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?"