Little Thoughts

I have spent a good portion of the weekend working on my pedagogy and the rest of it working on other homework, so it is safe to say I am mentally exhausted right now.

Anyway, I can happily say that the core concepts of my pedagogy came together fairly quickly as I looked over the articles we have read this semester. These blogs have been a great help as well—it’s interesting to see how my ideas have developed over time into what they are now. There is a progression of thought through all the posts, and reading them again really helped to remind me of the various theories, sessions, and discussions that have influenced my advising philosophy.

On a slightly different note, I have sort of been testing my pedagogy in the sessions we’ve had with English 101 students (we all have been, I’m sure), and it’s been going surprisingly well. My first session earlier in the semester was a little stressful, of course, but the following ones have really helped me to understand my preferred approach. Although I am still looking forward to getting the writer’s feedback on the most recent sessions, I do think I can safely say they were productive. Thinking back over it all, I’m actually a little excited to finish getting my thoughts organized into my pedagogy, but my brain is not really reaching its optimum level of performance right now, so I think I’ll have to get some sleep before I continue working on my draft.

Well, this is a short post. I really, really hope I can make up for some of these blog posts in the following weeks. For now, though, I guess this will have to do. I hope your drafts are coming together nicely! I’m really excited to hear about someone else’s pedagogy on Tuesday. Happy writing, everyone!

Reflecting on this Semester

This weekend, I spent some time looking over everything we read this semester. I definitely think the exposure to all the contrasting views of the writing center and advising in general has helped me to gain confidence in my own advising abilities—I think there is always a certain benefit to learning from the actions of others rather than blindly jumping in and trying to make it on your own.

In a way, the great contrast in advising strategies we’ve seen through all of these articles concludes perfectly with Jeanne Simpson’s “Whose Idea Of A Writing Center Is This, Anyway?”. Instead of being taught one supposedly-superior advising method, we’ve been exposed to many and asked to conform to none. We haven’t been pressured into considering one inferior to another; on the contrary, we’ve been encouraged to see each of them from the perspective of the author. Quite similar to what Simpson states in her essay, this whole class seems to be structured around the concept that “[c]linging to a fixed idea of a writing center, whatever each of us thinks that idea is, shuts of opportunities.” Now, having examined many possible perspectives of the writing center, we are being given the opportunity to determine where we stand—whether that place is somewhere within them or outside of them. Still, I think we will all continue to benefit from this background knowledge of contrasting opinions. I know it has helped me to see the writing center and writing itself in many new ways, and I will carry all of those ideas with me into the center—even if I didn’t particularly agree with some of them, they’ll be in the back of my mind to constantly serve as a reminder that not all think as I do. More importantly, though, I think our exposure to the wide range of voices within writing center discourse could serve a much more general, yet highly significant purpose: to show us just how many different perspectives there may be on one certain situation, or how many different approaches there are to one certain task. As advisors, we’re exposed to the same sort of contrasting spectrum of ideas in our sessions with writers, and it is undeniably important for us to keep an open mind to those ideas. Our goal is not to enforce a completely identical writing style and thought process among all students, just as Dr. Mattison’s goal was not to get us all to follow one advising method. Instead, we must appreciate the value of the great range of ideas and approaches we will undoubtedly find throughout our time as advisors. Consciously making these connections between this class and our future work is probably not necessary for us to succeed as advisors, but doing so has made me see just how well this class has prepared us for what lies ahead.

Peer Editing

A few of you have posted your opinions on peer editing, so I thought I’d join the discussion (a little late, I admit).

Anyway, I think there are certainly benefits to peer editing, as Ana Jeanne mentioned, and I am all for it in the writing center where the peers doing the editing are trained, experienced writers who are genuinely interested in helping others, but I am not sure how I feel about it in general.

