Plan For The Boys and Girls Club

I do not have a full plan for the visit to the Boys and Girls Club on Monday. I think this first time around, I am just hoping to get acquainted with the project guidelines and the purpose of the project. After that, I hope to get an understanding of where the student is planning to take his/her project: what ideas already exist, how he/she is hoping to get a message across, and what he/she hopes to accomplish in the end or gain from the project. My hopes is that the student will try to have some fun with the project. I think starting out without limiting him/herself will be important for the beginning of the project. It give the student more room to just explore ideas and paths to take with the project. Hopefully, I can relate my journey with creating my digital story with the student and that will help him/her move forward with the story. I plan to point out a few things to the student though, like the importance of images and the impact that can have in making his/her story intriguing and unique. I hope to encourage the student to also be creative and come up up with his/her own ideas to add a bit of flavor to the final product. I hope to gain some experience and insight from this experience. I am going in open-minded, and I hope that will carry me through and make me resourceful to the student.

Fifth Consultation Experience

Today's consultation was probably the one I enjoyed the most. The writer came in very eager to discuss her paper and to get feedback, which got me excited to help her. I realized that when the writer is excited about her writing, it makes it easier for the consultant to also be excited and ready to help in anyway possible. The student came in with just part of her paper written, because she was not exactly sure where to go with the rest of her ideas. She really did prove to have an understanding of the writing assignment as she was able to explain the assignment clearly to the consultant and me. She was convinced, however, that is a "terrible writer". Yet, her paper was very well written and it conveyed her thoughts very well. She was not trying to sound too academic, which worked out well because it made her ideas clear and straightforward. The consultant then helped her to generate the rest of her ideas for the remainder of the paper, and the writer was really appreciative of that. I realized today that just allowing the student to talk and explain things to the listener really helps to explain things to student as well.

After the consultation, I asked the consultant about how she deals with "traditional" and "non-traditional" schools. She reiterated a lot of what some of the articles mentioned in terms of the eagerness and the preparedness of the "non-traditional" students. She shared some of her experiences with consulting a student from the School of Continuing Studies. She said that all the students she had encountered from SCS came in on their own will, ready to work, and they were just happy to be there. She also mentioned that she did not find it awkward at all to assist such students because she has never felt out of her comfort zone around adults. I then asked her about ESL students versus students who grew up speaking English. She said that she spends a little more time helping ESL students with their grammar than she would with an English-speaking student, simply because there is a barrier there. I talked to her about my concerns with helping an ESL student particularly and my fear of possibly offending them. However, she did assure me that it is scary and frustrating at first, but with practice, it gets easier to understand their struggles and the best way to assist them. It was helpful to hear this from someone who has experienced working with ESL students, and it kind of relieved me a bit.

Fourth Consulting Experience

On Monday, I walked into the Writing Center for my fourth consultant shadowing. This session was rather short, as it lasted for about 20 minutes or so. The writer was pretty much set to go, because her paper was well written, so it was easy for the consultant to just point out a few things to the writer. It was a bit hard to understand, though, if the paper fully addressed every part of the assignment because the assignment was so vague. So, the consultant advised the writer to talk to her professor, mention what she has so far, and ask if she was on the right path. I thought this was very important, because the consultant could have easily had the writer's attitude of "Well, she didn't give any specific instructions". However, by encouraging her to talk to her professor, it showed that the consultant did care about helping her accomplish her task.

After the writer left, I asked the consultant to read one of my papers that had already been looked at by another consultant. I found it really helpful when I went back to fix my paper, because she gave me different ways and approaches to making my argument better. She did not disagree with the first consultant's ideas, but she provided me with alternate ideas to think about, and that was really great. Having two consultants read my paper also gave me more feedback on how clear my paper was based on the feedback I received. It helped me see that my paper may be more confusing to more than one person, which is motivation for me to really try to correct any ambiguity in my writing.

Follow-Up on 10/13's Class Discussion

In class today, we talked about several different aspects of end commentary. One thing that stood out to me was the question of how important end commentaries are to students. My Organic Chemistry professor always emphasizes that he is not looking at how students start out in the beginning of the semester, but rather, how they finish it--their progress. I think this applies to writing as well. I believe that professors look to see how a student progresses, regardless of the subject field. Paying attention to end commentaries can be really helpful in improving grades and improving writing techniques. I can personally attest to this. In my Sociology 101 class, my professor assigns four memos for the semester. These memos are just basically meant to show our understanding of the material we read and learn in lecture. When I wrote my first memo, I thought I had done an absolutely wonderful job on my reflection. However, when I received my memo back, I noticed that I had lost points because I failed to focus on specific examples and thoroughly explain my thoughts. My professor pointed this out to me in his end commentary. Thankfully, I read and heeded his advice, and this helped me to earn full credit for my second memo. If I had decided to just toss the memo aside and disregard the end commentary, it would imply to my professor that I really do not care about attempting to improving, and I think showing improvement earns students extra brownie points, something that I realized especially in my General Chemistry class last year.

