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THEORY TO PRACTICE ESSAYS
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Building Confidence in the Writing Center A writing fellow is not an editor, but is a peer tutor to help writers build confidence. As tutors, we need to show students who come to see us, how easy it can be to write. The tutor does not fix the paper, “we teach writers how to fix texts” (Gillespie 22). One way of doing this is letting the student write on his paper and not doing that for him. This allows him to own the paper and understand what is being done wrong. In order to get a student to own his paper, the tutor must make an effort to see through the paper and look into the person behind the error. “I will deal with the person, not just the error on the page” (Holladay 4). If the tutor does not look past the page, the student will not learn anything. When the tutee does not learn, he is not adding to his level of confidence. A student learns more in the writing center than on his own. Casey Jones writes in Education Journal, “community college students who use the writing center, exhibited far higher levels of confidence” than those who did not use the writing center for their writing (Internet). It seems, by this statement, just entering the writing center would help a student be more confident, but until that student sees a writing fellow, he does not begin to gain confidence. With the help of the tutor, a student can gain confidence, but not until the tutor helps him. We should not just look at the paper, because the student is getting little to no help with his writing. Not until we work with the student does he gain confidence to go out on his own in writing. The writing fellow should find out the problems a student has in the paper, or what he is afraid of. Most students do not understand there is fear in writing. Sometimes this fear is called writer’s block. Most students do not know what to do when looking at a blank screen or piece of paper in front of them (Zinsser 245-46). A student has to just write and not be concerned with what the writing is about until the next draft. This will get the student into the writing process and allow him to succeed. The finished paper is the most difficult paper to write for students, because they think it has to be perfect. William Zinsser writes, in On Writing Well, the scariest thing about writing is “the fear of not being able to bring off their assignment” (246). Most writers go through many drafts before finding one up to their writing capability. The problem with writing a paper for a class comes from the urge to get it done. Student writers are plagued by deadlines and grades, which causes the paper to take longer to finish. Writers are “so busy thinking about their awesome responsibility to finish” that they can’t even start (Zinsser 20). When a writer is looking at a deadline, he gets writer’s block because of the urge to get the paper done. These are just a few of the things writers can be afraid of when writing a paper; but as tutors, we need to address these problems and try to give solutions to make the piece of writing better. There are many solutions to help a student become a better writer, but only a few of them would apply to tutors. There are a couple important ways in which tutors can help students gain confidence in their writing. It is easier to write about something the writer knows about. William Zinsser suggests one way to encourage confidence, which is to “write about subjects that interest you and that you care about” (246). If a student were an English major, a good subject to write about would be writing. This is just one example of writing about the subject that pertains to the student. The student could not only write about a subject he likes, but could also write about something that has been experienced. It has been long believed that a life event is easier to write about, because it has been experienced and all the facts are correct. The trick to writing well is living, which is showing what the writer has lived through in his writing (Zinsser 247). Most writers write about a life-changing event, including involvement in a war or a death of a family member. This allows the writer to explain his feelings and the events to the best of his knowledge, which are usually very true. A tutee should look at the writing and decide how much of it, with the help of the tutor, should be kept and the amount that can be disposed of. Another way of creating confidence in a student is letting him write, and then taking away the written part that does not sound personal (Zinsser 21). After writing the draft, the writer should cut out anything that does not sound like him—mainly, the technical, ornate, and impersonal. The majority of the writing should consist of the writer’s opinion. These are a few of the ideas tutors must look at when helping a student become more confident in his writing. A tutor should always find a way, during a session, to build the confidence of the writer in any way the tutor sees fit. This may consist of any of the processes already mentioned or one that has been efficient for the tutor in the past. Most students do not understand the writing process, but with the help of the tutor that can change. The writing process is difficult to understand and causes many students to give up on writing. Another event also could have frightened students from writing. This event is when a teacher may have told them they could not write well enough to earn a good grade. Many students begin to shy away from writing and believe they really are bad at writing. Writers must find a way to work through a paper and find a way to have the confidence to make the paper successful. Confidence is a very important part of writing for a student and that attribute can be the difference between a high grade and a low grade. Tutors must be able to boost this confidence to be an effective helper to students. Works Cited Gillespie, Paula and Neal Lerner. The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Peer Tutoring. New York: Pearson, 2004. Holladay, John, comp. Writing Center Handbook for Writing Consultants and Tutors. Dillon, Timothy J., rev. Monroe, Mi: Jones, Casey. “The Relationship Between Writing Centers and Improvement in Writing Ability: An Assessment of the Zinsser, William. On Writing Well. New York: Harper, 2001.