I’ve been more aware of what takes place in peer editing sessions in my other classes this semester, and I have come to the unfortunate realization that some students have managed to get through English 101 with virtually no understanding of academic essays. Some students think the thesis is always the first sentence of the essay; some think paragraphs that take half of a double-spaced page are always too long. I am not sure how these misconceptions started or survived within a writing-intensive curriculum, but I have come across students with them more than I would like to admit. When I have had peer editing sessions in my other classes, I have often found that the advice given to me is tainted based on these misconceptions, and if I were to adjust my paper accordingly, it would be for the worst. Fortunately, I am familiar enough with academic writing standards to avoid the potential pitfalls of these peer editing sessions, but I know that some other students have a less thorough understanding that may make them accept advice that could harm their papers.

Although I don’t think peer editing sessions should be altogether eliminated from the classroom, I do think these problems need to be addressed. Perhaps we need more thorough explanations of the structure of whatever type of writing is involved in the class itself, rather than expecting a certain level of acquired knowledge in this area already. These explanations would be especially applicable to classes that directly follow English 101 (English 180, for example), and any writing-intensive non-English course with its own standards. The classes need not spend a great deal of time on these general instructions, but even a fifteen minute workshop or a handout might help. On a more fundamental level, I think these sorts of classes could simply avoid assuming that all students know and fully understand terms like ‘thesis,’ ‘topic sentence,’ ‘counter-argument,’ and ‘rebuttal,’ as well as more general aspects such as the extent of evidence needed to support a claim. These terms and composition strategies don't need to be re-taught in every class, but the assignment handouts could easily work in a clear definition of what is required instead of having vague statements such as “Your paper should have a clear thesis.”

All in all, I really support the idea of peer editing, but at this point, I cannot fully support it in action. There is a pervasive lack of thorough understanding among students when it comes to academic writing techniques, and it has an alarmingly powerful ability to spread within peer editing sessions. If these sessions continue as they always have, many students will leave them feeling confused, and professors may see weaker writing from students who were on the right track to begin with. However, if these issues are somehow addressed, the quality of writing among all students could greatly improve.

Response to “From Silence to Noise: The Writing Center as Critical Exile” by Nancy Welch

This post is somewhat delayed, but I wanted to share this article with all of you. Rather than summarize it again, I’ll share a few of my favorite sections so you can get the basic idea of the piece without reading the whole thing. However, if any of you get the chance, the article is definitely worth the time it takes to read. It can be found here.

In the article, Welch uses narrative of her personal experiences advising one particular student to emphasize the value of her modified collaborative model—a model presented in response to the earlier one described in an article by Andrea Lunsford. It’s referred to as “The Writing Center as Critical Exile,” as one may see from the title. Basically, the center as a place of critical exile is intended to serve as a place for students to escape the many “off-stage voices” that attempt to control their thoughts and opinions—a place that provides “critical distance from, rather than immersion in, those social conversations” that structure one’s life in society. Welch explains that this idea comes from Julia Kristeva’s assertion that “writing arises as much from a sense of exile as from a sense of participating in social conversation”:

For Kristeva, “exile” doesn’t mean retreat into a silent tower room or banishment or alienation … Instead, some kind of exile means the creation of a space in which we can reflect on and intervene in the languages, conventions, and belief systems that constitute our texts, our sense of self, our notions of what is “common sense.” The writer as exile, Kristeva writes, seeks to form, scrutinize, and remake meaning ceaselessly … Through this process, the writer not only questions received knowledge and social norms but transforms them. Exile or the role of the stranger … is not an escape; it’s a means for one to write and act in the world rather than be written and acted upon.

Here and elsewhere, Kriteva helps me to think of the writing center where I work as, potentially, just this kind of critical exile. That center is located on the boundaries of the university where it is vulnerable to the yearly rounds of budget cuts but where it is also freed from the constraints of a pre-determined curriculum and the normative force of grades …

… the writing center asks both students and teachers to view writing as a means to examine, as well as participate in, that “living conversation” that … forms our writing and our lives. The writing center as critical exile offers time, space, and (yes) quiet that enables a student … to become a stranger to and collaborator with her writing … such a center also challenges teachers to become stranger to, rather than representatives of, the social conversations and conventions that students are struggling to locate themselves within.

