One of the pieces of this section of our book that I believe will help me as I move into my first semester as a fellow is the idea of teaching in episodes. One of the pieces of the writing process that was lost on me in high school and the beginning of my college career was the importance of editing. I saw feedback, and the need for revision of every single piece (as I would later learn is the nature of writing), as a sign that I was doing something wrong. As I have grown as a writer, and learned that it is the thing that I want to spend my life doing, I have realized that the editing process needs to be long and drawn out, and is not something that can be rushed. Having a draft is one thing, but a finished piece needs to be looked at and tweaked over and over again to be its best self. Breaking the writing process into pieces the way that this book does, and giving editing and revision its own “episode” would have worked really well for my brain when first getting into writing, so I’ll pass it along.
Another piece from this part of the text that I found particularly interesting is the idea of owning your own writing. I had some teachers, especially in middle and high school, who would edit my work to the point where it was no longer mine. A student cannot be proud of something that isn’t theirs, and that they don’t feel like they own. To combat making a student feel that they are out of control of their own assignment, it is important to walk the line between providing good feedback and doing the assignment for a student. I may have trouble with this at first, as I tend to be someone who will give in if a student presses for extra help that may be beyond regular help. This will be something that I will have to pay attention to as I move through the semester.
A smaller but important part of Chapter 3 that I think will be helpful, and reflects on my conversations with my faculty mentor, is the idea of asking a student if they have seen a fellow before. Students may be fully unfamiliar with the program, so being able to explain my role to the class is important so that I may be utilized as a resource by them, and get the most out of my experience in the fellowship.
Gillespie and Lerner outline strategies for each step of the writing process and beyond. I particularly like how they emphasized the difference between the monotony of being an editor and instead creating a social interaction between the writer and the tutor. It is clear that a discovery process can be more beneficial for growing writers. Asking questions is a large part of tutoring in these chapters and is something I need to consider going into my future sessions with students. I am still uncertain what challenges will arise in the sessions and how I can help, especially when offering strategies based on their needs. A strategy (somewhat loosely mentioned in the text) that I find worthwhile is printing out the draft (since nearly all assignments are now digital) to revise from there should someone struggle with cutting down or recognizing errors. This strategy also helps when one becomes too acquainted with their piece, where it becomes difficult to identify issues. This method has been practical, but I recognize that I should refrain from pushing what has worked for me onto the writers, as it will not be productive for everyone. Another strategy I would add is utilizing an organizer during the planning process to aid in sorting one’s ideas. Whether it is a TRIAC or Barclay paragraph, they can be beneficial when keeping focus and sorting ideas or research, especially when incorporating quotations. Students can also use these paragraph organizers after they create their draft. They help writers identify and confirm that they are meeting the assignment requirements. It can aid students to remain specific while still incorporating themselves and their ideas.
These two chapters also emphasized the importance of making the writer comfortable sharing their work. I want to take these aspects into future tutoring sessions because I know how difficult it can be to embrace your writing while sharing it with a stranger. In my experience with Mya as a fellow last year, I remember her starting a conversation before delving into my work, which helped me adjust to the meeting format. Creating a space where discussion can happen freely and openly is a goal I aspire to achieve. These chapters gave examples of opening conversations and asking clarifying questions to make the writer feel more confident, providing a better environment to discuss writing. Allowing the writer to relay their thoughts to you in a paraphrased way is also a strategy I will likely use to see what they understand about their writing and how we can work together for the remainder of the meeting.
Journal Entry #1:
Chapters two and three of The Longman Guide to Peer Tutoring walked us through a lot of good strategies for working as a tutor. In addition to talking to tutees about clustering and freewriting, I also really like the idea map as a tool to help organize our thoughts and create a main point or thesis for our essay. To create an idea map we take a main topic or question and write it down in the center of the page; branching from that main topic, we draw lines to connect ideas or questions- for example, “what do I like about this topic?” Then we connect further opinions to these smaller points. Through this web of information we can create a map of our thoughts on a topic which can really help us visualize clearly what it is we want to say with our essay. I particularly like this method for comparing and contrasting things, where perhaps the main center question is how two things correlate. I used this strategy when I got stuck coming up with the main point for an essay I was writing and it really helped me work through that process. I also like to freewrite many of my essays and papers which creates a lot of revision work afterwards, so one of my favorite strategies to help with the revision process is to write down all of my different points and sub topics out on note cards. Then I can lay out all the individual notecards in front of me and move them around so that I can visualize the best organization and flow for my essay before I begin my heavy revision. I also really appreciated the in depth explanation of the tutoring session that was outlined in our reading. What a good tutoring session should look like is something I have been a little concerned about, so really breaking it down and hearing strategies for the soft skills a tutor needs really stuck out to me. This got me excited thinking about how I could implement those strategies into my future tutoring sessions. In particular, I liked the idea of breaking the ice and putting the tutee at ease before diving into their essay. That was something I hadn’t thought about but I think will be very valuable. Using just the first one to two minutes to get to know your tutee and establish a rapport could really set a tone that will warm up a writer to get into the deeper questions.
