My
name is XVZ, and I am Writing and Literature major at LaGuardia
Community College. As a student in Dr. Justin Rogers-Cooper’s Seminar in
Teaching Writing class, I have been introduced to numerous writing techniques
and teaching styles. As a private tutor, I felt I had enough knowledge to help
students achieve academic greatness and while honor roll status and
certificates were received, being in this class has taught me that education should
be about more than just a grade. Contrary to popular belief, a number or a
letter does not determine individual intelligence. My personal philosophy on
pedagogy is all over the place. The best way I can answer this is to go all the
way to the beginning of the semester, to the first day of class. When I walked
in, everyone was busy writing about what in their opinion is the definition of
“good teaching”. Zilelian and Ross were the names that immediately came to
mind. Now, while I could go on about how they were amazing in their own way, I
will say what they had in common: they were patient and believed in their
students. They played a big role in what I believe good teaching is. Patience
is definitely a key factor in good teaching; it may even surpass other
contributing factors in significance. However, the idea of patience goes
further than tolerating a great deal of stress and frustration from students.
It also transitions into being tolerant with oneself and knowing that the
obstacles are worth enduring because the outcome will be much greater. Being a patient
educator means that you understand that not all students learn or grow at the
same pace and that some need more encouragement than others.
Throughout the semester, I was able to observe
tutoring sessions at the Writing Center and was privileged enough to work
one-on-one with freshman students. What I learned was that all of the tutors,
myself included, had one common goal and that was to help the student. Tutoring
is more than just reinforcing what a teacher or professor has taught you, it’s
about learning how to apply acquired knowledge to assignments and to your
personal life. Tutoring should be more than helping students understand
material; it’s about helping them in their entirety. This is a little idea that
Moffett advocated: growth through thought development. His “…progression
drama-narrative-generalization-argumentation describes not only long-range
growth toward an enlarging repertory but describes also the daily abstracting
we do as we convert new experience to working knowledge” (13). Each of these
stages is necessary because students see the event taking place (drama), they
memorize key components and share that with others (narrative), they analyze
the situation (exposition), and take a stand and defend a side (argumentation).
Tutors should encourage their students to think freely and to not be afraid to
voice their opinions and thoughts. The idea of exercising free thought is so
important because it helps develop different critical patterns in thought and
it allows a person to interpret that information accordingly. Free thought
allows a student to see different perspectives, something that is necessary for
healthy growth, something that Moffett puts an emphasis on with the drama-narrative-generalization-argumentation
model.
During
my observations at the Writing Center, one technique that was constantly
practiced was Collaborative Tutoring. Donald A. McAndrew and Thomas J. Reigstad
describe this technique to be the most effective during most tutorials due to
the flexibility of the tutor—“the tutor encourages the writer, often with
open-ended and probe-and-prompt questions, to engage in off-the-paper,
exploratory talk and to expand upon underdeveloped themes in the paper” (26). All
of the sessions I observed dedicated a great deal of time to talking and with
good reason too. Conversation and free
talking are two strategies that were constantly being used during the Writing
Center tutorials and during my own peer-to-peer sessions. Many people overlook
the simplicity of talking when it comes to the academic world. This is horrible
because it’s eliminating a basic form of communication in which a lot of
important material and/or information can be released and used in assignments.
It restricts students and denies them the fulfillment of socializing while
learning. However, this was not the case at the Writing Center. Conversation
overflowed the booths in which the tutorials took place; there was curiosity
and excitement coming out of their mouths. It was a wonderful thing to observe
and be a part of.
At
one point I was able to work with two students from Professor Hendrickson’s
English 101 class at two different times during the semester. One student was
quiet and seemed to lack interest in both the tutorial and her assignment. After
reading her essay, I decided to ask her questions to further enhance her
argument. Indifference shone through whenever I asked her a question regarding
her topic. She repeated a variation of the same answer to every question I
proposed. When asking questions didn’t go well, I decided to assign a focused
free writing, McAndrew and Reigstad see this particular exercise as beneficial
because it “…[focuses] on a portion of the draft that needs development…” (46).
However, she did not take to the exercise. Ultimately, what I ended up doing
was taking notes on things she had repeated with more emphasis throughout the
session and gave that to her so she could work from it. The second student was the complete opposite
of the first. As I read over the material he had with him I could tell it was of
interest to him. I presented him with a bunch of questions that he could answer
throughout his paper to further solidify his argument because all he had was a
basic outline of what he wanted his essay to look like. We spent about half hour
brainstorming and playing off of our ideas as they came into recognition (48)— McAndrew
and Reigstad categorized this notion as “playing your thoughts”, and while no
stage or role play was necessary for this technique, the student was satisfied
with the amount of work that was achieved. I thoroughly enjoyed tutoring him
because I liked the amount of energy he had when it came to discussing his main
idea. His enthusiasm made it that much more enjoyable.
During
the final peer tutoring session with Professor Alexander’s class, I was
fortunate enough to work with a student that was as equally animated about his
topic as the second student in Professor Hendrickson’s class. This student was
entirely receptive and willing to take whatever feedback I gave him into
consideration. While asking him about what some of his concerns in writing are,
he confided in me that he had habit of writing what others wanted to read even
if he didn’t personally agree with what he was arguing. Another concern for him
was making his writing personal. He had attended law school in Brazil and was
taught a certain way of writing, it was impersonal and formal. This reminded me
of something Regina Foehr said in her tribute to James Moffett, “in academia,
we too often take ourselves too seriously…[and we] fear reprisal if we explore
the unconventional or write what we really believe” (6). Students are often
scared of voyaging into controversial topics or representing them in writing
due to the criticism they will receive. While there is safety in tradition,
there is innovation in being able to discuss and appropriately correspond to
issues that might be considered taboo. The notion of being able to think
outside the box is something Moffett advocated. My response to him was to make
writing, when necessary, as personal as possible. I encouraged him discuss his
ideas freely and to always have enough evidence to prove his point.
There’s this stigma
that surrounds tutoring. It says that if a student needs to be tutored it’s
because they’re not meeting standard requirements and if they’re not meeting
those requirements it’s because they’re not smart enough to. It took me years
to realize that this is not true. I first saw this a few years ago when I first
began tutoring children. I just couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that
these same children who had a deep understanding of their surroundings were
encouraged to seek tutoring. For a long time I didn’t what I was doing with them
that their overall performance in school had increased but the children were
happy, as were the parents, therefore, I was happy. It wasn’t until around the
holiday season that I finally understood what it was that set me aside from
their teachers. One of my tutees had written me a lovely message inside of a
Christmas card, in a nutshell; she thanked me for being patient with her and
for always believing in her. If I had to narrow my philosophy on pedagogy down,
it would be that: be patient and believe in your students. There are obviously
a lot of other important factors that contribute to effective teaching, but on
a more personal level, I believe patience and having confidence in your
students is necessary. I want to make a difference in someone’s life just as
Ms. Zilelian and Mr. Ross have made in mine. I want to be the reason why
someone did not give up.
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