…

… the writing center is not an escape from the social realm, a silent and isolated garret room. It’s also not a place where they are assisted by a teacher or a tutor toward uncritically joining and reproducing the norms of a particular discourse community … Instead, the writing center as critical exile is a place where these students converse with, question, and rework the conflicting often unsettling, always potentially creative other voices that populate their words. By turning into this collaborative conversation between writers and their texts, writing-center teachers can also enter into exile, call into question their ‘common-sensical” teaching practices, and become more reflective and aware collaborators with students and their writing. (Welch)

If you want to get a sense of this model in action, check out the article. I think I have quoted enough of it already for one blog post.

As a philosophy major, I enjoy critically examining nearly all aspects of life, so this article was definitely interesting to me. In my opinion, writing center advisors should try to be especially aware of all the discreet “voices” that influence both our advising pedagogies and writing itself. We’re in a position that allows us to guide the writing process of others, and having such an influence makes the awareness that results from a critical examination of the reasoning behind our actions and words an absolute necessity. 

Thoughts on Today's Session

I know I briefly mentioned a bit of these ideas in our discussion at the end of the class period, but I figured I could elaborate on them here.

Until today’s session, I had a slight preference for the paragraph-by-paragraph approach when reading through a paper with a writer. This preference was largely based on theory and imagined scenarios, but most of my own visits to the writing center have involved advisors who also follow this approach, and their generally consistent ability to provide helpful feedback has made it somewhat natural for me to drift toward a similar method. I really liked how the paragraph-by-paragraph approach allows the advisor to provide feedback to the writer by re-stating what is understood to be the paper’s points and predicting where the paper seems to be headed, but after today’s session, I am starting to reconsider this preference.

The writer I advised today had been to the writing center many times in the past, and because of this, he knew what he preferred. After the pre-textual stage, he very willingly volunteered to read through his paper so that he could look for errors and awkwardly-worded sentences. He was definitely interested in revising his writing, so I was able to let the session flow very naturally. Even as he continued reading at the end of the introduction, I didn’t find it necessary to stop him, so it wasn’t until the end of the paper that we began the most significant part of our discussion. I was a little surprised at how easy it was for me to follow along with his argument as he read it aloud—I wasn’t worried about examining the text itself because it was out of my sight, so I simply listened and took mental notes as we went along. Then, in our discussion afterward, I found myself remembering almost his entire paper, which made it very easy for me to point out places that worked well already as well as places that needed further clarification. Because I understood what he was trying to say in his essay (as a result of the complete read-through of the paper and some of our pre-textual discussion), I think my advice was much more meaningful than it would have been if we had taken a paragraph-by-paragraph approach. I was able to help him improve the clarity and flow of the paper in certain places because I had the complete image of it in my mind, whereas the paragraph-by-paragraph method I used in my previous session with a 101 student seemed to force me into giving potentially-awkward feedback when I really just wanted to see how the rest of the paper played out. I know this is only my second session with a student outside of our class, but I would definitely consider it to be more of a success than my first, and I have the somewhat unexpected change in direction to thank for that.

Thinking back over it all now, I have come to some general conclusions. First of all, I definitely think sessions should be allowed to flow as naturally as possible according to the writer’s direction, only to be altered by the advisor when it is absolutely necessary. I know this is not always possible, especially when working with writers who are less interested in their session and/or paper, but I still think it is my ideal approach when possible. Even for these less-interested writers, we can perhaps try to encourage them to share their thoughts by finding discreet ways to reinforce the value of their ideas. (That statement reminds me of the article I chose to summarize—I’ll have to write a post about it in the next day or so.) This writer-directed session concept is also tied into my newfound appreciation for the whole-paper approach—instead of attempting to force sessions into a paragraph-by-paragraph reading, I think it may be best to find a sort of natural flow here as well. To state all of these ideas simply, I guess I now have further solidified my belief that sessions should be conducted in a very personal, flexible manner—I don’t think there is any one approach that could consistently succeed in all sessions without a willingness to adapt.

