Writing Center Info

Dr. Papper

125 Mason

Ext. 463-0073

engccp@hofstra.edu

Audio Comment Response

The audio comments helped me see the issues in my paper, just as written comments would. I don't think that the way the corrections were delivered made much of a difference in their effectiveness. I did, however, feel somewhat uncomfortable listening to the comments. I think it may be because there were two people talking at me and I couldn't partake in the conversation. If I had to choose between written and verbal comments, I think I would choose written because I like to see what I should change on the actual writing.

Myers vs. North

North's idea of helping the writing, not the writer, is beneficial to students who already have a basic knowledge of english grammar, but what do you do when writers can't even express their thoughts intelligibly? Most ESL students who are learning english have a major problem writing academically because they are still learning about parts of speech and punctuation. With these writers, Myers thinks tutors need to begin with the major technical issues in order to make the paper understandable. Then, if the student understands these corrections, maybe you could try to delve deeper into the writing process.

Write About Something You Have No Idea About

NFL FOOTBALL

I can't believe The Jets won! Okay, they may be on a hot streak right now, but they have repeatedly been one of the worst teams in football! I can tell you this right now, every Jets win that I have watched this season is all about luck and it pisses me off that every fan now believes that they are a part of the greatest enterprise on earth. Same thing with the Cowboys, how are they all of a sudden one of the hot names? At least with the Cowboys, though, they're defense this season is sick so I can see how they're winning games. However, before this season, if I told you these guys could be in the Super-bowl you'd laugh in my face and probably think I knew nothing about football. I mean seriously, how could any team with Tony Romo playing be good? My only hope for the credibility of the NFL is if the Chargers take over and knock all of these other teams out of the running. With their awesome coaching staff, rock solid defense and killer offense, I'll be embarrassed for them if they walk away with anything less than the win.

Boquet Response

Okay so for some reason this was really hard for me to get through. I don't know if it was her overly-wordy phrasing or just that I feel like I've read more about writing centers than I have about any other topic in the known universe, but my comprehension of Boquet is not as in depth as it probably should be.

However, I did seem to pull some understanding out of this. Boquet talks about the shift that is happening in education, and in turn, writing centers. Collaboration is rising in popularity, and is being used more and more in the tutoring set-up, as we have seen in most of the other readings. The power is moving, or maybe has moved, from the tutor to the student. In my opinion, a lot of this sounds like the whole trend in the world that is going on lately....you know, the whole "making students feel important, not being too firm or strict as a professor, red pens are mean" concept. I agree that collaboration is a great tool for learning, I guess in a cynical way I just think education is becoming too wishy-washy by coddling students. Okay I may be ranting a bit and going away from anything Boquet has said.....

I may just come back to this later on once we have discussed it more...

Myer's Response

In class we have briefly mentioned the issues posed by ESL (English as a Second Language) Students in the writing center. Myers goes into an in-depth analysis of the problems presented by these students and what we are doing, or should be doing, to deal with them. Many people in America don't realize how difficult it is to learn english because it's all we have known, but it is actually one of the most complicated languages to understand. I have heard first hand accounts of trying to teach ESL Students because my mom is a high-school spanish teacher. Surprisingly enough, spanish-speaking students have a lot of trouble writing "grammatically" correct in spanish, let alone english. I remember my mom would come home frustrated because she couldn't bring herself to fail a native student in their own language, but she didn't know how to help them. Their main problem with writing in spanish was that they were not used to writing "proper spanish." In turn, teaching these students to write "proper english" is even harder for teachers and tutors to accomplish.

If grammar is such a drastic issue for these writers, how can we as tutors even attempt to dive deep past the surface of their papers? If the technical and superficial aspects of a piece of work make the writing unintelligible, don't you need to address those mistakes before you can even understand what the writer is saying? I think that in this case, I would pick out the major grammatical issues within the paper and try to explain them to the writer. Then, once the paper is understandable to an english speak, I would try to help the student with their content and other non-technical aspects.

Myers says that the education systems in our country have unrealistic expectations of ESL Students. For obvious reasons, they cannot be held to the same standards as we are. I do agree that these people, throughout their education, should be taught to communicate in english to the best of their ability. However, I think that the level of writing comprehension that we are expected to achieve should be thought of as an option for ESL students who excel basic english. I agree with Myers that these types of writers should be tutored by ESL teachers, not writing center tutors, because these professionals have the specific qualifications to help the student.