I have always felt that writing is a strength of mine when it comes to academics- math and science perplex me and are subjects I have difficulty knowing how to approach, but writing is something that more naturally flows out of me. An integral part of academic writing is understanding that there are countless ways to approach writing a paper strategically, but every paper should aim to solve a different problem, or analyze something from a new perspective. Knowing how to strategize about your writing is a very important step, simply because it is the first step. Once a plan is laid out to achieve the goal of your writing, all that’s left to do is to follow suit. Once I have an outline for what I am going to write, my writing has direction and purpose. It knows exactly what it is intended to do from the beginning to the end of the piece. Going on to enlighten other students of these strategical methods could be very beneficial and important for the future of their academic writing.
Gillispie and Lerner make many important points in chapters two and three of The Longman Guide to Peer Tutoring that have implications for what my oncoming experience as a writing tutor could entail. First, they discuss the writing process. In this process which they describe as “recursive”- meaning that it is constantly being repeated- it has a cyclical nature in which the three key factors of purpose, intended audience and content are always to be considered in academic writing. These things are continually considered throughout each phase of writing- planning, drafting, revising and editing. The writer must constantly be analyzing their own writing to ensure that the purpose of the writing is clear, the target audience is being reached and the necessary supportive content is being fulfilled. This is something that I need to make a point of identifying when reading another student’s paper, and determining whether they are hitting the mark in terms of structure and achieving the goal of the piece. Another key aspect that Gillespie and Lerner made a point of mentioning was that the process of writing should be similar but unique among various types of writing. The student should know how to look at a new writing challenge and be able to adapt to what it is asking from them, and they should be able to use their different voices to put their own spin on the subject. Even if the professor is asking each student to answer the same question with their writing, the uniqueness of each student’s mind should shine through in their writing. In thinking about what I know about the writing process and what I need to convey about it to the students I am aiming to help, Gillespie and Lerner emphasize knowing how and when to use different writing strategies, as well as being able to be flexible and adjust to various assignments as the most important ideas to impress.
The writing process itself is important, but tutoring has its own set of challenges that I have never before experienced. I have been feeling insecure of the fact that- yes, I am confident in my own writing, however- I know I am no writing expert and I am unsure how skilled I will be at helping students when I am not coming from a place of expertise. However, Gillespie and Lerner emphasize the fact that I do not need to be an expert- I just need to cater to what sort of guidance the student needs most in that very moment to make improvements. If the students’ writing structure is decent but their writing is full of grammatical errors, then that’s what I need to most strongly address. I cannot expect myself to revolutionize the students’ writing, but I can do what I can do to correct and to guide.
4 thoughts on “JOURNAL # 1”
One of the pieces of this section of our book that I believe will help me as I move into my first semester as a fellow is the idea of teaching in episodes. One of the pieces of the writing process that was lost on me in high school and the beginning of my college career was the importance of editing. I saw feedback, and the need for revision of every single piece (as I would later learn is the nature of writing), as a sign that I was doing something wrong. As I have grown as a writer, and learned that it is the thing that I want to spend my life doing, I have realized that the editing process needs to be long and drawn out, and is not something that can be rushed. Having a draft is one thing, but a finished piece needs to be looked at and tweaked over and over again to be its best self. Breaking the writing process into pieces the way that this book does, and giving editing and revision its own “episode” would have worked really well for my brain when first getting into writing, so I’ll pass it along.
Another piece from this part of the text that I found particularly interesting is the idea of owning your own writing. I had some teachers, especially in middle and high school, who would edit my work to the point where it was no longer mine. A student cannot be proud of something that isn’t theirs, and that they don’t feel like they own. To combat making a student feel that they are out of control of their own assignment, it is important to walk the line between providing good feedback and doing the assignment for a student. I may have trouble with this at first, as I tend to be someone who will give in if a student presses for extra help that may be beyond regular help. This will be something that I will have to pay attention to as I move through the semester.
A smaller but important part of Chapter 3 that I think will be helpful, and reflects on my conversations with my faculty mentor, is the idea of asking a student if they have seen a fellow before. Students may be fully unfamiliar with the program, so being able to explain my role to the class is important so that I may be utilized as a resource by them, and get the most out of my experience in the fellowship.
Gillespie and Lerner outline strategies for each step of the writing process and beyond. I particularly like how they emphasized the difference between the monotony of being an editor and instead creating a social interaction between the writer and the tutor. It is clear that a discovery process can be more beneficial for growing writers. Asking questions is a large part of tutoring in these chapters and is something I need to consider going into my future sessions with students. I am still uncertain what challenges will arise in the sessions and how I can help, especially when offering strategies based on their needs. A strategy (somewhat loosely mentioned in the text) that I find worthwhile is printing out the draft (since nearly all assignments are now digital) to revise from there should someone struggle with cutting down or recognizing errors. This strategy also helps when one becomes too acquainted with their piece, where it becomes difficult to identify issues. This method has been practical, but I recognize that I should refrain from pushing what has worked for me onto the writers, as it will not be productive for everyone. Another strategy I would add is utilizing an organizer during the planning process to aid in sorting one’s ideas. Whether it is a TRIAC or Barclay paragraph, they can be beneficial when keeping focus and sorting ideas or research, especially when incorporating quotations. Students can also use these paragraph organizers after they create their draft. They help writers identify and confirm that they are meeting the assignment requirements. It can aid students to remain specific while still incorporating themselves and their ideas.
