I am surprised by how many students come to the writing center wanting grammar help, when their papers are fairly grammatically correct. I guess grammar's just that scary to most people. Even those of us who get it right most of the time stress out over the though that someone will assess our accuracy.
Many of the students I've seen have said they wanted grammar help, and then we quickly move to structure and content, instead, usually because those are the kinds of questions they have.
I wonder if it would help to change up the blue sheets to some manner of multiple choice (with the always-helpful, open-ended "other" as a final option, of course), to remind students that we can work on structure, thesis statements, cohesion, etc. Would categories like "narrative," "informational," "comparative," "analytical," "persuasive," etc., help them get more specific when describing their essays?
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Hmm, yeah, I find I often use the bluesheet as a conversation-starter only. Very rarely do we actually end up working on what they suggest. But also, I feel like about 70% or more of my tutees are just wanting the vague "proofreading" service- that is, they have a full draft and they don't know what they want to improve on it, they want me to read it and tell them what to do. It seems like they say "grammar. etc" because, at the very least, they want their errors corrected.
ReplyDeleteI find I often don't even give the "we don't do that" speech- I just re-direct the session after I read the paper (usually out-loud). I wonder, though, if taking the easy road...
I try to keep the "we don't do that" down to a sentence or so, like, "Well, I can't correct it for you, but I'm happy to help you correct it." I wonder if that's really a distinction to most students.
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