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Learning from the Writing Center? Crystal Michel
There are many benefits for a tutee that come from a tutoring session. Some of the benefits include new information learned from sessions that tutees can later apply to their writing. For example, a tutee came to me a few weeks ago for a session wondering how to narrow her topic. After working with her on a few different techniques, we ended the session with both of us satisfied with what we had accomplished. About a week or so later the tutee came back in to the Writing Center for a different class and mentioned that she had used those techniques learned in our previous session multiple times since—success! Not only were the techniques we went over helpful for the first paper the tutee worked on, but she was later able to successfully apply those same techniques on her own for another paper. Another benefit for tutees is a greater confidence about their writing. This is gained when tutees are reassured about their writing after having someone look it over with them before having to turn it in to a professor. According to an article called “Peer and Cross-Age Tutoring” by Joan Gaustad,“Decades of research have established that well-planned peer tutoring programs can improve student achievement and self-esteem as well as overall school climate” (Gaustad). So not only are tutors and tutee’s benefiting from a session but the overall school climate is benefiting as well. Tutees are not the only one to benefit from a tutoring session. There are also many benefits gained from a tutoring session by the tutor. One of those benefits would be the opportunity to improve their own writing. “Students who reported doing more planning, revising, and editing wrote better papers than those who did not” (Holladay 7). This is because as the popular expression goes, “Practice makes perfect.” By teaching someone else about writing, tutors are given numerous opportunities to practice various writing strategies. Another benefit for tutors is an increase in confidence in their own writing. Because tutors are constantly practicing their writing skills, they learn the best ways to use them, which makes them feel more confident about what they write. Because of the importance of always being on time and being prepared for a tutoring session, writing fellows also learn a great deal about responsibility as well as organizational skills. As a Monroe County Community College writing fellow, I have learned the importance of remembering the goal of all tutors. A tutor’s goal in the Monroe County Community College Writing Center is that the tutee will come out of the session having learned something. Tutors also aim to teach the tutee ways to apply what they have learned to their own writing. According to the handbook used at MCCC for training new writing fellows,“Our goal is to help all students at MCCC become better writers by providing an opportunity for close and regular contact with a supportive, yet critical audience” (Dillon, par 1). This is no small task; however, most writing fellows tend to welcome each challenge they face determined to make the most of each session. Although tutors and tutees do not always agree on what has been learned during a session, the one thing they both tend to agree on is that the tutee came out of the session having learned something new. To gain a better understanding of the tutee’s perspective of what is learned in a tutoring session in the Writing Center, I set up surveys for both tutees and tutors to use at the end of a tutoring session. The tutors were asked to take their surveys separately from the tutees. Each of these surveys posed the question of how beneficial the session was or should have been (from the tutor’s perspective) for the tutee. Out of all surveys completed for this project, no one said he had learned nothing from the session. Some did say they were merely reminded of what they already knew because they knew almost everything. Nevertheless, the majority of the tutees surveyed found their sessions to be beneficial. In fact, tutees that were asked how beneficial the session was on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the most beneficial, rated the session on average at about an 8 (Michel). Whether or not a session is required, peer tutoring is considered beneficial to both the tutor and the tutee. Although students who are required to attend a session with a writing fellow appear to have less of a correlation to what the tutor feels they should have learned, the one thing they both agree on is that the tutee learned something from the session. On average, tutees required to see a writing fellow by a professor averaged about an 8, the same average as those who were not required to see a writing fellow. Although the sessions required by a professor may affect the tutee’s attitude, it does not have much affect on the tutoring session benefits. Although everything all tutors and tutees think they learn from sessions is not the same, out of all those surveyed they all agreed on at least some common experience with their tutors—that they learned throughout their tutoring sessions. In fact, about 90% of tutor and tutee’s questionnaires listed at least one common learning experience (Michel). Though the most important thing that each thought was learned from the session did not always match up, the tutee and tutor almost always seemed to find some common ground. Any tutor would be more than happy with some point of common ground because as the Writing Center Handbook for Writing Consultants and Tutors says, “We are willing to accept small successes…” (par. 7). No matter what the tutor and tutee thinks was learned during a session, there is one agreement, peer tutoring is beneficial as long as both tutor and tutee agree that something new has been learned. So as the end of my first semester draws to a close, I find myself with no more unanswered questions. Instead I am looking ahead to my next glorious opportunity to assist a writer in need. After all, I still have so much left to learn. Works Cited Dillon, Timothy J., and Holladay John. Writing Center Handbook for Writing Consultants and Tutors. Monroe: 1995. Gaustad, Joan. “Peer and Cross-Age Tutoring.” Eric Digest 79 (1993). 16 Nov. 2004. <www.ed.gov>. Holladay, John. A Report on Research into Writing-Across-the Curriculum-Projects. Monroe County Community College. Michel, Crystal G. “Field Research.” Fall 2004.
