Reading Questions

Redneck Argument-- Is our responsibility as tutors a responsibility to inspire passion in a student on a subject that he or she feels uninspired about? And if so, how are we to do that? What if it's a subject that we as tutors have no interest in either?

Teacher Arguments-- Should we feel offended if a writer does not take our advice in notes or comments? Or should we instead feel hopeful that the writer has inspiration headed in a different direction?

Sentences Clear and Concise-- Does grammar fog the message of the writing too much to take it seriously?

Hjortshoj-- What role does style take when writers only focus on structure, order, and grammar?

Bedford-- How do you connect with a writer who is externally motivated? Is it our job to invoke an internal motivator in the writer?

mentoring

Yesterday I had a very stimulating conversation with my high school student, Angie. We talked about immigration. Through our conversation about the subject, I learned her passion for the subject that was a little vague in the paper. She explained that it was an emotional and close-to-home topic for her and her family, but without specific reasons or examples, it didn't convey the same emotion inflected by her voice. Her tone and passion was clear through her voice, but the tricky part was finding ways to put it in her paper. I liked how in Angie's persuasive paper, she wanted her mom to read the article not because she agreed with it like most persuasive papers would be, but for the opposite reason. She wanted her mom to read it because of the obvious ill-informed thoughts that many Americans have about Latinos. I liked that twist in her paper because though subtle, it was a tad different than a typical persuasive argument. Also, when thinking about the steps I would take after the first draft, I realized that I do use a method for that. I take the arguments or points that I feel especially strong about and elaborate and expand on them. Eventually my hope is that I have so much to say about those that I can take out the parts that aren't especially heart-felt. I feel that it's better to have a few points explained passionately and completely than ten mediocre points. I was getting excited about Angie's paper just from her talking about it, and I know that if she works a little harder on it, it will be a superb paper.

second writing center visit

I visited last Thursday and sat in on a session between a core student and my writing fellow Shane. The paper was on Chikamatsu and the morality of the couple's decision to commit suicide. Shane helped her to realize that her position wasn't clear. She was still wishy-washy about which side to take. A downside of the session was that the student didn't mail Shane the essay beforehand. We had to take time out for him to read the paper, then wasn't able to prepare as much as he would have been able to if the paper was read beforehand.

first shadow session

Yesterday was my first experience shadowing at the Writing Center. I met the writing fellow with whom I will be working. He was very nice and talked to me a bit about the process. The student, however, failed to make her appointment, so he explained to me about what goes into a meeting. He explained that when the students fail to send him a copy of their papers beforehand, as this one had done, they are losing out because helping that student becomes more difficult. The girl had made the appointment fairly recently but maybe she forgot or forgot to cancel. Another lesson was going on in the same room, however, that I overheard. A student brought in a Core paper about Chickamatsu and was getting help. They read the paper aloud and sorted through organizational issues he had. I was disappointed to have an unsuccessful first meeting, but Shane assured me more students make their appointments than miss them. Hopefully next week we'll have a successful session.

external vs. internal motivators

In our class on Monday, one of the points brought up was that external motivators overpower internatl motivators to the point of elimination. This topic is particularly interesting to me because I have watched my brother struggle with this problem. He never had an especially strong sense of self-motivation. Parents and adults offered things to trigger an inspiration in him. They tried punishing and threatening him. They even tried to open him up to out-of-the ordinary things to see if anything would spark in him. My mom will never give up her quest to inspire something in my brother, but now that he is in college, he's finally getting a chance to explore interests on his own. What do you know- he is doing better than he ever has. No one watches over his shoulder making sure he completes assignments or treats him as if hoping for the wonder we all know he is capable of. The pressure is off and he is discovering a world of which he was previously oblivious.
This is, however, only one example. Many kids have people and pressure pulling them in every which direction, and they depend on things such as grades to keep them focused on school. Internal motivators stretch farther than imaginable for external motivators, but external motivators are required for some participants to meet the minimum non-inspired work.