Fulwiler Response

This is the first of all of the readings that was not hard for me to get through! I'm not sure why, possibly because the individual sections were short and manageable (writing tactic? hmmm). Okay, so I really like Fulwiler's concept of "provocative revision." I enjoy the way that he has his students compose their papers as multiple drafts, not one final product. I especially find his first three of the four points useful. Limiting, for example, is something that I think could help most writers in need of guidance. Fulwiler says that it is completely normal for a first draft to be general and vague, and that is why limiting is a great way to revise that draft. Limiting is basically taking certain points and narrowing in on them. If you write about surfing, you could accomplish this by focusing in on a certain day you went surfing when the waves were exceptionally large. This opens the door to telling the reader how you overcame this obstacle, which allows you to give them information that they wouldn't know otherwise. Adding is also something that I find beneficial when used in the way that Fulwiler describes it. He says that a writer could use the addition of dialogue, internal monologue, or an interview set-up to engage the reader. Using these creative tactics to switch up your writing style can keep your audience interested in the topic, while giving them a different perspective on the situation. Switching, Fulwiler's third point, is another way of showing your topic from another point of view. From switching from first person to third person, you can show the audience an inside as well as an outside view of the situation. However "transforming," which is Fulwiler's final point, does not seem to be as beneficial an idea as the previous ones. He says that a piece of writing, such as a research paper, can be improved by changing the entire type of composition. This means that you could take, for example, a research paper on the stars and turn it into a dialogue about stars. Fulwiler does account for the fact that many professors who give assignments such as this would not be open-minded to this kind of change, but I think his assessment of this issue is an understatement. I think that by "transforming," you are recommending that the writer changes the entire assignment, which I believe would most likely receive a poor grade. The only exception to this would be in a class such as creative writing, or a class in which the teacher has already expressed openness to creative interpretation of assignments. I do support Fulwiler's essay for the most part, and I think he brings up some extremely helpful ways for a tutor to improve a tutee's paper. He discusses many ways in which to help a writer that I would not have necessarily thought of on my own.

Fulwiler Outlined

Steps for Provocative Revising:

1. Limiting

2. Adding

3. Switching

4. Transforming

"Teaching writing is teaching re-writing"

-tutors can help keep a topic to a manageable size and depth

1. Limiting

"Generalization is death to good writing."

A key quality of writing is to tell the reader something they didn't already know

"Interesting" is in the details

a. Limiting Time, Place, and Action

-In a first draft, most writers generalize rather than particularize

-They evaluate their experience too early, prejudging it and telling readers in advance how to react to it.

-For second draft, take one paragraph and turn it into 2 pages

(turns general story into "telling" details that engage the reader)

-For third draft, limit the time, place, and action

(discuss a specific experience)

b. Limiting Scope and Focus

-All first drafts are first explorations

-While discussing a general topic (i.e. abortion) pick a local scope (visit local planned parenthood)

2. Adding

-Add new information and explore previous information

-Continued emphasis on local knowledge

-Introduce the idea of dialogue to localize issue

a. Adding Dialogue

-"Adding talk allows readers to see and hear a story in a dramatic rather than narrative way, increasing reader involvement and interest."

-Fiction isn't allowed-approximate recreation is okay in experimental & autobiographical writing

-Interior monologue

b. Adding Interviews

-Adding other voices (i.e. onsite interviews) helps credibility & readability

-"Helps writer argue, report, and evaluate, their arguments, reports, etc., are both more persuasive and exciting."

3. Switching

-Tense of perspective

-Provokes writers into re-seeing the content

-Often makes them reconceptualize

a. Switching Point of View

-It's only natural to write, originally, from your own perspective

-Changing pronouns or taking on a third person character gives a different perspective of your own story.

b. Switching Voice

-Changes the nature of the information as well as how it is received

(objective third to subjective first)

-Keeps the readers interest by switching to unexpected voices

4. Transforming

-Recasting a piece into a form altogether different from what it has been

(person-experience paper, letter, diary entry, formal research paper, etc.)

-"Re-seeing writing in a different form is, at the same time, generative, liberating, and fun."

