggle for me to help. In Breaking Ice and Setting Goals, Shanti Bruce takes you through the way an ESL student approaches tutoring in the writing center, and what plan you can make yourself as a tutor to help the student effectively.

On my first day of tutoring, I had an ESL student. She was from Japan, who moved to America a few years ago. I started the session off very slowly and asked her what she thought about America. She responded in a very angry tone, "I don't like America"! I thought to myself, Wow, this is a terrible way to start off a tutoring session". After that, whenever she spoke, I couldn't understand a word that she said. I tried asking her questions about her paper, but she just wouldn't talk. I read the paper at least three times, to get a grasp of what it was about. Every sentence had like a million problems with it. Because I am in the writing lab only one hour a day, I barely got through the three pages of her assignment. I felt really bad about that day, but I did the best I could. What I needed that day, was a simple plan.

What I truly love about this chapter, is that the author lays out for us a simple plan to follow and practice, whenever we tutor ESL students. His plan consists of five main points: Find out what the student knows about the writing center, Ask about the student's piece of writing, if necessary ask more direct questions, set goals together, and make the plan visible. Out of all of theses steps, I would say the most important step is to always ask more direct questions, because you can never ask a student too many questions when they are writing a paper.

I hope that the next time that I encounter an ESL student, I can be more direct and hopefully follow a plan similar to the one found in this chapter, that will help me to assist the students needs in writing. I hope that also, at the same time, the more ESL students that I encounter, I can help them to feel more comfortable with their issues in whatever is it that they are writing.

The Observation Analysis

I have to say, that observing the writing center has been alot of fun, but really weird at the same time. Some of what I have discovered in the writing center has been good, but alot of it has been really bad. I am curious to know how exactly the tutors will feel about the way I help students. More importantly, at the end of this semester, will I be the same or be a different person?

When I work with somebody, I want to come off as very warm and laid back. I want my clients to feel comfortable and open when we go over their papers. I can't say that I see any of this at all in the writing lab. The tutors there, are very loud and act as if they are in a rush. Whenever I walk in, the first thing that I usually see, is two or three of the tutors eating and drinking or reading their facebook on the computer. As soon as a student walks in, they walk over and ask them if they need help. They grab the students paper and began to make corrections on it.

Whenever the tutors in there have a conversation with the students, they talk really, really loud. Loud in a way that I do not understand or could ever comprehend. I could walk outside the classroom and into the hall and still be able to hear them. I think it's annoying to talk that loud, but this is just my opinion. I try to be very soft and quiet. When somebody meets with me and I talk to them, it is just between me and them, not the entire class! I understand that it is a very small class, and it's not as if the two of us are supposed to be meeting in private(we're not), but I just don't see a need to speak that loud. I would feel embarrased if the tutor I was with started talking like that.

Often times, some of the individuals who come in here, are in a real big hurry, and act upset, if they don't get their papers looked at. They will even come in abut thirty minutes before the paper is due! Not all of the students are like this. Sadly enough, I see the tutors acting like they are in a hurry, as if they don't care about their clients. This I cannot understand. They do not ask questions like I have been taught, but I guess they don't see a need to build any kind of relationship like I do. At the end of the meeting, I wonder what was learned between the two of them.

I hope that I will come off as a patient and kind tutor, who is interested in learning about the students ability to write, but one who takes the time to listen to what the client says, if they say anything at all.

Response 5

For this week, instead of just responding to the chapters in the book, we get to write about the superheroes that we created last Wendsday.

Usually, when I go into an English class, the last thing I would think that we would ever do was create superheroes! This was kind of bizarre and wierd, but really cool at the same time. I have never done anything like this before, so it really was alot of fun. Superheroes have always been a big part of my life. When I say this, I mean that ever since I was around 7, I have constantly read numerous amounts of comic books with superheroes that I always thought were amazing to me. However, I have never thought of a superheroe being an English tutor.

The classroom was broken up into three or four different groups consisting of about four students. Each group was given a different colored poster board and different pictures of superheroes that they could choose from to put on the posterboard. We chose orange, and somehow or another decided on a villian. But this wasn't just any villian, this was "Doctor Octopus"! In my eyes, Doctor Octopus, was the craziest villian from the Spiderman series. I can't beleive that we chose him, but we did.

So perhaps the person who is reading this is asking themselves, "why would you ever choose Doctor Octopus"? Doctor Octopus the villian, consists of eight tentacles that he uses to fight his enemies or either get what he wants. Now as tutors, in so many ways, we are unfortunatly seen by many students as the "bad guy". I can see why they think that way, I used to think that way as well. Now that I am on the othe side of the fence, I know that I am not the bad guy, but really the "good guy" trying to do some good.

We basically named our hero Mr.Ironic. I think this is a great name! I wish I could name his strengths, but unfortunatly I forgot them. I think that some of the strenghts that we gave him were, that he was flexibile, straight-forward, honest, and understanding. These are all traits that every tutor should bring with them once they enter the writing center.

I am actually glad that we did something like this in class. This project showed that we can have fun, but we can actually learn alot from each other on how we should conduct ourselves as tutuors. As tutors, we should always do our best to be the "hero" of the situation and to be limitless with our powers!