Wednesday, October 21, 2009
"The Same ol' Tutor"
Today i tutored a girl for the seventh time this year, which I see as a blessing and a curse. She told me that she enjoyed my tutoring style and purposely came to the Writing Center on days that I am here. Obviously i was flattered and happy that I have helped her with her writing. However, I was tempted to suggest that she make an appointment with someone else in the writing center. I feel that, while it is important that she enjoys the writing center and keeps coming back, it could only benefit her to get varying perspectives on her writing. I am considering telling her this the next time I tutor her. Perhaps, explaining that she is more than welcome to continue making appointments with me, but that more "eyes" on her work could only benefit her writing. What does everyone think?
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Katie, your point parallels my recommendation to students in the class that I teach. As I mentioned yesterday, I do want the students to hear other perspectives and, in a sense, also see that the writing world (where people discuss writing) is broader than our class and me. Your question also taps our discussion about uncomfortable/comfortable places and my questions from weeks ago as to whether it is our (Writing Center members) responsibility to place students in productively uncomfortable spaces, to what extent, and what that means practically. My questions in response to Tim's entry resonate this as well.
ReplyDeleteLast year there were several students with whom I met frequently, but the work we focused on was in every case the same; a personal statement for graduate studies. I think that the sessions were very helpful for these students--they kept coming back, anyway--and that since we were working on the same document every time, my familiarity with it saved a great deal of time that would otherwise have been spent negotiating objectives and identifying problematic areas. In the case of a paper that a writer must spend a great deal of time revising, and for which the deadline is far off, I think meeting with the same tutor over and over (and over, and over, and over...) can be more productive. But if a student is returning every week with a new assignment and is only willing to discuss it with a specific person, I agree that a certain amount of coercive horizon-broadening may be requisite.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great thread here! Mihaela, I like what you're saying, and I think this is/has a lot to do with Nedra Reynolds' work with geographies. As I learned from her, exploring boundaries within spaces is useful--it teaches one to learn possibilities-- but concentrating on boundaries exclusively (in this context working with the same tutor or utilizing another one ) does not account--and maintain--how they connect to the resultant qualities of a space and how that space connects to its citzen(s).
ReplyDeleteWhat I really take out of Nedra's "learning to dwell within uncomfortable spaces/places." Makes us be citizens: it makes us attend to the qualities of the space, maintain, revise, develop, extend, etc.
So, I know some of you will pick up on the connections to Deleuze again. It becomes, for me, helping groups/individuals create what is amiable/accustom/desired to both striation and smooth spaces because *we* inevitably encounter both: life is process-ual in dynamic views and product-ual in static views--we can take both. That is the paradox of space and time--it is simultaneously multiple and single; static and dynamic; a form and a force.
Then, again, ensuring that "writers" have a line of flight (exit) when they are in points of peril is also quite important. And, this is what I think Stephen is getting at no? I'd think, ethically, perhaps nudging or encouraging--I'm personally resistant to coercion--is appropriate as long a writer chooses independently and knows that their are alternative approaches that they may also select.
"Create" would have been a better word than select. The comment posts aren't revisable like the real blogs are. Perhaps a recommendation we could make to blogger?
ReplyDeleteIf I were in this situation, I would like it and dislike it as well. But what I would try to do is put her with another tutor if you know she is coming in. Like, maybe if you are in a time slot with other tutors--ask another tutor if you could switch your sessions so that when the girl comes in, you can say "Hi, I'm helping this other guy but you can sit with "so and so" and he/she can help you out." The tutee could either say "okay, that's fine" or "no, I would rather wait for you." Either way the tutee responds--you aren't the villain.
ReplyDeleteThis is a nice way of trying to get someone else to look over her work instead of the constant sessions with you only. Try this method first, and if it doesn't go the way you hoped--take a more directive approach.