-Adds possibilities to audience and purpose

4a. Transforming Research Reports

-Change basic report to "60 Minute" interview

-It is important, as a tutor, to be careful in suggesting transformation

-Many professors who assign research reports have a specific idea of what they want

4b. Reforming Narrative

-Using narrative anecdotes to change things up

-Tutors must be cautious based on assignment

The Doctor and The Doctor's Wife

In the tutoring session, the tutor seemed to be trying really hard to help the writer find a thesis. The one that the tutor came up with is a good one, in my opinion, but I don't know necessarily if the student agrees. The tutor got really into the topic, but the writer was quite stand-offish and sounded as though he had already thought of the idea and had decided to back away from it. I think the tutor had a good idea, but if the writer doesn't agree then the two should find some common ground. The tutor also used "I" and "my" a lot in discussing the thesis or paper, and it probably made the student feel as thought the tutor was taking over too much. The tutor's job is to help the writer along, not take over the work. In turn, however, the student should have spoken up more and taken a stand for the paper if he or she didn't like where the session was going.

Grammar Check

Goal: What you want to accomplish

Strategy: Plan to achieve the goal

Tactic: Ways to implement strategy

i.e.

Goal: Better writing

Strategy: Get the student to differentiate between speaking and writing

Tactic: Fix Run-ons: Define a run-on, point them out in the paper, ask the student "Could this stand alone?"

Have the student read the paper at loud..maybe they will pause where commas need to be.

Run-ons (G6)

Essay 1

Symposium: Bruffee’s Concepts

On January thirteenth, 2010, Hofstra held a “meeting of the minds” in order to determine how to run their newly refurbished writing center. Members of the conversation included Stephen M. North, Andrea Lunsford, and Jeff Brooks. The Administration suggested that the current and future writing tutors attend the meeting in order to learn more about their duty as tutors from the speakers. I was one of these lucky students.

North: I would like to start off by saying that I think this meeting is extremely necessary, not only for Hofstra University, but all colleges and universities across the country. So many schools are opening up writing centers that do not at all help their students.

Lunsford: In what way do you mean, Stephen?

North: In my experience, most writing centers are being run like fix-it shops (North, 435). They give off the impression that their tutors are to papers and mechanics are to cars. I was reading Kevin A. Bruffee’s, “Collaborative Learning and the Conversation of Mankind” and it made me think about where the education in our country is heading. Students come into writing centers expecting someone else to do all of their work for them and that is simply unacceptable.

Brooks: I agree completely, it is not a tutor’s job to do students work for them; the writer needs to take responsibility for his or her work. The student, not the tutor, should “own” the paper and take full responsibility for it (Brooks, 169). A tutor should be more of an active listener than an editor.

North: I have to disagree with your comment on tutors being active listeners. I believe that tutors should be hands-on with the piece of work that the student brings. Both members of the conversation should be discussing how to help. I am, however, with you on that editing point. Our job, as tutors, is to produce better writers, not writing (North, 438). Reaching for the grade should not be the goal of a session.

Brooks: Yes, so many students are so concerned with the letter at the top of the paper that they never actually grow as writers, they only learn how to please their professors. When you “improve” a student’s paper, you haven’t been a tutor at all; you’ve been an editor (Brooks, 169). Collaborative learning strategies such as writing centers are the key solution to this problem.

Lunsford: Both of you need to slow down and come back to reality. All of this hype about collaborative learning could, eventually, be destructive to education in this country.

North: How can you say that? There are so many studies that show just how productive and helpful it is! Any other type of learning is oppressive and not conducive to a proper education.

Lunsford: There may be many instances where collaborative learning has been a success, but there are also many examples of how it can fail. Even Bruffee agrees that it is not a fool proof system when he says, “Many are concerned also that when they try to use collaborative learning in what seem to be effective and appropriate ways, it sometimes quite simply fails” (Bruffee, 636).Whether it be within a classroom where group-work becomes busy-work, or in the long term sense of the decreasing expectations for our students, collaborative learning poses a threat as well as a challenge to the status quo in higher education (Lunsford, 54).

North: You are out of your mind! If you are so set against collaboration, then how do you propose to set-up a writing center? You can’t seriously suggest setting it up like a normal classroom, that would be pointless!

Lunsford: I never said that I completely oppose collaborative learning, I just think that it needs to be handled the correct way in order for it to be useful and productive. Bruffee says, “Understanding both the history and the complex ideas that underlie collaborative learning can improve its practice and demonstrate its educational value.” By following his advice and studying the concept of writing centers, I believe we can come up with a situation that truly works.

Brooks: How would you propose to do that?

