My Writing Center Experience

As April begins, the feeling of the semester is starting to come to an end and so wraps another school year. It would make sense that, given I have worked at the writing center for both semesters of my Sophomore year, I would need to write about my own experience. This could mean whatever skills I've gained, how my perception of peer tutoring was when I first started versus now, what I've learned during my time-- it can go all ways.

I feel as though most of my blog posts have been just that to the point where I'd just be reiterating myself.

-- Oh well, here goes:

I've learned so much with how many people from different races and backgrounds I tutored and they in turn, more than they think, have taught me new ideas that I've never even thought about! So in the end, we both benefit from a session. To me, that's what makes peer tutoring superior to let-me-mark-your-paper-and-hand-it-back-to-you-without-you-knowing-what-you-have-done-wrong tutoring style, which is what I had initially thought my experience was going to be. I think I should stop it at that before I start harping at the Academic Success Center.

Working at the writing center has able me to see all different kinds of writing styles. Particularly, the first people I think about that had the biggest impact on me were the ESL students. Heck, the first person I had the opportunity to tutor was an ESL student! My first impressions were all over the place. I was excited, yet nervous. Confident, yet afraid. I guess what I'm trying to say is I didn't want to mess this up. By that I mean I wanted the student to walk away from the center feeling like they can write this paper and learned something new so their 50 minutes of spending time with me were all for not.

One of my gripes were they probably won't understand me and I won't understand them. So how could we possibly make the best use of our time when there's a barrier in our communication? Well I wasn't wrong about it but I wasn't necessarily right. I had to see it for myself to realize there are idioms or phrases or the way I put things into words that don't process to students whose second language is English, not because of the barrier that they won't register at all.

The articles we as Staff Tutors were assigned to read certainly helped with the distress I had of this but it was Carrie that really nailed it home- genuineness. I feel that is the most important lesson that I learned at the center. So as long as I am genuine, the writer will appreciate it. Being a genuine peer tutor means is to ask questions. If you don't understand what a writer is saying in their paper, ask. Don't assume! It shows you're interested. Talk about the good and the bad too. I tend to focus on the good first than the bad after I read a writer's paper. I wouldn't even call it bad, more like, "this is what we could work on." You never know. The writer could have spent their entire career as a student not getting an ounce of praise for what they do right.

Being confident in my own writing also helped me by helping others out who aren't confident in theirs. Writing is and always has been one of my strong points. Sometimes, mostly academic-wise, I believe writing is my only strength. It's all I ever got praised for (other than my apparent beautiful penmanship but that doesn't count). So while I worked here, I wanted others to feel confident of themselves too. It's easier to speak than to write it, I've heard this a lot. I guess it never occurred to me since I always felt my writing was good enough.

It wasn't just me who noticed this. After spending the first few weeks at the center, I've become not only confident as a writer but a peer tutor too! Remember when I mentioned how nervous I was? I don't feel that way anymore. I can greet my "tutee" (before you say anything, that was a term from the very first article assigned) with a smile and introduce myself before I ask the question I always ask, "What are we working on today?"

When time's up, it's up

Fridays are almost always my most frustrating day to work; mainly because most of the sessions I have on Friday tend to be online sessions where something goes wrong whether it's someone who didn't check the book twice on what's an online tutoring and what's not or Google Hangouts decides to screw up.

Today was especially annoying since I was not only the one available staff tutor around but I was the only one who's trained in online tutoring. That's another thing, there needs to be more people who are able to online tutor too! On Fridays, it's only me and one other staff tutor who's able to make those appointments. Having more people who are also online tutors can really help.

The writer I was scheduled to work with was quite stubborn. When I told him our session was over, he kept persisting that I'd give another 15 minutes of my time. I ain't getting paid enough for that (just kidding, I love my job), so I had to remind him about our 50-minute policy and that I indeed had other obligations to attend to.

I could tell from his voice that he was angered by this fact, claiming that he deserves those extra 15 minutes because of a screw up on our part. I agreed that we did, in fact, screwed up because I was not aware that this was going to be an online session since it didn't say so in the book as well as the name of the writer I was going to work with but that doesn't change the rules. If I had to give him more time, then it wouldn't be fair to those who didn't get the same treatment and I know I sound like a broken record at this point but I wish writers would understand that there's only so much I can do in the amount of time we have together!

Finally he agrees to reschedule at another time because, as I've said earlier, there aren't a lot of tutors who are able to tutor online on Fridays besides two including myself.

tl;dr Scheduling online appointments and the lack of online tutors is still a gripe that needs to be worked on.

Let's talk about goals

Before I had a chance to talk about them, I have already had several goals in mind prior to working at the writing center. Now that the Fall semester is coming to a close, it's time to look back at them: which goals have I achieved and which could still use more work in reaching that goal by the time Spring semester is over.

