Last Chapters

"Encouraging or Alarming" was valuable to me for a couple reasons: one, it helped me realize that what, to me, might be a good thing could, to others, be considered a negative. I'd never thought before that my excitement about the number of visitors to the WC growing every year might be considered a bad thing. That is just one more reason that it is imperative that the academy understands what we do at the writing center. As I finish up my admin project, I believe more and more that this will be an important step in the life of my little WC; misunderstandings about what we do are causing strange problems, and clearing up the misunderstandings hopefully will create very positive changes in the WC and WAC programs.

The other valuable aspect of this article was the several items Frey listed as the way WC purposes are connected to the purpose of a liberal arts institution. I plan on using these--maybe all of these--in the various aspects of my advertising campaign (my admin project) in one way or another. I think, though, that one of the hardest ideologies to help others understand is the way we perceive the writing process and how that affects what we do. They ("they" means those in the academy that are outside our field) are very likely uneducated about composition theory (why would they be?) and don't understand how writing is, in all circumstances, a collaborative and socially constructed process. They likely think of writing as a solitary event, one that people are either good at or aren't, and those that aren't come to the WC for help. They are very likely not going to understand that good writers are the ones that are already making good use of others in their writing process, whether they talk about their writing with others or are engaged in class discussions that feed their writing, or other possible ways that writing is socially constructed. They probably don't understand that it is those very writers trying to go it alone that are the ones struggling, and that everyone can benefit from the WC, not just the struggling writers. And they likely don't understand that we are not like Midas where you bring in something to get fixed; we're more like the gas station where you fill up, empty your trash, clean your windshield, and buy a cup of coffee as you travel to wherever you're going. I am working hard to find ways to convey this to others. Hmm. I just came up with the gas station metaphor: does it work? What do you think? I might use it...

The last article by Zawacki was a little less useful for my purposes, but I think we can take from it a good list of the characteristics that make a good WC tutor: "an acute awareness of the nuances of written, verbal, and visual texts; an attentiveness to differences in writers and writing practices; the ability to formulate good questions, to listen purposefully to the writer's responses, and to attune one's tutoring approach to all of the above" (261). Sure our tutors should be good writers. But just based on the two experiences I had at the WC at MSU, as a student being tutored, the tutor's ability to write had little or nothing to do with what we worked on. And, from what I observed, how well the tutor knows the discipline isn't all the important either. My second observation concerned a paper for a history course, and the tutor knew very little about the subject (the theoretical reasons for WWII), but this, in a way, became an advantage as he could pinpoint the places where the writer was not explaining things well enough because he, as an outside reader, could not understand the writer's point. The writer was making "insider" assumptions. So knowing the field isn't necessary, as long as the tutor is able to read, listen, and respond well.

Tutee and Observer

Today I completed my WC visitations as a tutee and an observer. I'll begin with the tutee session:

It was very surprising, to be honest. As I said below, I purposely chose someone I didn't know--a grad student from a different department--so I could compare how things went last time when my tutor was also my friend and part of my cohort. I intentionally took in the same documents (my three teaching philosophy statements) that I wanted to synthesize for the job market. Because I didn't know this young man, I thought we could get a lot done. But no, we didn't. First I read the three documents to him. Then he made a suggestion about my introduction, and jotted it down, then began an outline. We worked together (actually he did more of the talking/writing) to make an outline of where this document could go--and then we were done! It took maybe 20 minutes. I don't know if this was my fault because I didn't have as many questions as I did when I worked with J. before or if it was him not knowing where to go next, but we had quite a nice chat for the next half hour. Hmm...

The session I observed was significantly more interesting. Since last time I observed someone rather new, I thought this time I'd observe someone more seasoned. I'll call him N. and his tutee A. A. was an international student, but I never did quite pin down where he was from. He had an Asian/MidEastern coloring and black hair, but a very distinctive accent that was more German or Russian. Never did figure it out. Anyway, he had a 19-page paper on the reasons for WWII and needed two more pages and help with grammar.

I noticed several things: One, N. was very good at focusing on higher order concerns--mostly organization in this case--and on leading the student into finding answers on his own. The odd thing was, though, that he had the student read portions here and there of the paper but never the whole thing and never in order. This gave me a bit of concern about his ability to discuss organization, but I noticed that he asked A. how his paper was organized, they talked about it, and N. could make suggestions and had ideas without even actually reading the paper! We noticed most of the same things, too, like wordiness (as a result of trying to "invent the university", a real obvious stab at academic discourse gone wrong). And while this tutor did a significant amount of talking, most of it was him doing some "active reading" (sort of like "active listening with a twist) where he listened to A. read and then asked him, "Is this what you mean here?" and he would paraphrase. If he was right, they moved on. If he was off, the stayed there to clarify. it worked quit well, especially considering the length of the paper.