Lunsford: As stated in my essay, “Collaboration, Control, and the Idea of a Writing Center,” I have found many faults in different models of writing centers. For example, what I call the “Storehouse Model” is a set-up in which the tutor takes complete authority over the situation. This is way too similar to a normal classroom setting and is not beneficial to the student. My disagreement with this type of center goes along with Bruffee’s belief that writing centers should not be an extension of, but an alternative to traditional classroom teaching (Bruffee, 637). Then there is the “Garret Model,” in which the power is all held in the student. This is supposed to make the writer feel in control of their work, but in turn it only makes the tutor useless. If the student has control of the learning situation, then what is the point of having the tutor there? A tutor's knowledge and expertise is the reason why said student would attend a peer tutoring session. No, I would never set up a center like that. The only way to create a thriving and helpful writing center is to form a completely equal playing field between writer and tutor. In this center, control of the collaboration is placed in the "negotiating group." This gives the student power over his or her work, but also allows the tutor to use their skills and fulfill their purpose. (Lunsford, 48-49).

WORKS CITED

Brooks, Jeff. “Minimalist Tutoring: Making the Student Do All the Work”

Brooks criticizes writing centers for concentrating on getting the students better grades. His concept for a perfect writing center is one in which tutors are silent partners and the writers are in complete control of the writing process.

Bruffee, Kenneth A. “Collaborative Learning and the Conversation of Mankind.”

Bruffee gives a somewhat philosophical view of collaborative learning and writing centers. He believes in the necessity for collaboration, but also understands how it can fail. He describes the concept of thought and knowledge as a way to understand the inner-workings of learning, and in turn, collaborative learning.

Lunsford, Andrea. “Collaboration, Control, and the Idea of a Writing Center”

Lunsford is extremely cautious of the collaborative learning craze. She appreciates the many of its’ successes, but also brings up the many detrimental ways in which it can fail. She describes her three models of writing centers, out of which, her third is was she considers to be the formula for an effective tool.

North, Stephen M. “The Idea of a Writing Center”

North is mainly concerned with the fact that too many writing centers work as “fix-it shops”, concentrating on the paper and the grade rather than the student and their process. His theme is that the job of tutors is to create better writers, not better writing.

Cooper Response

I am responding to Cooper's reading half-way through it, because I don't feel like I am reading anything new. Cooper is essentially writing a very good paper outlining the different viewpoints of everyone else. He agrees with Brooks' and North's idea that tutoring should be focused on the writer, and not necessarily the writing. However, Cooper does say that because of the world we live in, it is a reality that students need to get good grades in order to succeed. If the tutor finds a common goal with the student for the session before it begins, then they can make sure that both persons' agendas will be covered. I agree with this, because I don't think that a tutor has accomplished his or her job if both the writer and the writing have not been improved. Cooper comments on Brooks' specific examples of how to be a good writing tutor, and says that they all seem to serve the purpose of distancing the tutor from the student. I personally don't see a reason for this separation. Obviously, the tutor should not be cuddling with the writer, but I think a certain level of comfort between the two members of the session makes the student more comfortable.

I am going to continue reading his article, but I feel as though I am re-reading all of the essays that I have already read. I don't think that Cooper has a very strong personal opinion on any of these matters.

Brooks Response

I agree with Brooks' idea that the writing center should not only be about receiving a grade. We should be trying to improve students' writing so that in the future their papers will be a reflection of how they have grown. However, I don't think that achieving a grade should be completely written off as a subject of importance. In the end, as sad as it is, our grades are what determine our future, and therefore are extremely important to us. I think that in the perfect situation, tutors would make changes in a students paper that would help improve their grade, and in turn make sure that the student understands why the change was made and have them decide how to fix it. This way, the writer and the writing are improved.

I disagree with Brooks' theory that a tutor should be an active listener. He wants tutors to sit quietly and, when they are asked to, encourage the writer to improve their paper. This is completely pointless because students go to a writing center to get help from people who know how to write better papers. If I went in for help and the tutor just sat there, I would be pissed that I got out of bed. I don't think that the tutor should take over the entire tutoring session, but I think they need to be able to express their opinions and use their expertise to help the writer.

Normal/Abnormal Discourse

Conversation about what we already know, have proven, or generally believe is normal discourse. New ideas and concepts that arise from the norm are spoken about through abnormal discourse. In turn, abnormal discourse, once proven or generally accepted, replaces normal discourse.

Discourse:

Normal-maintain knowledge

Abnormal-create new knowledge

Class-produced Bruffee Questions

1. "If my talk is narrow..." (p. 639)

When does making a decision go from being biased to being informed?

