This chapter outlined a few specific things that stuck with me. I still have that fear of writing across disciplines, since I am currently in an ENG110 class, and my major is English Education. Due to this I have yet to encounter writing that branches out into other fields. I liked how one of the sources said that their tutors were training to be facilitators. While not having the content knowledge can be scary, tutors are facilitators nonetheless. I recognize that working outside my discipline may be beneficial for me to become a better writing tutor, but still, I have anxieties surrounding that idea.
This chapter also outlined how working with students online may change the look of the tutor’s job. When they outlined the personalized summary response, I did not realize that this was a strategy I was already employing. Down to the finer details of the formula (name, positives, three areas of concerns or suggestions) in a summary comment on the writing was exactly what I have been doing. I wonder if I picked this up subconsciously from Mya, who was my writing fellow last year and did the same. Either way, it was nice to hear that this strategy backed up. With these online comments I also see how an issue may arise with not seeing the writer’s reactions to your feedback. In most of my meetings the students had not read my feedback prior, so I do get to see their reactions sometimes. Regardless, I like to go over my comments to ensure they make sense to the writer. Overall, this chapter was helpful in partially quelling my concerns about writing across disciplines, and affirming my strategy for feedback.
This chapter came at a perfect time for me, as recently, I attended one of my class’ research days, and walked around the room to see if I could help with anything. This was particularly intimidating, as I am placed in an anthropology course, which I know nothing about. The students kept asking me questions that were specific to the course, so I had a hard time helping at some points. The piece in this chapter that spoke to me the most was the piece about the “ignorant” tutor, and how not understanding a certain discipline might help the tutor to focus on the actual logic and contents of the student’s ideas. During the next research day, I am going to have the students verbalize what they are trying to write about to me, and listen for the logic, rather than the content. If I can understand what is going on, it should be a good sign that the student has done a good job.
What stuck out to me during this chapter was the sections on tutoring across the disciplines. Throughout my time as a fellow this semester I have mainly been tutoring English, which is a discipline I am very comfortable with. However, I had the opportunity to do some interdisciplinary tutoring just a few weeks ago, which I was reminded of while reading this chapter. I was approached by a med bio major I know, as her midterms were approaching, and she requested that I do an off the books tutoring session with her for her midterm paper that was due in the next few weeks. While this was not something that I felt the most confident in, I decided to accept the opportunity as a chance to learn, so we met to go over her paper. What this chapter mentioned about positioning yourself as a learner and asking questions turned out to be the most valuable skill that I took away from this session. As I asked her about why she had chosen specific words, and what the format was supposed to look like, she was able to think through those answers on her own, and by teaching me how to write her paper she also taught herself. When approaching any essay I think it is very important to help the tutee arrive at the correct conclusion in their own time, which is most easily achieved through the language of questions, asking the tutee to explain and teach, rather than listen to a lecture, which when coming from a tutor can be harder to follow and retain.
The reading on interdisciplinary tutoring was very insightful and helpful, particularly for me in my tutoring situation. I am a student of the humanities, a Political Science major, and I am tutoring students in Psychology majors which I have found to be a challenge throughout the semester. The students in the Research Methods class for which I tutor, are tasked with writing a 15-page psychological research paper over the course of the semester, which they submit in sections. The first piece of the project I tutored them for was their four page introduction section that introduced their topic they were exploring with their research and how they would prove its importance. This presented a challenge to me as I had to get familiar with the format of an APA research paper, rather than my typical MLA persuasive pieces I write for my own major. I had to develop an understanding of their assignment and their learning objectives from the professor specific to psychology research. To do this I had to pour over sample papers, read up on APA style formatting and meet with my faculty advisor in order to understand how to best help her students achieve their goals in the classroom. This is a continuous process as I have to continue meeting with her to see what both I and her students need improvement on as the semester progresses.
I love the idea of “write-to-learn” that Chapter 12 discusses. I have seen the benefits of both writing, reading and talking out ideas in order to generate new understandings in learning, and I have exercised this to some extent in my tutoring sessions. This style of learning was actually used in my Environmental Economics class the other day, when our professor asked us to take thirty minutes to write out our understandings of a market failure we were discussing. As the book puts it “‘[…] informal, tentative writing […] allows students to think for themselves […] as opposed to only knowing secondhand what others have thought before them’” (Gillespie and Lerner). This exercise in class was extremely helpful to me for analyzing and self-examining my understanding of certain concepts, so that I could go back and see what I got right and wrong. In my tutoring sessions, I have exercised the strategy of talking out the paper with my students, so that they can articulate their task and hear themself describe their own understanding, which is aimed towards me being able to redirect or affirm their thinking as well as allowing them to self-examine.