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Friendly vs. Professional Attitudes in Tutoring Marla Peltier
To determine which type of attitude is better when working with other students, I had to do some experimenting. Over the course of a few weeks, I would work in the MCCC Writing Center with three different attitudes in order to see which worked best. With one third of the students, I would be overly friendly and as unprofessional as possible, making sure to do things such as joking around, changing the conversation to socializing instead of writing, and wearing the informal attire of jeans and a tee-shirt. For another third of the students, I would be overly professional and as unfriendly as possible making sure not to smile, keeping the conversation on only writing, and wearing more formal attire. When working with the remaining third, I would try to keep my attitude as balanced as I could, halfway between friendly and professional. After the conferences, students were also asked to fill out a questionnaire about their sessions and how successful they thought they were. When working with my peers in the Writing Center, the friendly attitude went over very well. For this attitude I smiled, told jokes, focused more on socializing than writing, and wore jeans and a tee shirt. I had thought I would not be taken as seriously as with a professional attitude, but I was wrong. The tutees felt comfortable about discussing their writing in such a relaxed atmosphere. Since I was so positive, the students seemed to feel better about their writing and receptive to the suggestions they were given to improve their papers. As the students left, I could tell each student had really improved and felt better about writing. Of the three attitudes, this one was received the best and liked the most. Comments from questionnaires the tutees filled out showed that a friendly attitude makes a large difference in tutoring. For example, one student wrote, “My tutor’s friendly attitude helped me feel more relaxed and less insecure about my writing.” Another student wrote, “She was very friendly, which helped me to learn easier.” One student even wrote that I was the nicest tutor she ever had. I did not receive any negative comments while working on this part of my experiment. The questionnaires also demonstrated that the tutees still felt I was very knowledgeable about writing despite my less serious approach. A professional attitude was not received as well in the Writing Center as a friendly attitude. For this attitude I did not smile, I talked only about writing, and wore professional attire. Instead of being looked upon as a peer, the students seemed to feel I was more of an expert. While I was looked upon as knowledgeable, perhaps I was looked upon as too knowledgeable. It was almost as though these students thought I would do all of their work for them; like they thought I had all of the answers. Most of the students seemed more nervous than when the atmosphere was friendly. Of the three attitudes, this one was received the worst and liked the least. One student wrote on their questionnaire, “If my tutor was more friendly, and a little less businesslike, I would have felt more comfortable.” Another student wrote that I seemed very knowledgeable, but “would be able to share that knowledge better if (I) were less uptight.” For the last phase of my experimenting, I acted as usual when working in the Writing Center; I balanced professionalism and friendliness. At the beginning of each conference I made an attempt at some small talk, but only to get acquainted. After a few minutes, the joking ceased and we talked on nothing but the student’s writing. I was still friendly in the ways I helped these students, but less formal and more relaxed. While I was probably a little more friendly than professional, I felt a good balance was achieved. The students took me seriously, they felt comfortable sharing their writing and ideas, and they walked away knowing more than when they first walked in. Overall, this attitude was very well received. On one student’s questionnaire he wrote, “Her attitude made our session enjoyable and productive all at the same time.” Another student said “She had a very good attitude and I will not be so nervous about coming to the Writing Center in the future, now that I see people who work there are so nice.” I did not receive any negative feedback during this phase of my experimenting, but I still felt the students responded more positively while I took on the friendly personality. To my surprise, the friendly attitude in my Writing Center work was more successful than the professional attitude. After my experiment, I came to a few conclusions. I think that when students come to the Writing Center, they are expecting someone to talk to about writing who is friendly and just like them. The students were more comfortable after a few jokes and better able to have an informal discussion of their writing; they also felt as though I was still very knowledgeable. With a more professional attitude, the students felt more as though they were sitting with a mini-instructor than with a peer. With this attitude, they were also less likely to work with me on their writing because they felt I already had all of the best answers. With an attitude balanced between the two extremes, the outcomes were positive, but not quite as positive as with the friendly attitude. In my research, I spent weeks in The Writing Center testing if a friendly attitude, a professional attitude, or a balance between the two is better. I found that a friendly attitude was better than a professional attitude. The students were more relaxed, more likely to work with me on their writing, felt I was very knowledgeable, and looked at me as a peer. With the professional attitude, the students felt less relaxed, thought I had all of the answers, and looked at me as though I was more of a mini instructor. While an attitude balanced between the two extremes was received well, the friendly attitude did receive slightly better feedback. Maybe in a different Writing Center the results would have been different, but in the Monroe County Community College Writing Center, students are looking for a friendly tutor to discuss writing with in an informal way. Work Cited Peltier, Marla. “Questionnaire.” Fall 2004