2. What limitations do thought and conversation have and how do they effect writing? (p. 639)

3. When has a student mastered the "normal discourse" of a field and when is she qualified to explore/express "abnormal discourse"? (p. 643)

4. If the ability to socialize with other dictates one's ability to write, then why is it true that hermits and mentally disturbed people have been some of the most renowned writers in the past? (i.e. Edgar Allen Poe & Emily Dickinson) (p. 641)

5. Knowledge is established by communities of knowledgeable peers. Once we get out of college and live and work with people of other "communities," how will that effect our previously established knowledge" Does knowledge always change depending on what community you are around? (p. 644)

6. "..the students and teachers of literature and writing must begin...." (p. 652)

Do new ways of learning (collaboration), in your experience, succeed more often than they fail? And how far can we take it? One day, teachers may not be needed if we keep going."

7. "The kind of conversation peer tutors engage in with their tutees, for example, can be emotionally involved, intellectually and substantively focused, and personally disinterested." (p. 642)

Can the same be said for a class room where the students aren't "personally disinterested"? Is collaborative learning between a tutor and a tutee as effective as collaborative learning between students of the same class?

Jacques Derrida

I completely agree with Derrida's idea that his thought is more conscious in his "half-sleep" before he goes to bed than when he is actually awake and writing. When I go to sleep, the last few thoughts that I have before I fall asleep are always so clear. If I have a problem in my life, the answer always comes to me in those last moments of the day. However, when I am writing and I get on a roll with my topic, my mental state is somewhat subconscious. Often times I don't even remember what I wrote once I am done. In this way, I guess I should organize my paper "awake" when im almost asleep and then write it when I am "asleep" when I'm awake. Wow that sounds pretty confusing.

Start of Paper 1

Emily Zurhellen

Frank Gaughan & Ethna Lay

Writing Consultancy

1/6/10

Symposium: Bruffee’s Concepts

On January thirteenth, 2010, Hofstra held a “meeting of the minds” in order to determine how to run their newly refurbished writing center. The Administration suggested that the current and future writing tutors attend the meeting in order to learn more from the members of the conversation.

Three Critics:

-North

“Our goal is to produce better writers, not better writing.”

(Used by North) “The first thing college writers need to know is that they can improve as writers and the second is that they will never reach a point where they cannot improve further.”-Charles Cooper

-Lunsford

“Writing centers pose a threat as well as a challenge to the status quo in higher education.”

-Brooks

“The goal of each tutoring session is learning, not the perfect paper.”

“When you improve a student’s paper, you haven’t been a tutor at all; you’ve been an editor. You may have been an exceedingly good editor, but you’ve been of little service to your student.”

Plot Overview:

North begins pushing his frustrations with "fix-it" shops. He discusses the writer as opposed to writing and condemns most writing centers for concentrating on the grade.

Brooks agrees, calmly, that tutoring should be about the student not the paper. However, he brings up his point that the tutor should not be equal with the student, the tutor should be somewhat silent or off to the side.

North comes back by saying that the two should be equals and truly collaborate on the work. He starts condemning normal concepts of learning.

Lunsford jumps in and says that they need to slow down and we can't jump right into collaborative learning because of its negative points. She says that it doesn't always work and that we cannot completely condemn the idea of the paper.

North and Brooks disagree with her by praising collaboration.

Lunsford explains that she does not disagree with collaborative learning, she just thinks it needs to be done correctly. She introduces her first two models & why they don't work. (North & Brooks interject). Then she introduces her third model and why she believes it would work.

Lunsford Reading Response

Lunsford's essay confirms what I think about collaborative learning and how I would like to approach peer tutoring. In her first model, which places the control in the hands of the teacher or tutor, it seems to be too similar to a normal classroom setup. A student being directed by their tutor with little to no input of their own will not excel in the way that we would like them to. On the other hand, the second model where the power was placed with the student does not seem to be practical either. If the student has control of the learning situation, then what is the point of having the tutor there? A tutor's knowledge and expertise is the reason why said student would attend a peer tutoring session. I, therefore, agree with Lunsford's third model which she has picked as the most productive. In this model, control of the collaboration is placed in the "negotiating group." This levels the playing field for the student, but also allows the tutor to use their skills and fulfill their purpose. In our peer tutoring sessions today, I think my partners and I best represented this third model. When Maggie tutored me, we discussed my paper and the issues we found as a group, and then came to a decision of how to fix them together. Tutoring Pete was a similar situation for me, because I found where I thought he could improve his paper and together we solved them.