4 thoughts on “JOURNAL # 9”
This chapter outlined a few specific things that stuck with me. I still have that fear of writing across disciplines, since I am currently in an ENG110 class, and my major is English Education. Due to this I have yet to encounter writing that branches out into other fields. I liked how one of the sources said that their tutors were training to be facilitators. While not having the content knowledge can be scary, tutors are facilitators nonetheless. I recognize that working outside my discipline may be beneficial for me to become a better writing tutor, but still, I have anxieties surrounding that idea.
This chapter also outlined how working with students online may change the look of the tutor’s job. When they outlined the personalized summary response, I did not realize that this was a strategy I was already employing. Down to the finer details of the formula (name, positives, three areas of concerns or suggestions) in a summary comment on the writing was exactly what I have been doing. I wonder if I picked this up subconsciously from Mya, who was my writing fellow last year and did the same. Either way, it was nice to hear that this strategy backed up. With these online comments I also see how an issue may arise with not seeing the writer’s reactions to your feedback. In most of my meetings the students had not read my feedback prior, so I do get to see their reactions sometimes. Regardless, I like to go over my comments to ensure they make sense to the writer. Overall, this chapter was helpful in partially quelling my concerns about writing across disciplines, and affirming my strategy for feedback.
This chapter came at a perfect time for me, as recently, I attended one of my class’ research days, and walked around the room to see if I could help with anything. This was particularly intimidating, as I am placed in an anthropology course, which I know nothing about. The students kept asking me questions that were specific to the course, so I had a hard time helping at some points. The piece in this chapter that spoke to me the most was the piece about the “ignorant” tutor, and how not understanding a certain discipline might help the tutor to focus on the actual logic and contents of the student’s ideas. During the next research day, I am going to have the students verbalize what they are trying to write about to me, and listen for the logic, rather than the content. If I can understand what is going on, it should be a good sign that the student has done a good job.
What stuck out to me during this chapter was the sections on tutoring across the disciplines. Throughout my time as a fellow this semester I have mainly been tutoring English, which is a discipline I am very comfortable with. However, I had the opportunity to do some interdisciplinary tutoring just a few weeks ago, which I was reminded of while reading this chapter. I was approached by a med bio major I know, as her midterms were approaching, and she requested that I do an off the books tutoring session with her for her midterm paper that was due in the next few weeks. While this was not something that I felt the most confident in, I decided to accept the opportunity as a chance to learn, so we met to go over her paper. What this chapter mentioned about positioning yourself as a learner and asking questions turned out to be the most valuable skill that I took away from this session. As I asked her about why she had chosen specific words, and what the format was supposed to look like, she was able to think through those answers on her own, and by teaching me how to write her paper she also taught herself. When approaching any essay I think it is very important to help the tutee arrive at the correct conclusion in their own time, which is most easily achieved through the language of questions, asking the tutee to explain and teach, rather than listen to a lecture, which when coming from a tutor can be harder to follow and retain.
The reading on interdisciplinary tutoring was very insightful and helpful, particularly for me in my tutoring situation. I am a student of the humanities, a Political Science major, and I am tutoring students in Psychology majors which I have found to be a challenge throughout the semester. The students in the Research Methods class for which I tutor, are tasked with writing a 15-page psychological research paper over the course of the semester, which they submit in sections. The first piece of the project I tutored them for was their four page introduction section that introduced their topic they were exploring with their research and how they would prove its importance. This presented a challenge to me as I had to get familiar with the format of an APA research paper, rather than my typical MLA persuasive pieces I write for my own major. I had to develop an understanding of their assignment and their learning objectives from the professor specific to psychology research. To do this I had to pour over sample papers, read up on APA style formatting and meet with my faculty advisor in order to understand how to best help her students achieve their goals in the classroom. This is a continuous process as I have to continue meeting with her to see what both I and her students need improvement on as the semester progresses.
I love the idea of “write-to-learn” that Chapter 12 discusses. I have seen the benefits of both writing, reading and talking out ideas in order to generate new understandings in learning, and I have exercised this to some extent in my tutoring sessions. This style of learning was actually used in my Environmental Economics class the other day, when our professor asked us to take thirty minutes to write out our understandings of a market failure we were discussing. As the book puts it “‘[…] informal, tentative writing […] allows students to think for themselves […] as opposed to only knowing secondhand what others have thought before them’” (Gillespie and Lerner). This exercise in class was extremely helpful to me for analyzing and self-examining my understanding of certain concepts, so that I could go back and see what I got right and wrong. In my tutoring sessions, I have exercised the strategy of talking out the paper with my students, so that they can articulate their task and hear themself describe their own understanding, which is aimed towards me being able to redirect or affirm their thinking as well as allowing them to self-examine.