Ummmmmmmmm . . . . . Articles

Christina Murphy's article alerted me to the fact that some of the students that are coming to see me are in a way, "wounded." This has been especially true with the freshmen I have tutored. Most have them were creamed on their rough drafts and came to the writing center desperately looking for help. The main thing I try to do in this case is calm the student down. If the student is really worked up, they will never be able to focus and get anything done. Then I try to build the student's confidence up by telling them, "see, you knew it all along" when they fix a mistake. I guess my work here is more psychological than technical.

Meg Woolbright brings up the notion of the tutor having to confront their own agenda in the writing center. This has been true for me this semester. There have been some frustrating tutorials where I just wanted to "fix" the paper and get the student out of my hair. However, I know to take a deep breath and actually try to help the student, even if it is difficult. This is much more difficult for me, but also much more beneficial for the student.

Stephen North's essay mentions that it is the student, and not the text that need improving. This comes in handy when students want me to just proofread their paper for them. I need to slow the student down, and show and explain to them their grammatical errors, not just fix them. This has been handy because most students (and faculty) have no idea what we actually do in the writing center.