Lunsford Reading Outlined

Collaboration, Control, and the Idea of a Writing Center

Andrea Lunsford

-Collaborative Learning should be used with caution

-Knowledge is the product of collaboration

-“The Center as Storehouse” operates as an information station or storehouse, prescribing and handing out skills and strategies to individual learners.

-“The Center as Garret” are informed by a deep-seated belief in individual genius and a deep-seated attachment to the American brand of individualism.

-Storehouse Centers see knowledge as exterior, Garret Centers see it as interior

1. 1.Collaboration aids in problem solving.

2. 2.Collaboration aids in learning abstractions.

3. 3.Collaboration aids in the transfer and assimilation; it fosters interdisciplinary thinking.

4. 4.Collaboration leads not only to sharper, more critical thinking, but to deeper understanding of others.

5. 5.Collaborations leads to high achievement in general.

6. 6.Collaboration promotes excellence.

7. 7.Collaboration engages the whole student and encourages active learning; it combines reading, talking, writing, thinking; it provides practice in both synthetic and analytic skills.

-A collaborative learning environment must have clearly defined goals in which the tasks at hand engage everyone equally.

-Suggests ongoing monitoring and evaluating of collaboration or the group process

-“Storehouse Centers” place control in the authority

-“Garrett Centers” place control in the individual student

-Writing Centers may harm professionally those who seek to use it

-Collaboration can turn into busy work

-“Burkean Parlors”: centers of collaboration

-The center Lunsford promotes is one that places control with the negotiating group, not the teacher or student.

-Presents a challenge to the status quo of higher learning

Peer Tutoring Trial

During the tutoring session that I held with Pete, I tried to apply aspects from Brooks and North's theories to my style of tutoring. I asked her what his assignment was and what he felt could be improved on. He read his paper aloud to me while I followed along on the paper. I had a pad and pen out to take notes on what I might fix, but there were not many alterations that I would make. Most of the changes that we ended up making were in the structure of specific sentences which did not quite fit into what he was saying. Each time I found something that confused me, as a reader, I asked him if he agreed with my opinion and how he might fix the issue. We mostly worked out the kinks and the wording of the questionable phrases together by brainstorming and eventually arriving at a consensus. I tried throughout the tutoring session to give Peter my opinion and then help him understand why I felt the way that I did. A correction to someone's work is useless, in my opinion, if they don't understand it because in the next paper they will most likely make the same mistake again. At the end of the session, I asked him if he had any more concerns that we had not addressed. He said that we had covered everything that he was hoping to work on, and that he felt confident in his paper. I think that having him understand the changes that I suggested in turn made him understand his own paper more clearly.

Grade vs North

What I would focus on...

Grade:

Teacher's comments

Teacher's preferences

Grammatical errors

Organization/Flow

Clear thesis

North:

Concept

How to develop strongest point

Break the ritual (change up their process of writing)

Peer Tutoring Video Response

In the video, I thought that many different styles of peer tutoring were displayed. The girl who was tutoring the guy on the paper about music was asking him what he wanted to change, as opposed to just reading it and making corrections of her own. The guy tutoring the girl on the paper about social disparity, however, seemed to be a little more intense. The girl seemed to be a bit lost and he jumped right in and helped her find her thesis and gave her different ways to incorporate everything she had already written. The two guys who were talking about their experiences and opinions of peer tutoring made a very valid and fitting point that you have to tutor each student differently depending on their skill level, writing style, voice, or stage of writing. The two scenes in which we see tutorials happening compliment this statement because the tutors are using different approaches to help the different students. The video only strengthens my belief that peer tutoring is extremely beneficial and necessary to a collegiate setting. Students who want to become better writers can use it as a helpful source, and students who really need help learning to write can do so outside the confines of a classroom.

Bruffee Response

I, obviously being a member of this class, am a firm believer in collaborative learning, and I think that Bruffee's points explaining its importance are extremely valid. While beginning to read Bruffee's essay, I was extremely in accord with his opinions on internal conversations compared to everyday discourse and their importance to collaborative learning. I sat for a minute and thought to myself, and realized that in fact the way i speak to myself is an internal version of the way I speak, except maybe that the things I say to myself are less censored. However, as I continued reading, my understanding of his points got blurred. I don't really comprehend his latter ideas and concepts like I do the beginning of the writing...whether that is because by the end of it my brain was sick of reading or if I truly do not understand what Bruffee is trying to say, I guess we will see in the morning!