I'm very thankful for having the privilege to work at the writing center and for it to be my first ever job that actually feels like a job. A laid-back one, but still a job. The readings we were assigned to look over before conferences really made me think what it is I wanted to get out of my time at the writing center as well as changing my view of what a peer tutor is expected to do. Peer tutoring will always pose a challenge and I did have doubts about my abilities. Now I feel more comfortable with what I do to help writers who come see me and it's all thanks to those readings!

tl;dr one of my goals was to make sure writers feel comfortable in their writing without me silencing them in their papers.

It's a broad kind of goal, but it works for me. I knew exactly what I wanted from proposing this goal and I could safely say that I've done a good job at it. I still get some of the same people I've worked with before want to come and see me again specifically, so, that's a good sign, right?

Another goal that I don't think I've quite reached to its potential is to become a better writer myself. Granted, I did learn a few things while working here (how to do conclusions without paraphrasing everything you've already said earlier is one that comes to mind!) but there's still so much more. I want to feel more comfortable in sharing my own writing to other tutors and to do that I need to be more vocal about it. It is nice to see people comment on my posts here, so that's a start!

For someone who didn't have any experience on what a staff tutor is expected to do earlier on this semester, I'd say I'm doing fairly well; better than what I had feared. This kind of thing comes naturally after all.

Filler Post

You'd think during Mid-terms week there'd be students rushing in to get an appointment at the writing center but no, that wasn't the case. It was quiet. I probably had gotten at least 2 sessions done during those two weeks of Mid-terms; 3 if I'm lucky.

In any case, it's kind of the reason why I haven't been making any new posts lately- there's just not much to talk about when you don't have anything interesting happening to you during your time at the center or just to let out a little steam from your sessions.

I feel bad about neglecting my blog so here it is, a new and recent post!

I promise I'll have something worthwhile to say next time.

99 problems and online tutoring is one

Let me start off by saying online tutoring is perhaps my least favorite thing to do on the job. When tutoring, I prefer a more traditional style of tutoring: face-to-face and not having to worry about technical difficulties. Perhaps the reason for my distaste over tutoring in this fashion is due to me not getting the hang of it yet; I've only done one other online tutoring session previous to this one, but I'll divulge into that later.

This is going to be a huge rant. Sit tight, friends.

First of all, this session was scheduled on 12pm on the dot- as soon as I walked into the writing center today, I immediately had gotten on hangouts to await for my client. After ten minutes had passed, I decided to call her and she wanted to start the session at 1pm instead. That did not irk me in anyway, I haven't even gotten there yet. I kept track of time. When it was time for our now rescheduled session, I put aside my Stats textbook and finally, my client's name showed up. 

Here comes one of the many technical difficulties I briefly mentioned earlier: she was unable to upload the document onto Google Docs. Of course, I expected these things to happen, however, I for one didn't want to figure out why that was because I didn't want to waste time during this session so I opted her to send me the file through via my personal Roosevelt e-mail as we talked on the phone discussing the paper. While we had waited for her paper to show up in my inbox, I asked her what any tutor would ask after introducing themselves: "What are we working on today?" She told me it was a research paper. Then I asked, "What parts would you like to work on most? What are your main concerns about your paper?" She said APA formatting and structuring. Grammatical errors only came naturally, so I was left to assume if I see any, I would catch it or she would as I read aloud her paper.

When I received the paper, I only skimmed through it quickly before telling her, "Alright, I'll be reading your paper aloud to you and if you find any errors please feel free to stop and correct it if I don't find them myself." This was unspeakable to her! As a tutor, it should be my job to find those mistakes and for her to correct them. 

Well, I told her she was wrong but not exactly put it so bluntly. 

"We will work collaboratively," I explained. "I'm not going to be able to find every single error, and the same applies to you. Having two minds is better than one." 

That was enough to persuade her.

She argued with me sometimes and other times praised me for my input. We reworded the same sentence more times than I could count until she felt satisfied with it. Even when she did, she still found some problem with the way it was worded and suggested another way of phrasing it. I strongly believe that I do not want to completely take over a writer's paper, rather, I'd give my 2 cents and let them decide on whether or not they'd like to take my advice. So I told her as long as it made sense, whatever way she wanted to say it should be fine.

Essentially, she wanted me to write her summary. Again, I didn't want to completely take over the paper and at the same time I didn't see any problem in that since she would put it in her own words. I gave her ideas on how to start a sentence, she would use that to type her summary out. Same thing goes to her conclusion.