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Research Writing vs. Creative Writing: Adjusting Styles and Strategies Sarah Raymond
I easily compiled my list of research strategies. I decided to incorporate three that I felt were most important into my sessions. I would work with students on outlining for organization or as a foundation for the paper, identifying the thesis and its supports, and providing examples and evidence from source material. From there, I moved on to my list of creative writing strategies. I was still unsure of what exactly I could work on with these papers, so I consulted Toby Fulwiler’s The Working Writer. Fulwiler states that creative writing tends to focus more on themes. It focuses on the way “language looks and sounds, its form, shape, rhythm, images and texture” (36). Reading this helped me to identify the four strategies I would use for creative writing conferences. These strategies were to work on identifying and supporting the theme, look for word choice and sentence patterns that developed an appropriate voice and tone, analyze the cause and effect relationships looking for a logical progression of events, and work on who, what, when, where, why, and how for clarification as well as expansion and elaboration. I began using these methods in my conferences immediately. After each conference, I would write a short journal entry, including the type of paper the student was writing, what we worked on, and any major adjustments I’d made to my tutoring style. I expected to find that there were specific tutoring styles and strategies that would work in a research or creative writing session. I tested this idea for the first time in a session with a student taking English Composition I. She was working on an argument paper that required research. After she read the paper, I asked her to point to her thesis. She was unfamiliar with the term, so I asked her to identify the main idea of her paper. What she told me sounded well thought out. It demonstrated that she understood her topic. However, her paper was not reflecting that. I explained what a thesis statement was, and from there, we worked on building one based on what she had told me. Next, we moved on to finding topic sentences and their supports. During this conference, I felt that my tutoring style was more controlling. I was doing more talking than usual because the student was unfamiliar with some of the ideas we spoke about. Otherwise, it seemed to be a routine session. Later that same day, I met with a second student. He was working on a three-page short story. He explained that this was his second draft of the story, and, after reading it aloud, he asked if it all made sense. His major concern was that the reader understood what was happening to the characters. This seemed like an appropriate time to work on cause and effect relationships. I had the student summarize the major actions in the story, and draw their sequence on a piece of notebook paper using arrows. When he did this, he found that some of the actions were unnecessary and could be eliminated. After we dealt with that, we talked about the theme of his paper and how he could support it. He decided that he would like to provide more examples in his story that would further emphasize his theme. This session supported my idea that specific strategies can be used to deal with creative writing, but it struck me as very different from the previous session when it came to my tutoring style. It seemed that in this session, the student was more willing to take ownership of his writing. The student was doing most of the talking. He was willing to share his ideas. Because of this, I was able to be less directive with my tutoring style. In my next few conferences, it seemed like the results were all turning out the same. These conferences were all for research papers. With all of these papers I worked with the students on developing a thesis, and with a few I worked on outlining. I continued to note that my tutoring style seemed more directive. But, then, something surprising happened. The student that I worked with on the creative writing assignment had returned to the Writing Center with a research paper. His paper was about the entertainment industry influencing violence in America. This was his first draft. He had a good start, but his thesis was vague and only partially connected to his topic sentences. We talked about thesis statements and he mentioned that he did not understand how they functioned in a research paper. I explained that a thesis statement is the main idea of the paper and that all of the paragraphs connect to it with topic sentences. He nodded his head. He seemed to understand what I was saying. Then, he surprised me by asking “Isn’t that like what we worked on last time? The theme?” I was shocked that he had remembered, and that he had connected a strategy we had used for creative writing to his research paper. This student helped me realize something I had disregarded since the beginning of my research—that it was possible that some of my strategies could be used conversely. After discovering this information, I decided I would use it in one of my last writing conferences. This conference was with a philosophy student. She was writing a paper that compared and contrasted her personal beliefs with those of the great philosophers. She was required to research these philosopher’s beliefs and cite them in her paper. The student thought that her arguments