It has never been a struggle for me to write. I have never been a very loud or obnoxious person, letting whatever's in my head come out of my mouth without thinking it over. Well, not around people I don't know, anyway. I generally save all the thoughts I have until I can write them down. This gives me a chance to mull them over, to reform them into something kind of intellectual and occasionally pleasing. Maybe that's why writing has never been particularly difficult for me. I enjoy it. When it's not required, that is. It's because of this, I think, that I've always been puzzled by those people who hate writing with the fire of a thousand suns. Everyone has something to say. Everyone has a story to tell. So I've always wondered why people aren't excited to write. There's so much noise in the world, today. Couldn't people temper it by using a pen and paper instead of their cell phone?
Gah, whatever.
So this week, we looked at a couple of articles that contradicted each other. It was a writing center throw down, folks. There were broken bottles, and monkeys with knives, and a guy in a banana suit doing the Macarena. It was nuts. Actually, not really. That's kind of what I pictured when I thought about a few writing center afficionados going to battle.
I've often thought about my tutoring method. Teaching pedagogies are due eventually, and I've been trying to figure out what it is I do, exactly. I find that I'm somewhere in the middle of the two camps. There are some students where it's necessary to draw them out and hold their hand, in a sense, as they go through the writing process. A lot of ESL students are like this, at least the ones I've dealt with. After they come out of their shell a little bit, after they realize they can accomplish something on their own in English composition, I recede a little further into the background, letting them control the session more and more.
Obviously, with native English speakers, it's a little different, and I have to adjust accordingly. I'm definitely a lot more in the background, and the student is more in control of the session. But I more often than not find myself jumping in there and leading them through something difficult. It's all about adjustment, I guess, as all students are different and there isn't a one-size-fits-all method when it comes to this sort of stuff.
All that to say, I'm glad these articles weren't read at the beginning of the semester. Pushing them back forced me to develop my own strategy for tutoring writing. Not that they weren't beneficial; it's just that I feel I was able to spread my figurative wings a little more without knowing there was all this minimalist v. directive arguing going on.
Now I've just got to figure out what my pedagogy is. What should I call this bastard child of minimalism and directivism?
Hm.
I think I'll call him Barry.
In other news, I'm having a bit of a trial getting a jump start on my article analysis. My writing process begins with me thinking up a super catchy title. Only then can I begin. Any ideas? Just anything catchy will work, really, and I'll mold it to the particular article I've chosen.
Also, yay Iceland:
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