Perusing the Blogs

I think my group-mate’s blogs were very insightful and got me thinking deeper about tutoring and teaching composition. Kathleen made me think about the topic of academic voice and how we need to explain the difference between spoken and written language to our students. This was important to me because it is not something I consciously think about as a writer myself and would probably just assume that my students and tutees know the difference.  I also liked that Kathleen mentioned the importance of helping tutees identify the common errors they make. This really helps students in regards to grammar issues. If I as a tutor can help my tutee identify and begin to self correct grammar errors they are consistently making I feel I am really helping them improve their writing.

One of Katie’s blogs made me realize that some students have the same fears such as reading aloud in class and that as a tutor/teacher I should be sensitive to that fact. She also reinforced my belief that positive reinforcement can encourage our students to become better writers. We both had similar experiences where professors influenced us and gave us confidence. Katie also helped me reflect on my own process of printing out my paper during revision and how this could also be beneficial to students during their editing.

Kyle brought up a great point of sharing written work with friends, colleagues and trained writers to catch things you might not see in your editing process. I like to call this having a second pair of eyes look at my paper and I encourage my tutees to do this before handing in their essays. I also liked the questions Kyle asked his tutees in his initial interviews with them. He asks, “What do you consider to be your strengths in writing? And what do you consider to be your weakness in writing? I believe these two questions can also help guide a tutoring session. When the tutee reveals their strenths I have a chance to give them positive reinforcement which then in turn could encourage them in their writing. I've also had many tutees make general statements like “I want to work on my grammar.” But I think questions like Kyle asks help tutors dig deeper and pinpoint common grammar problems the student is having. These types of questions would prompt me to ask the student, “Has anyone ever mentioned specific grammar issues that you have such as articles, subject verb agreement or tense?  Do you have a particular grammar point you don't understand or want to work on?’