When a student needs help with their paper , the first place that they probably go, is the "Writing Center". Once the tutor and the student meet, is their really any relationship forming between them. What does the student really learn from the tutor if the only reason they're going is to just get the mess cleaned up, but not learn how they made the mess in the first place. Should a meeting between the two really be any different from a therapist and a client?
In the article, Freud in the Writing Center: The Psychoanalytics of Tutoring Well, by Christina Murphy, she explores the idea, that tutors should really act like like they are the student's therapist to truly understand how they form their own writing process. The students can't break down the walls that are prohibiting them from accelerating in writing, unless they understand what they're doing wrong. The tutor needs to be open to understanding how the students approaches their work and learn what they need to change mentally. In doing, so the student can begin to expand their horizons and start developing new ideas in creativity.
Usually, whenever I walk into the Writing Center, I see one or two people being helped. Sometimes, the person who is in need of getting their paper fixed, will leave immediatly after they see what's wrong with how they wrote the paper. In this case, it is nobody's fault; however, if I was the student in need of help, I would stay and see how I could work on becoming a better writer, but not everybody wants that. As somebody that will be a tutor this fall, I will try to do the best that I can and look beyond just what they did wrong with their paper, and see what they can do to change they way they look at their own writing.
In the article, "Whispers of Coming and Going: Lessons from Fannie, which is written by Anne DiPardo, Anne writes about how she helps a native American student break into her own mold of creative writing and undo the fear of what is holding her back. I think this article, really wasn't all that different from the one above. It is nice to read about somebody taking the time to understand the background of where a writer is coming from. It's like telling somebody who is standing on the edge of a building to try to jump and make it to the other one. It might be risky, but if they make it, it will be very rewarding to them. This is how I feel about writing. Writing its self can be very risky, and you always have to try new things to figure out what is right. To me, this is kind of like therapy, and I don't see that as a bad thing. I hope that whatever fears a person has about writing in the tutoring center, I hope I can somehow help them to overcome their fears and conquer them.
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"What does the student really learn from the tutor if the only reason they're going is to just get the mess cleaned up, but not learn how they made the mess in the first place." - This is a fantastic way of looking at what we really want to happen in the writing center. We want to get beyond saying that a client needs a better thesis statement or a better organization; that, after all, is what teachers do, in their comments on essays. A writing center should be about understanding the "mess" of writing, even if the product itself turns out neatly - because every one of us who writes knows that writing is a "mess"!
ReplyDeleteI hope you are able to convince your clients to stick around after they see the "problem" and talk through the messiness that led them to the writing center in the first place. If you can do that, you will be exactly the sort of tutor Murphy and Sherwood want to see students become.