were not clear and that the reader would be confused by them; after she read a paragraph aloud, she was sure of it. I looked at my list of strategies and chose cause and effect relationships from the creative writing category. This would be a good opportunity to test if it was relevant to both forms of writing. This time I had the student focus on one of her major arguments. I had her break each point down into two to three words. I had her also draw the progression of these ideas on a sheet of paper. While looking at only two of these ideas at a time, she realized that there was a gap in one of her major arguments. This method seemed to help her, even though she was writing a research paper. When I began my research, I expected to find that there would be strategies that worked exclusively for research or creative writing. Then I realized that these were all just general methods that could be used in most conferences. The ideas of theme and thesis can be interchanged, and evidence in a research paper is just a collection of details that describe a main idea. Cause and effect relationships are present in all forms of writing, and words can be used creatively no matter what type of writing. A flexible tutor has the ability to tailor these methods to fit the situation. Depending on how students think, this can help them to better understand what they are writing. Another thing I expected to find in my research was a specific tutoring style for each type of writing. Instead, I found that the types of writing and the types of strategies used have an effect on that style. A less directive style lends itself more easily to creative writing and creative writing strategies. Overall, my realization was that a tutor cannot be afraid to use different strategies to help a student in his or her writing. Flexibility is the key to being a writing tutor. That flexibility can, in turn, “help writers develop control of and flexibility with their writing processes” (Gillespie 20). Works Cited Fulwiler, Toby. The Working Writer. Upper Saddle River: Prentice, 2004. Gillespie, Paula and Neal Lerner. The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Peer Tutoring. New York: Longman, 2004.
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Theory to Practice: Getting the Thought Process Going Sarah Thompson A carpenter comes to the site where he is to build a house. He has all the supplies he needs, but does not know where to start. What does he do? Writing is similar to building a house. You may have all the resources you need, but if your resources are in a big heap on the ground and not organized, nothing can be accomplished. It will take too much time. If your ideas are organized into smaller piles, you can take from each to make the finished product. As the carpenter may develop variations of house plans to show a client, you, as the writer, get to be the carpenter and the client. You develop the possible designs and choose the direction of your paper. The carpenter may draw sketches or research different styles of architecture. Once he has done all this, he can look at everything he has finished and narrow his options. In prewriting, you can do the same. There are a handful of methods you can use and some methods work better for some people than they do for others. Prewriting helps lay the foundation for the paper. It encourages the writer, who is sometimes frustrated and confused, and helps her to organize her thoughts. At the least, it will aid in getting her ideas down on paper. According to a survey I took of students coming into the MCCC Writing Center, brainstorming, clustering, and outlining were some of the more popular prewriting methods students used. Brainstorming is a way to get ideas floating around in your head onto paper. This is where no idea is a bad idea. This method may be one of the more sloppy methods. Sometimes brainstorming is also making a list (South). Basically, you list everything you can think of. Sometimes this leads to one messy piece of paper, with lists and ideas written every which way. Three of the students I surveyed said they use some sort of brainstorming to help start their papers. Brainstorming may even be prewriting for your prewriting. After all ideas out, the writer can start organizing them. Many students, including myself, brainstorm then cluster, outline, or use another prewriting method. Clustering is a way to list material found in a more visual, organized way, rather then scattered on a piece of notebook paper. Starting with a main idea or word in the middle, the writer can branch out, circling main topics and then more details. When it is finished, the cluster looks like a web with lines connecting each thought and idea. This method is also useful when searching for relationships between ideas. It can also aid the kinesthetic learner by allowing the student to create a more visual map of his thoughts. A kinesthetic learner is someone who learns through hands-on activities and motion as opposed to an auditory learner, who learns best through listening. He could even go a step further and put each thought on a note card or just cut them out of the paper and play around with them until they are arranged the way he wants them. Out of the students who mentioned clustering as one method he has tried, said it worked for him and two others said it did not help. Outlining is another way to organize what has been found. It may be the step that brings the writer closest to actually writing the paper. Here the writer can put thoughts, ideas, and any other information in the order he or she wants them to appear in the paper. Outlining can also help make sure all thoughts match topic sentences and all topic sentences match the thesis. If the writer can catch any mistakes before he or she begins writing, the better the paper will be when revising. According to the survey, most students have at least tried outlining