Blog 3: Ethical Dimensions

I think the author of this section gives some really helpful pointers to consider when working with a client whose essay includes sexist or racist terms. It's important for the student to be aware of how their teacher and fellow classmates will respond to their offesive paper. In Steve Sherwoods's example, the young man felt that all women should be "barefoot and pregnant" and had no legitimate social role outside of their home. This is completely insane! I couldn't believe a student would want to write about such a topic and not take into consideration the women in his class, or his teacher. Just because he feels this way doesn't mean that he should write about it. I think that a lot of students write about controversial arguments and issues just to get attention sometimes. It's sad that he doesn't feel that women should have equal rights. Anyway, if this situation happened to me I would definitely tell the young man what consequences might arise from writing such a paper. I truly feel that teachers and tutors should not censor or limit student writing, so I would make the student aware of other points of view and try not to be too judgmental while expressing my opinion. I know that each individual has their own way of thinking and beliefs, but I do not feel that they should write a paper announcing them if they may be offensive to a particular race or sex. I can relate to this section because I usually "play it safe" and write my paper based on what I think the teacher is looking for and not always how I want to write it. Even though this guy was writing about something terrible, doesn't mean a tutor should not help him. He deserves to learn just like the other students. He needed to learn how to explore different perspectives, so he could support his opinion. I think students learn a lot from tutors even if the just express their own thoughts and feelings towards a particular subject. I'm all about voicing my own opinion and no matter what, I'm always going to let the student know my perspective... it's just how I am. I could never sit there and just stay quiet if I totally disagreed with what they were saying. There is a difference in voicing one's opinion and censoring a student's writing. Just because I don't agree with them doesn't mean I won't help them with the process or be open minded about their topic.
Toby Fulwiler had some really good points to make in his section. Revising a paper over and over agains helps people understand what they're writing about and allows them to pay closer attention to detail, rather than just making generalizations. Also, limiting the time frame in a story makes a huge difference. I find myself rereading my papers and adding tons of new information in them that I didn't have before. Whether it's remembering a quote someone said or just going into further detail, I find this process to improve my writing and make it more interesting for the reader.

Blog 2 The Tutoring Process

I found this reading to be very helpful. I'm still nervuos about working with students who speak English as their second language, but I now have a better understanding of how to help them acheive their goals by working with them and taking their personal experiences and background and applying it to their writing. The scenerio we read that included Steve ( tutor) and Shafik (an ESL student who came to the writing ceneter with a paper on the Muslim religion) makes me a little nervous after reading it. I'm not familiar with working with people who speak ESL and I'm definitely inexperienced. I like the fact that Steve had him read his paper aloud, then asked him what he was having trouble with. I'm not sure what I would do if I saw that the paper was made up of only one single paragraph that was ten pages long. I would probably freak out. The minimalist approach did not work in this situation because the problem was a lot depper and just correcting the structure and ideas in the piece would not resolve the overall issue. Steve had to look at Shafik's needs and make his own judgement on what to do. If I was Steve, I would have just gone through step by step as thoroughly as I possibly could and try to help him with each issue. I know that learning these steps takes years. If I was learning to write another language and follow their rules, then I would be in a lot of trouble. I would try to help him to the best of my ability and hopefully he would catch on and get a better understanding of a couple topics. I found the posttexual stage to be the most helpful. I agree that stimulating independant learning is the best there is. I feel so much more confident when i learn something and can connect it to my future writing, or relate it to other things for that matter.

Blog 1 Fannie

After reading "Whispers of Coming and Going":Lessons from Fannie, I have a better understanding of how to help/tutor students with different cultural backgrounds. Fannie had difficulty in writing because she could not express her feelings on paper. I think a lot of students have this problem in every culture. A lot of times I find myself not being able to write what I'm thinking exactly and it takes me a long time to come up with a specific word I am looking for to place in my paper that makes it all come together. She was also instructed to use longer, more complex sentences. One of my English professors demonstrated how to construct longer sentences and told us not to feel insecure about the sentence length. I feel this really helped me with my writing. Although Morgan had trouble helping Fannie express what she was feeling, I still think Fannie improved as a writer because of her. She gave her ideas and helped her follow through with her thoughts, even if it wasn't exactly what Fannie was thinking at times. Morgan didn't really gather any background information on Fannie or ask her about her personal life. I think if she would've done this, then she would've been able to adjust her approach and understand Fannie and her writing issues better. Fannie just needed someone to listen to her and learn about things and events that took place in her life. If Morgan would have had insight to some of Fannie's experiences, then she would have been more able to help her. There needed to be more communication between the two of them for the session to be successful. I am a little worried about tutoring students because I don't want to make a mistake and have them suffer the consequences. I know all students have different learning styles and a good tutor must modify their style to best fit the learner, but I am still very unsure about myself. That is a big responsibility and I hope that I can gain a lot of experience observing in the writing center before a student fully relies on me.