What should have lasted for 50 minutes ended up being two hours. When it comes to online tutoring, I really don't know how to end it in a way that won't stop the writer from sharing their ideas and what they think. On the other hand, I had no other clients to see after her so I wasn't too disheartened by this. I just believe it's unfair that I gave her too much of my time when in a regular session, I would not extend the 50 minute mark. That was my own fault.

In spite of some difficulties and having this work through phone, she enjoyed working with me. I guess that's something good to hear at the end of the session. She even asked about my hours and wanted to see me some other time for another appointment! Can't say that's a bad thing either; another good thing to know is when your client likes you enough that they want you to help them with their future papers too.

Next time I'm going to be firm on how I limit these sessions; 50 minutes and that's that. I'm sure if I were to have another client waiting for me, I would certainly end the session without any hesitation. It's just not fair to give so much time to someone when in regular sessions it wouldn't be two hours!

Although next time might be soon with her.

I really don't know how to end this.

I really need to get better at making more posts...

... Besides that, boy do I have something to share.

One student, who've I've worked with last Friday and just this Monday when she have requested to come see me again, I have caught her plagiarizing her paper. I didn't catch it right away, only when I read more of her paper aloud did I notice it used words in a way that wasn't like the student's for whatever I read previously. Now, I didn't want to jump into any conclusions just yet. I asked her if she could show me her sources, which she did. It turns out I was right. She directly ripped off a few sentences from Wikipedia and pasted it right onto her paper. Unsurprisingly, she could tell I was upset by this by the way I looked at her.

This was my first time ever dealing with a client who has plagiarized. How are you supposed to take care of a situation like this? I asked her if she knows this won't fly and that should could get into a lot of trouble if she were caught committing the act, suspended or even put on academic probation. She said yes. It boggled my mind when I heard her answer; if you know you'll get in trouble for it, why would you do it anyway? It was then I asked her if there are any other parts of her paper that she took directly from her sources and that we needed to clean that up and reword it. It wasn't as if I would have given her a choice, I made sure we did: putting quotes where they belonged and sandwiching them from her own interpretations of the quotes.

Perhaps she didn't understand the severe consequences of her actions, but I am glad I had caught this before she had sent it to her professor. I hope for her future papers that this student would not do this again.

First time on the job

Before I talk about the events of today's session, I believe I should reflect on my very first. Seeing as how I have finally got around to making this blog, now would be a good time to do that.

When it comes to working at the writing center, you honestly don't know who you'd end up tutoring today and quite frankly, that shouldn't even matter. Anyone who comes into the writing center is here for the same purpose: to get help in their writing. But it's also best to make sure, as a peer tutor, to understand that we're all on the same level. The challenge that brings to the table is for the writer to be aware of that too.

Starting off, peer tutoring was a new concept for me; almost foreign. As excited as I was to be a part of the Writing Center, I felt quite anxious that I wouldn't give an adequate amount of help a writer needs when they come to see me for advice of their papers. I'm still a student, I'm still learning alongside these writers. Them and myself are alike in that sense. The readings we were assigned to before our meetings really helped me gain more confidence in my ability to tutor. Like what Mairin and Carrie had said before, we are all learning as tutors and as students.

Over the course of two weeks, three in counting, I have had several appointments. One that I can still recall is my very first session with an ESL student. She had needed help with her grammar, expecting me to correct it all for her. Based on the readings and orientation, grammar was the last that I wanted to do; however, she did not come in for anything else other than help with her grammar so that had to be done. I did not have her sit there while I go over her paper in red ink, rather I have her let me read it to her to see if she could catch any of the mistakes she has made; which she had corrected a couple herself. Then go through it again and this time explain to her why we make these corrections; whether, it would be a misplaced comma or misspelling. During the end of our session, I had advise her to go to the Academic Success Center for more tips on grammar. To me, they focus more on grammar while the Writing Center focuses more on key concepts of a writer's paper.

I also had a graduate student. This somewhat irked me more than working with ESL students.ESL students are fine with me because I was fine with correcting my mother's own grammar when she wanted me to go through her papers or e-mail to make sure it made sense. I guess that counts as having some experience with people who has English as a second language. As for graduates, they are older and their writing must be more extensive than undergraduates in an English 101 or 102 class. That wasn't the case, much to my surprise. I could definitely understand the entirety of his paper, as well as helping him add more detail in some parts of his paper that wasn't so clear.

In all my sessions, I would always ask the question, "Do you feel comfortable now than you were when you first walked in here?" And usually their answer is yes and I would take their word for it. The fact of the matter is I want them to feel more comfortable in what they're writing, that their writing isn't as terrible as they deemed it to be when I asked them about their progress prior to meeting with me at the Writing Center. Writing is something I love and I want to share this love of writing with others who I tutor.