From today's class discussion, I got somewhat of a better understanding of Bruffee's writing. One question I had after my first reading of the work, was that I didn't understand the concept of knowledge as a social artifact. However, now I am starting to get that an artifact is something that has been made my humans, therefore a social artifact is a concept among society that has been determined by people. Knowledge, or facts of knowledge I guess, is a social artifact because everything we know was once determined by a consensus of people that came before us. As time continues and the cycle of human life and knowledge revolves, new general opinions within society with evolve. The concepts that we currently consider to be fact are considered "normal discourse." In turn, when new or sometimes radical ideas come about we call them "abnormal discourse." As we continue to learn, abnormal discourse eventually becomes normal discourse, and the old normal discourse is forgotten about. It is this cyclic event that keeps us, as humans, advancing.

Bruffee Reading Outlined

Collaborative Learning and the “Conversation of Mankind”

Kenneth A. Bruffee

-Collaborative learning coming to the forefront

-Some teachers don’t know how or when to use effectively

-“Written on the assumption that understanding both the history and the complex ideas that underlie collaborative learning can improve its practice and demonstrate its educational value.”

-Emerged from the attempt to remove socially destructive authoritarian social forms

-Success in process discovered originally with med students practicing diagnosis (one consensus)

-Many students who don’t do well in college have trouble adapting to the “normal” college classroom

-Needed help that was “not an extension of, but an alternative to traditional classroom teaching.”

-Peer tutoring

-Classroom groupwork

1. Conversation and the Nature of Thought and Knowledge

-takes place within us as well as between us

-“reflective thought” is public or social conversation internalized

-to understand how we think, we have to understand conversation

-reflective thought does not serve the community

2. Educational Implications: Conversation, Collaborative Learning and “Normal Discourse”

-“Writing is internalized social talk made public and social again”

-Normal discourse: writing to members of a common community of knowledgeable peers

-Members or different academic communities can use their specific knowledge as a resource for other disciplines

-If tutees do not bring the information necessary, than it is the tutors job to help them start from the beginning

3. Collaborative Learning and the Authority of Knowledge

-In class discussion, most of the talking is done by the teacher

-Knowledge is a “social artifact”

4. Collaborative Learning and New Knowledge

-People have always, although maybe not prompted to, written using the help of their peers

-The discourse involved in generating knowledge cannot be normal discourse

-“Abnormal Discourse occurs between coherent communities or within communities when consensus no longer exists with regard to rules, assumptions, goals, values, or mores.”

-Abnormal discourse cannot be taught

-Authority itself is a social artifact

Teaching Conference Experience

Throughout my experience at Hofstra, I haven't really had many opportunities to converse with my professors about my writing. In Professor Lays class, however, we had conferences every once in a while during the semester. The best advice I got was on our first paper, which I will not remember the topic off hand. I was so used to writing in high school where there was a set format, "correct papers", and little creativity necessary to get an A. She told me that I should just put my pen to my paper and write whatever came out, and now that is how I write all of my papers.

North Reverse Outline

The Idea of a Writing Center

*"Our job is to produce better writers, not better writing." (438)

Frustration

Ignorance

"Fix-it Shop"

Predictable Misconception

It is not our job to criticize the teacher

-"In practice, this rule means that we never evaluate or second-guess any teacher's syllabus, assignments, comments, or grades." (441)

"First of all, conferences are the writer's idea; he or she seeks us out."(442)

-Should use of the writing center be mandatory? Or should it be completely voluntary?

"The first thing college writers need to know is that they can improve as writers and the second is that they will never reach a point where they cannot improve further."(442)

-Purpose of writing centers>promote this concept

Blog 1

As a writing tutor, I expect that I will not only be required to be able to fix grammatical and technical errors in students papers, but be able to help them grow as writers. I expect to help enhance the quality of writing in my peers based on what I will learn in this class. I don't necessarily think that the writing center at Hofstra conforms to the steriotype of a"skills lab," but I do think that many students at our school who have not visited the center regard it as such. I have never gone to the writing center for help, but my suitemate has, and she usually came back feeling much better about writing whatever paper she was working on. It is my hope, as a writing tutor, that i will be able to give other students such confidence in their work.