Wednesday, September 16, 2009
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.
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It is a big responsibility to be a writing tutor, but I don't want you to be too intimidated by the work. As my granddad used to say, "People do it every day, so it can't be that hard."
ReplyDeleteYou mention that the problem Morgan had with Fannie was not taking time to know her as a person. I think that's a key issue in being a good tutor; so is responding "in the moment." Good tutors, in my experience, are those who "read" their clients, who are able to switch tactics even in the middle of a session when something just isn't going right. We'll talk about how to do that in class. It really comes from reflective perspectives, though: Being sure to remain aware of how the session is going, and being willing to change your approach if the session isn't working.
I think that the mistakes we make as tutors are ultimately small, but the potential for growth is very high. Think of it this way: if we "fail" with one student--say, we don't connect--we can always recommend him or her to someone else. If we screw up a grammar rule, someone else will correct the rule or he or she will find out for his- or herself later on.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, if we really bond with a student, think of the amazing things we can accomplish! We might even be able to inspire a love of writing in him or her. No, it's not going to happen overnight; it's always going to be a process. But I think that we have a very special job in that we aren't exactly doctors: our mistakes are VERY rarely fatal and almost always only slightly annoying.