These two chapters also emphasized the importance of making the writer comfortable sharing their work. I want to take these aspects into future tutoring sessions because I know how difficult it can be to embrace your writing while sharing it with a stranger. In my experience with Mya as a fellow last year, I remember her starting a conversation before delving into my work, which helped me adjust to the meeting format. Creating a space where discussion can happen freely and openly is a goal I aspire to achieve. These chapters gave examples of opening conversations and asking clarifying questions to make the writer feel more confident, providing a better environment to discuss writing. Allowing the writer to relay their thoughts to you in a paraphrased way is also a strategy I will likely use to see what they understand about their writing and how we can work together for the remainder of the meeting.
Journal Entry #1:
Chapters two and three of The Longman Guide to Peer Tutoring walked us through a lot of good strategies for working as a tutor. In addition to talking to tutees about clustering and freewriting, I also really like the idea map as a tool to help organize our thoughts and create a main point or thesis for our essay. To create an idea map we take a main topic or question and write it down in the center of the page; branching from that main topic, we draw lines to connect ideas or questions- for example, “what do I like about this topic?” Then we connect further opinions to these smaller points. Through this web of information we can create a map of our thoughts on a topic which can really help us visualize clearly what it is we want to say with our essay. I particularly like this method for comparing and contrasting things, where perhaps the main center question is how two things correlate. I used this strategy when I got stuck coming up with the main point for an essay I was writing and it really helped me work through that process. I also like to freewrite many of my essays and papers which creates a lot of revision work afterwards, so one of my favorite strategies to help with the revision process is to write down all of my different points and sub topics out on note cards. Then I can lay out all the individual notecards in front of me and move them around so that I can visualize the best organization and flow for my essay before I begin my heavy revision. I also really appreciated the in depth explanation of the tutoring session that was outlined in our reading. What a good tutoring session should look like is something I have been a little concerned about, so really breaking it down and hearing strategies for the soft skills a tutor needs really stuck out to me. This got me excited thinking about how I could implement those strategies into my future tutoring sessions. In particular, I liked the idea of breaking the ice and putting the tutee at ease before diving into their essay. That was something I hadn’t thought about but I think will be very valuable. Using just the first one to two minutes to get to know your tutee and establish a rapport could really set a tone that will warm up a writer to get into the deeper questions.
I have always felt that writing is a strength of mine when it comes to academics- math and science perplex me and are subjects I have difficulty knowing how to approach, but writing is something that more naturally flows out of me. An integral part of academic writing is understanding that there are countless ways to approach writing a paper strategically, but every paper should aim to solve a different problem, or analyze something from a new perspective. Knowing how to strategize about your writing is a very important step, simply because it is the first step. Once a plan is laid out to achieve the goal of your writing, all that’s left to do is to follow suit. Once I have an outline for what I am going to write, my writing has direction and purpose. It knows exactly what it is intended to do from the beginning to the end of the piece. Going on to enlighten other students of these strategical methods could be very beneficial and important for the future of their academic writing.
Gillispie and Lerner make many important points in chapters two and three of The Longman Guide to Peer Tutoring that have implications for what my oncoming experience as a writing tutor could entail. First, they discuss the writing process. In this process which they describe as “recursive”- meaning that it is constantly being repeated- it has a cyclical nature in which the three key factors of purpose, intended audience and content are always to be considered in academic writing. These things are continually considered throughout each phase of writing- planning, drafting, revising and editing. The writer must constantly be analyzing their own writing to ensure that the purpose of the writing is clear, the target audience is being reached and the necessary supportive content is being fulfilled. This is something that I need to make a point of identifying when reading another student’s paper, and determining whether they are hitting the mark in terms of structure and achieving the goal of the piece. Another key aspect that Gillespie and Lerner made a point of mentioning was that the process of writing should be similar but unique among various types of writing. The student should know how to look at a new writing challenge and be able to adapt to what it is asking from them, and they should be able to use their different voices to put their own spin on the subject. Even if the professor is asking each student to answer the same question with their writing, the uniqueness of each student’s mind should shine through in their writing. In thinking about what I know about the writing process and what I need to convey about it to the students I am aiming to help, Gillespie and Lerner emphasize knowing how and when to use different writing strategies, as well as being able to be flexible and adjust to various assignments as the most important ideas to impress.
The writing process itself is important, but tutoring has its own set of challenges that I have never before experienced. I have been feeling insecure of the fact that- yes, I am confident in my own writing, however- I know I am no writing expert and I am unsure how skilled I will be at helping students when I am not coming from a place of expertise. However, Gillespie and Lerner emphasize the fact that I do not need to be an expert- I just need to cater to what sort of guidance the student needs most in that very moment to make improvements. If the students’ writing structure is decent but their writing is full of grammatical errors, then that’s what I need to most strongly address. I cannot expect myself to revolutionize the students’ writing, but I can do what I can do to correct and to guide.