Dear Mr. Eisenstadt,
My name is _ and I am a student in Dr. Justin Rogers-Cooper’s Teaching
Writing Seminar. Not only has this class provided me with help in furthering my
own writing goals, but it has also afforded me the opportunity to observe other
students in their writing process at the Writing Center. It has been quite a
learning experience. Using the strategies that I observed in the Writing
Center, as well as reading Donald A. McAndrew’s and Thomas J. Reigstad’s Tutoring Writing, and James Moffet’s Active Voice, I believe my ability to
help others in their writing process has improved exponentially. I’ve come to
learn that in order for a paper to be successfully edited that is important to distinguish
the difference between HOCs and LOCs. As such, a heavier focus on LOCs provides
the student with a less desired outcome. Furthermore, it is important to
provide the student with various strategies to improve their writing not only for
one session, but throughout their writing career.
Out
of the four times I was able to sit in on a tutoring session, I believe the
third time was the most effective and positive. It was one o’clock in the
afternoon, and the student came in with a paper that was due at 5 o’clock that
evening. The student had been instructed to write about two short stories and
explore the central themes of discrimination and racism in each story. Though
she had a fully formed paper, she understood that her thesis needed focus. Additionally,
rather than exploring and explaining her ideas, the essay was mostly a summary of
the plot of each story.
This is
apparently a very common issue with many students; the thesis is not fully developed
and thus, the focus, organization and structure suffer. McAndrew and Reigstad
would consider this a “higher order concern” or an HOC, which they define as a
problem that “exist[s] beyond the sentence level,” and includes “clarity of
thesis or focus, adequate development… effective structure…and appropriate
voice” (25). McAndrew and Reigstad suggest that
HOCs should always be dealt with before moving onto LOCs (lower order concerns),
which they describe as the problems within the sentence structure itself such
as grammar, spelling and punctuation. Essentially, without the proper focus on HOCs, like the thesis, a paper
buckles and collapses. Conversely, unless the problem is severe enough as to
completely hinder the reader’s ability to understand the paper, an LOC, like
grammar, can be dealt with at a later time.
Understanding
the importance of differentiating the HOCs from the LOCs, the tutor in this
session immediately began a course of action to attempt to correct the HOCs in
the paper. He read the paper aloud, which enabled both the tutor and the
student to hear how the paper sounded as they began to work on the issues
together. As James Moffett suggests, “people first learn to speak through vocal
exchange” (47), and it is often easier to develop an idea through oral
communication rather than through written composition. The tutor used this idea
when he began to have a conversation with the student, asking her how she felt
about different aspects of the each story. Fortunately, the tutor was familiar
with one of the short stories and was able to briefly explain the central
themes that the student had initially missed.
However,
the student didn’t quite grasp the concepts that the tutor was talking about and
didn’t seem to be interested in the topic or her paper. The tutor seemed to
sense this and began to employ a number of strategies to pull the student back
into the conversation. For example, after discussing the reading, the tutor
asked the student to think of a title for the essay. McAndrew and Reigstad call
this “creating a headline or bumper sticker.” They posit that creating a
headline will assist the writer in “identifying the subject” and “locating the...most
essential issue” (44). The student came up with the headline “Racism Still Exists.”
The tutor then suggested she read the title over multiple times and wait for
inspiration. Unfortunately, inspiration never came to this student in this
particular exercise.
The
tutor attempted to assign other exercises to the student, but those didn’t
produce any substantial thoughts either. When this happened, the tutor and the
student began to “just talk about it” (50). Like they did when she first sat
down, they talked about the essay and short stories. This time though, he
painstakingly went over every detail of each short story, while the student listened
and responded. After a few minutes, it seemed as if something clicked, because
for the first time in the session, the student began to furiously take notes.
Using this method, student was able to “fully think through” (50) the piece. It
gave her a newfound sense of confidence and understanding and she was able to
refine her thesis. After a forty-minute session, the student left with a smile
on her face, ready to rework the essay that was due three hours later.
Unlike
the tutor I observed in the third session, the tutor I observed during the
first session did not seem to have the same mastery of the suggestions and
exercises in Tutoring Writing. Though
he was clearly knowledgeable of the subject matter, this tutor didn’t seem to have
the same interest or persistence in helping the student. However, I understand
that everyone has an “off” day. This was an especially difficult situation.
The
session began quite awkwardly. The student came in with a paper that and
explained she needed help with an assignment for her art class. However, there
seemed to be a language barrier, as the student was of Asian descent and had
quite a heavy accent. The tutor and the student couldn’t communicate
sufficiently through oral speech, and it severely affected the outcome of the
session.
The
tutor in this session focused heavily on LOCs. He didn’t speak much about her
thesis, other than to say that it was well developed and concise. I believe he
was initially attempting to use what McAndrews and Reigstad call the “Talk Aloud”
method (44), he read her paper silently and then tried to ask her questions and
provide feedback about it. Instead, he got frustrated that she wasn’t able to
answer the questions posed to her. This led him to focus more on LOCs, as he
was able to understand what was written on the page more than her spoken
language. He was able to be more helpful with grammar and sentence structure
than he was with the rest of her paper. When the session ended, it seemed as if
the student was discouraged.
Whereas spoken
language is fluid and spontaneous, “writing is often more pondered.” Both allow
the student to “revis[e]…inner speech” (Moffett 27), but only writing allows
the student to sit with her thoughts and expand upon them naturally. Since the
tutor understood her writing and could identify where she needed help, he could
have instructed the student to practice “focused free-writing.” The tutor would
have told the student to “focus on a part of the draft that needs development,
writing anything [s]he can remember…not worrying about spelling or
punctuation.” (McAndrews and Reigstad 46). Here, she could have explored her ideas
about the subject, without primarily using oral speech to communicate.
Additionally, using this method, she wouldn’t have needed to worry about
grammatical errors. Instead, she would have explored her thesis and ideas
naturally, without added pressure and criticism. This would have allowed the
tutor to be more helpful and the writing center to be more useful to the
student, perhaps even providing encouragement for further tutoring and
instruction.
I
would like to end this letter by thanking you for giving our class the
opportunity to attend the Writing Center and observe the tutors. It has been
such a valuable experience. Like the third session, sessions two and four both
provided the student with understanding, help and direction using many
strategies found in Active Voice and Tutoring Writing. I would like to
suggest, however, that it may be helpful to provide students with tutors that
are able to understand the writer’s native language. Though the particular
student in the first session was part of a small subset of non-native English speakers,
she still represents a part of the LaGuardia student community. I think that having
more translators or ESL tutors of varying languages would be beneficial to many
LaGuardia students who are in need of tutoring. While it may be hard to
accommodate everyone in a school with such vast language and racial diversity,
I do think it is possible to provide better training to your tutors on this
particular issue. Thank you so much for reading this letter. I hope you found
it informative and helpful.
Sincerely,
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