and four specifically said it works for them. Here is an example of what an outline might look like: Title I. Main Point A. Supporting detail 1. Specific detail a. Specific detail b. Specific detail 2. Specific detail B. Supporting detail 1. Specific detail a. Specific detail b. Specific detail 2. Specific detail II. Main point…(South). One interesting encounter I had was with a student in my fellowed class. (As a Writing Fellow at MCCC, we each have a non-English class to tutor and help those students with papers from that class.) She was a non-traditional student and had not written a college paper in over twenty-five years. On our first visit, she was frustrated due to this time gap. It was apparent she had done her research, but she did not know where to begin writing the paper. We spent most of our one hour session talking about the different prewriting methods, ways to organize her research, and what order might be best. On our second visit, her paper was written and well organized. The methods that worked for her were clustering and outlining. Three major steps you can take when preparing to write a paper are “explore the problem”, “make your goals operational”, and “generate some ideas” (Purdue). When you explore, you want to look at your audience, your purpose, and what image you want to portray through your writing. Remember you are exploring the problem, not your topic. The research is done at a different time. To make your goals operational, or work, you want to look at how you can accomplish your purpose and if you can make a plan of attack. Prewriting comes into play in the generating step. This is where you can brainstorm, discuss your thoughts, or ask questions. Some examples of questions you could ask are who, what, when, where, why, and how. These are known as journalistic questions (Purdue). They are also part of a prewriting method called questioning. The goal of questioning is to find answers that are not just yes or no. Toby Fulwiler, who has written several books about writing, says when you prewrite, “in the long run, your writing will go better, be more directed, purposeful, and efficient” (17). Writing is like building a house. You cannot pick out the individual items needed from a giant heap of material. It takes too long. You need a plan. Each type of material could be considered a different method of prewriting. The lumber could be clustering, the windows brainstorming, and even the blueprint could be considered the outline. For some people, a combination of methods benefits them the most. Either way, their paper generally gains strength from prewriting. It allows students to organize their thoughts and research. Without prewriting, it is possible the student may go crazy trying to remember all the information while he, or she, is building the house. Without order, his house will end up with a door as a skylight. Works Cited Fulwiler, Toby. College Writing: A Personal Approach to Academic Writing. Portsmouth: Boynton, 2002. Purdue University Online Writing Lab. “Planning (Invention).” 15 Nov. 2004 <http://owl.english.purdue.edu/
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Prewriting is a very important part of the writing process (Savage 1). There are specific activities that can be done to facilitate prewriting, such as freewriting, looping, brainstorming, and cubing. When people begin the writing process, prewriting activities often conjure memories of forced journal writing in middle school and group brainstorming in high school. Unfortunately, perhaps due to traumatic grade school experiences, many students seem to shy away from prewriting. To hear some students describe prewriting, they believe it to be synonymous with “elementary” or “unskilled.” Fortunately, there is a far less structured activity many people take part in and are not even aware they are prewriting—discussion. Discussion lacks seemingly elementary aspects of diagrams and charts (no drawing!) and includes the sophistication of including another person in the topic at hand. Another Writing Fellow and I were asked to conduct a two-part process with the students from our fellowed class that involved a planning, organizing, and prewriting session and then a regular first draft session. I was extremely excited about the prospect of working with students in a two-part process; it was a chance to see what students did with the work we did together. About half of the class scheduled appointments for the next week, and though the first three students did not come to their appointments, the next five did come prepared to do something. Most students were not sure what we were supposed to be doing, but they came with their notes in hand nonetheless. The students were assigned to observe something in their everyday lives and compare it to a similar ritual or habit in another culture. To begin their first organizing, planning, and prewriting session, I wanted them to tell me about their topics. Not the assignment, but their personal observations. We then moved on to how their observations possibly related to another culture. I got the impression that their professor did not explain the assignment very well, both process and purpose, because the majority of students did not know how to relate their observations to another culture. We discussed various aspects of “culture,” such as familial relations, economic status, and gender divisions. All the students left with a list of possibilities and hopeful attitudes. I left looking forward to our next sessions. Their instructor gave us our schedules for the second round of appointments and I was enthusiastic to see how many students signed up to meet with me, many of them being from the first round of sessions. I was really looking forward to seeing what they did after our first meetings. Then the day came for most of the sessions and one student showed up. The one student I saw that day, Jason, had