Again, the title has nothing to do with anything. I just thought it was clever, which I thought was important, as I'm always looking for cleverer journal titles.
First week of being on the schedule! How exciting. I have this fear that, as the weeks continue and I quit numbering the days I've actually been consulting, I'll become completely jaded, and end up hating my job. Did you ever have that feeling that something that's fun to do will eventually end up completely sucking? At the moment, I don't think working in the Center could ever suck. However, I used to think that about my siblings. When my parents brought my little sister home from the hospital, I was elated. After a few weeks of the incessant crying, pooping and spitting up, she lost all her charm for me. After the novelty wears off, and the pooping, crying and spitting up starts, will I still be excited to come to work every day?
Anywho.
This past week, I was able to compare how both I and different students acted within a consultation.
My very first official consultation was with a sophomore who just needed her paper "polished up." She had thrown her paper together the night before and wanted another person's opinion on, you guessed it, flow. The session went very smoothly. We were able to get through all of it, and she was grateful for the help. We were able to start a dialogue about different sentence structures, and how punctuation adds effect (no, I'm serious--we actually talked about Martha Kolln before I'd even read this week's chapter...spooky). Eventually, she was going through the paper correcting herself. At one point, I turned to her and said, "Heck, I don't even know why I'm here--you're doing all the work." I think she really came away with something. That was satisfying.
The next official consultation I had was with an ESL student. In this session, I found that I was doing most of the talking, and I tried to reign myself in a couple of times, but it was difficult: there were so many things wrong with the paper that I couldn't set a clear agenda. As I mentioned in a previous entry, I lived in Romania for a little while, and did a lot of writing-based work with non-native English speakers. In those situations, I didn't have "collaboration" in mind. I had proofreading in mind. I had correct-every-single-grammatical-error-in-this-paper in mind. I hardly ever looked at organization, and I certainly never brainstormed. So coming from this kind of "tutoring" background definitely came into play in this consultation. I went through the paper, sentence by sentence, correcting errors while only briefly explaining their significance. The student nodded and smiled, but I don't think she really got it. In the end, the student was quite satisfied and requested further sessions with me, but I have a sneaking suspicion that she only wanted to work with me again because I basically acted as a grammar check.
It probably wasn't as bad as I think it was, but still...I need to change my tactics for the next time we have a consultation. I spoke with RE afterwards, and she told me that she has the same problems with the ESL students she works with: grammar is their first priority. She said that this wasn't necessarily a problem, but that I have to keep in mind that we're here to help writers understand concepts so that they can apply them later to their writing. She suggested that the next time the student comes in, I focus on something else first, like organization, or whether or not the student has actually fulfilled the assignment requirements, and then get to grammar. This sounds like pretty sage advice to me, and I hope I can execute it in a tactful manner the next time I meet with her.
Anyway...all that to say, yay first week!
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Sara--
ReplyDeleteHere's my spiel about writing center work:
It's the best work there is--challenging, yet fruitful. Will every day be filled with rainbows and unicorns? Not likely. Some days the work is extra hard, or seems extra hard because the day was terrible to begin with. So, will the new-car smell wear off? It might. It really depends on the person. A few people have started working in the Center (through the 303 internship) and opted not to continue working here the next semester. I think that's great. It's not for everybody, and I would never claim that it should be. What I do claim, however, is that it is such a fantastic place that we do not want people working here who do not feel energized (generally) by the prospect of working with other writers.
So, will you still love the Center tomorrow (can you hear me singing the song?)? I hope so! As I've said in class, probably a thousand times, your attitude shapes how you feel about your sessions. So when disgruntled, required students come in, will you hate your job or will you approach it as an awesome opportunity? Well--that's up to you. I always opt for awesomeness. :)
I like the game plan you have set up for working with that ESL student again. Aren't our veterans a tremendous resource? (Here's my official shout out for RE--YAY, RE!) Let me know how it goes. The next few weeks in class will be imperative in helping all of us gather game plans for working with ELL students.
Enjoy your weekend!
Spitting, pooping, flow. The way you describe it, tutoring sounds like goopy work! :p
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the stuff for Eng 303 this week, especially the Tseng article, I don't think you should feel too bad about your experience with the ESL student, even if you don't think she always "got it" when you explained the grammar and punctuation corrections you made. Tseng suggests that helping ESL students with the sentence-level problems in their papers will make them better writers in the long run, even if it takes them a little time to "catch on." That seems to be what RE was suggesting to you, also. I myself was initially worried about tutoring ESL students, but such sessions have turned out to be the most satisfying and the most interesting, even when the basic focus has been grammar and punctuation. (Did you notice my expert use of a reflexive pronoun? See, I was paying attention in class last night.)
Have a good weekend. See you next week.
I had one similar ESL consultation where I felt like the student wanted me to be a living grammar checker too. She smiled and nodded when I provided explanations, but I was pretty sure that my words were falling on deaf ears. She was plenty smart enough to understand the concepts, but she wanted me to do everything for her. I seriously considered filling in missing articles and determiners with words like "crack baby," "puke stick," "fart," just to see if she would catch it before her teacher did, but I chose to only do so in my head.
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