I also wanted to mention my thoughts on what I think distinguishes directive and facilitative commentary from positive and negative commentary. I think positive commentary is having an appropriate balance between directive and facilitative commentary whereas negative commentary is having just directive commentary or facilitative commentary. As I mentioned in class, I think a good balance between directive and facilitative commentary is important in helping the student see his/her weaknesses and strengths. Being simply harsh is a great way to shut down a writer, while sugar-coating his/her mistakes or failing to point out mistakes does not really give the writer an incentive to really attempt to work on improving. As far as what is an appropriate or good balance between directive and facilitative commentary, that is up for debate. So I guess my question is: What is an appropriate balance between directive and facilitative commentary?

The Impact of Teachers' Comments

    Before actually reading Richard Straub's article, I read the four different commentaries and tried to find distinguishing factors in each one. First, I glanced over each commentary, and what struck me was the decrease in markings from one commentary to another. The first one, the directive response, was just completely marked up in comparison to the last commentary which had four marginal notes. In addition, the concluding comments were very different, as the first one basically TOLD the student to follow the suggestions rather than giving her the choice to either heed or dismiss the suggestions. What also makes the first commentary different from the other three commentaries is the lack of encouragement for the student's work. In the first commentary, the teacher writes that the "...general organization is fine...", as if she feels obliged to give the student some credit for her work--it just does not appear to be sincere like the encouragement from the other three teachers (228). The first commenter also lacked questions, unlike the other three. This suggested, at least to me, that the teacher lacks some respect or acknowledgement of the student's ideas. Rather than asking questions to try to figure out what the writer meant, the commenter just marks up different things, automatically assuming that the student is wrong.

     After reading Straub's article, I gained a better understanding of and a greater appreciation for the work writing consultants do. In essence, the teacher whose comments are aimed "...to allow the student to retain a certain amount of control over the writing..." acts as a consultant, because he/she is asking questions to understand the student's ideas and giving positive feedback while making suggestions on how to make the paper better (237). Just as writing consultants are available to make better writers, teachers need to give constructive feedback and give the student the chance to understand the reader's confusion so he/she can learn what works and what doesn't, making him/her a better writer. If a writer is not given the opportunity to think for himself, there is no way he can improve his overall writing. Personally, I find professors who relate their reactions to my writing to be very helpful, because I don't feel as if they are simply doubting me as a writer. Often times, negative criticism tends to result in hostility. However, if an individual hears constructive criticism, he is more willing to make changes to clarify concepts and ideas. Obviously, it is important for professors to keep in mind that they are professors, not friends and fellow classmates of students. At the same time, however, they must also remember that the only way to help students become better writers, they must be encouraging rather than overly critical of the smallest mistakes.

Third Shadowing Experience

     This afternoon, I had my third shadowing with a consultant. Today was just an overall dull day, so I was not too excited about shadowing like I was last week. I felt like there was not much consultation today, because the writer did not send her paper to the consultant ahead of time. So, majority of the time was spent reading the student's paper and trying to understand what the assignment was. One thing that the consultant did differently today, which I thought was tedious but really helpful, was the way she helped the student with the organization of the paper. She read each paragraph and wrote down the main point of the paragraph. She then tried to help the writer to find a way to condense the paper by helping her figure out which paragraphs she could combine together.

     I think writing down the main ideas of each paragraph was very helpful to the writer because she was able to actually see the repetition in the paragraphs and why it was a problem. Thus, the changes that the consultant suggested made more sense to the writer, because she was aware of what the consultant was pointing out. That was the biggest lesson I learned from today's session--when trying to help a writer make changes in their writing, it is important to show him/her the mistakes and help him/her understand them rather than simply claiming that something is a mistake.
    

Progress In English 383

*Since I cannot find the blog I began writing in class, I've decided to re-write another one*

I was very excited to register for this class last spring. It was the one class I looked forward to, because I love writing and I want to help others to love writing just as I do. I think I have learned a great deal so far, through the articles and books we have read thus far. It is helpful to read materials that re-emphasize what I already know and materials that teach me new things. I must say that the one material I thoroughly enjoyed reading was Under The Grammar Hammer. I was a bit skeptical about reading it in the beginning, just because it seemed like something an elementary student would read. However, it really helped me to understand concepts I tend to struggle with, like verb and subject agreement.

One thing I can definitely work on for the rest of the semester is reading other students' blogs and giving feedback on them. I think I can also work on my blog post and making sure I am on top of that. The only problem I have with English 383 is that the due dates for assignments tends to be confusing. It is a little hard to keep up with when things are due because it seems like there are no set due dates for certain things, so it becomes stressful to complete some assignments. In addition, some of the assignments are just confusing and I just don't understand exactly what they are asking for. It is also hard not having a hard copy of the syllabus to have on hand. Overall, I still do enjoy our discussions in class. They really help in getting me to think and to understand different aspects of writing. I am looking forward to the rest of the semester!