attended a prewriting session two weeks prior to our second session and had been enthusiastic about his topic. We actually ended up going about twenty minutes over the normal half-hour for his prewriting appointment. After going over his first draft, it was evident his first session was useful by how he incorporated what we had discussed into his draft. We then talked a little bit about some of the other student’s lack of attendance at their scheduled sessions. According to Jason, he was surprised people were not coming to their sessions because 1) it was required and 2) it was helpful. Two days later, the other student who came to her session also shed some light on what the other students were saying about their first tutoring sessions. According to Quinisha, who had not attended a prewriting session due to “scheduling conflicts,” many students felt the first session to be pointless thus rendering the second session a waste of time as well. Though she qualified she had heard this from students who had visited the other tutor assigned to their class, I imagine the students I saw had similar attitudes or they would have come back. I was incredibly disappointed at the minimal turnout for the second sessions. One issue that may have affected the students’ attendance is their professor, who shall remain nameless. He is a first-year, full-time instructor working totally from another professor’s syllabus and does not appear to have his bearings in Monroe County or at Monroe County Community College. From what students have said, he usually gives the impression of being nervous, insecure, and a bit of a pushover. I personally heard him change the first session from mandatory to optional upon a spontaneous onslaught of student complaints. He also grumbled off students’ comments about difficulty scheduling two sessions with “Well, this is a night class and it might be kinda tough for them…” and then trailed off to what might be construed as him reasoning away their second session to himself. The only thing he seemed sure about was his lack of enthusiasm toward the writing process. It is unfortunate students did not feel their second appointment would be worthwhile to attend. There are many potential reasons and excuses they did not come again; maybe there actually was a mass of scheduling conflicts, or the first session just did not live up to their expectations, or it is even possible that they just forgot. It would be interesting to do a cumulative survey of students who do not attend both fellowed class and regularly scheduled appointments. I discussed the attendance issue with Jack Woltmann, an experienced professor at MCCC, and he had this to offer, “Students often have the best intentions of showing up, but somehow something more important comes up. Kids, doing the shopping for the week, spouses—the reasons are endless and it doesn’t seem like anything is going to change anytime soon.” Based on my own experiences in the MCCC Writing Center, the comments of Professor Woltmann, and the abundant number of previous Theory-to-Practice papers about students not attending conferences, I can only conclude that it is best to get the most out of students while they are there and pray they show up again. Works Cited Quinisha, Simmons, Personal Inteview. 3 Dec. 2004. Savage, John. “The Writing Process: Helping Students Make Decisions.” EPS Update. Nov. 2002. <www.epsbooks.com>. Smelter, Justin. Personal Interview. 2 Dec. 2004. Woltmann, Jack, Personal Interview. 20 Dec. 2004.
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The Writing Center Handbook for Writing Consultants and Tutors at Monroe County Community College (MCCC) states, “our mission is to help each writer improve each piece of writing” (Holladay 1). This is the first idea we learn as Writing Fellows at MCCC and is important to the process we approach when tutoring students. As tutors we are responsible for seeing small advances and praising them, while not striving for one large advance in a tutee’s writing. The writing center should cater to the needs of all students who enter the room, including those students who are young and old. Our job as successful writing fellows is to help the writer gain confidence in his writing by letting him take ownership of the paper, finding what the student is afraid of, and then giving him ideas to build his confidence.
In academic writing, there have been many changes in the way that words are put onto paper. With these changes, the Writing Center has had to change as well to provide a consistent level of support to the people that we tutor. Technologies such as Internet access, remote communication, and computer assisted tutoring, along with online databases for reporting are being integrated into the Writing Center structure in an increasing rate. We, as Writing Fellows, need to evaluate the available technology and examine the effect that each change will have on the tutee to ensure that the methods we choose to use are the best. Keep in mind, one method of instruction may work for one student, but may be of little benefit to another. A student who is a slow typist may be less likely to make use of the email tutoring, or a student with no computer experience may find that the Internet is too difficult a concept to be comfortable with. As with all of the tutoring methods that we use in the Writing Center, each student that we tutor is an individual and there are times we need to be sure that we are matching the process with the student. Technology is no exception.
You have just sat down to eat at your favorite restaurant. You hear your stomach growl as the waiter brings out your food. The first course includes a bowl of hot soup along side a rich salad. Potatoes, broccoli, and steak make up the main course. Finally, the waiter brings dessert—a slice of warm apple pie and a scoop of ice cream. You smile with satisfaction as you finish your meal.
Students attending Monroe County Community College may have to juggle classes, work, responsibilities at home, a significant other, and a wide array of other stressful situations. It is normal college students to feel varying degrees of anxiety this lifestyle produces. However, left unaddressed these anxieties may impede a student’s ability to function at his or her best. Many student’s seeking assistance from the MCCC Writing Center already have writing insecurities that have been reinforced throughout their life. According to On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction the “fear of writing gets planted in most Americans at an early age, usually at school” (Zinssner 245). Rather than foster better writing habits, our educational system has shattered the writing potential of students. Thus, what writing fellows at the MCCC Writing Center encounter on a daily basis is a product of stress, anxiety, and insecurities; they encounter writers who lack confidence. Consequently, it is important that writing fellows make a conscious effort to build writer confidence by putting students at ease, clarifying the terms of the assignment, and encouraging students’ ideas. The writing fellow’s job in the Writing Center is to not only provide students with the tools that will help them succeed in writing, but also to give students the confidence they need to let their voices be heard. 
Tutoring compares to a conducting a symphony with individual members. The tutor conducts the practice sessions to make sure the band member knows how to play his part. Each member of the symphony is an integral part of the whole. Without one needed aspect, a trumpeter might not know how to make the note. The tutor/conductor hones in on the need and makes the required adjustment for the good of the whole. The tutor should know what type of learner he or she is, understand the three learning types, be able to recognize the traits of different types, and be prepared to help tutees by accommodating their learning styles. Tutoring involves an understanding of how the tutor and the tutee learn. Carl Jung, in 1927, first introduced the theory of differences in the way people perceived, made decisions, and how active or reflective they were while interacting” (“Integrating” 22). Since then, tools have been developed to help these three different style learners achieve academically. The three styles, auditory, visual, and kinesthetic are distinct types with different needs. There are other theories on how we learn, but all students should understand how they learn best.
Rebecca Kennedy
There is no greater reward than the reward tutors feel upon sharing their knowledge. Tutors in the Monroe County Community College Writing Center are privileged to be able to share their knowledge of writing with their fellow students. This was my first semester as a writing fellow and throughout the semester I have had a number of questions that I have been pondering. One question I had is other than the opportunity to share their knowledge with one another, what are tutors and tutee’s each gaining from a session? I have also wondered, do both tutors and tutee’s agree on what was the most important information learned from the session? The final question I have wondered about was concerning whether or not the tutees are more likely to agree with the tutor’s thoughts on what the most important thing learned from the session was if the session was not required? Despite the answers to these questions, the most important thing I learned through this research is that peer tutoring is beneficial as long as both tutor and tutee agree that something new has been learned, even if they don’t agree on what was learned.
While working in The Writing Center, I have often wondered how much my attitude has an impact on the other students with whom I work. I have also wondered which kind of attitude is received better, a more friendly or a more professional oneand what other differences there would be. Would students get more out of a session where I was more businesslike or more sociable? Which attitude would be liked better? I had predicted a professional attitude would be better and that with a friendly attitude what I said would not be taken as seriously. In my research, I spent weeks in the MCCC Writing Center testing if a friendly attitude, a professional attitude, or a balance between the two might be better. 
Students commonly come to the MCCC Writing Center for help with research papers or other research based writing. As Writing Fellows, we see many students working on papers like this. It is possible that over the course of a semester, a Writing Fellow may work with as few as five to six students who are dealing with non-research based writing. In my first few weeks of work in the Writing Center, I saw students working mainly on essays involving minimal research. However, one day I was scheduled to meet with a student who was working on a short story for an English class. At first, I was unsure of how to conduct this conference. I had many questions: What strategies could I use to help this student? Could I handle this conference the same as any other? And most of all, how would I know what to look for in his paper when I had been focusing so strongly on research? From this experience, I began to think about how I could approach conferences like this in the future. I realized that what I needed to develop as a tutor was flexibility. In The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Peer Tutoring, Paula Gillespie and Neal Learner state that flexibility is “central to writing and to tutoring,” and the control of it “includes not simply knowing what strategies might be available but knowing how to use a strategy” (19). Flexibility became the focus of my research in the Writing Center for the following weeks. I developed a list of strategies that could be used in research based writing; or using the term loosely, creative writing. I decided to use these strategies as a basis for my tutoring sessions while documenting how I adjusted my tutoring style. 
You are sitting in front of your computer, staring at the screen. You have a huge paper due in a couple of days. The research has been done, but you are drawing a blank. What do you do now? 
Sarah Woltmann