Mock Sessions, Fake Sessions, Real Sessions...

I know several people in our class have claimed that the sessions we had with each other about our summaries were not “real” because we already know each other and are on the same level as advisors-in-training. Personally, though, I wouldn’t consider the session I had with Kari to be fake. Yes, I do know Kari, but we will have sessions with people we know in the writing center—Wittenberg’s campus is small enough to practically guarantee that—and I know some current advisors come in for sessions with other advisors as well.

Some people seemed to emphasize that there was an unrealistic balance in perceived authority in the summary sessions because both participants were capable of conducting a session on their own. However, after contemplating this claim, I cannot help but think that our work as advisors isn’t really about being expert writers who advise those with less skill/experience, which would therefore place us in a position of authority as the statement implies. Instead, I see advisors as experienced readers. We all have our flaws when it comes to writing. We’re not perfect, and I think I can safely say that perfected writing ability is not a required trait for advisors. In contrast, our strongest trait—out greatest power in a session—is simply that of our own perspective as readers. When we lend this perspective to writers by reading through their work and providing honest feedback, we allow the writers to get a sense of their audience—a chance to see how others are understanding what they are writing. Our knowledge of academic writing conventions is certainly a plus when we’re helping writers revise their papers, but I think someone lacking this knowledge that provides an honest reader’s response to a writer’s piece could help improve the quality and clarity of the paper quite significantly, too.

In my opinion, these sorts of sessions are a good introduction to writing center work. When we’re comfortable around the person we’re advising, we are able to focus less on finding the right words to say to avoid sounding overly critical, and focus more on the writer and his or her paper—the heart of a session. These sessions allow us to begin advising without having to focus on all aspects of the session at once—in a way, starting here allows us to divide up our concerns in order to learn how to handle the core of sessions instead of being overwhelmed as we attempt to consciously think through all aspects of what may be deemed “real” sessions that we will soon face in the writing center.

Thoughts on the Summary Sessions

Last Thursday, as Kari and I had sessions with each other for our summaries, I noticed something about advising that I hadn’t thoroughly considered previously. When we’re working with writers, there are occasionally going to be weaknesses in their papers that we will overlook—not because we lack the skill to catch these weaknesses, but because professors’ expectations for various types of writing are not universal.

For example, both Dr. Mattison and my English 101 professor have taught summary writing in class, but their expectations regarding the content and length of a summary differ in many ways. (Now, of course, I am stuck with two opposing voices in my head that attempt to control the structure of my summaries…great fun, that is.) Being aware of these differences, I made a conscious effort to write my most recent summary according to the comments I received from Dr. Mattison, and I was glad to have the opportunity to get Kari’s feedback to see if she thought I had addressed the issues mentioned in my previous summaries. However, I quickly realized that my main concern (including enough of the smaller details instead of focusing on only what is necessary to understand the main idea of an article) was impossible for someone other than Dr. Mattison to address. What is considered necessary information for a summary is somewhat subjective (and dependent upon one’s definition of ‘summary’), which makes it impossible for an advisor to evaluate a particular piece in the same way the professor would. Granted, in my situation, Kari had experience writing summaries for Dr. Mattison as well, but needless to say, it was still impossible for her to see my paper entirely from his perspective.

This problem reminded me of the second day of class when Dr. Mattison gave us all the essay written with many, many errors, then later explained that the assignment was to write like someone in grade school (the particular grade slips from my memory). On the surface level, advisors may begin to offer constructive feedback immediately, but doing so blindly may actually lessen the quality of the paper according to the particular assignment’s requirements. Still, for the aforementioned case, there is an additional problem: no matter how thoroughly an assignment is explained, no advisor can see a paper exactly as a certain professor would, which would be necessary in order to help a writer with a concern similar to mine. We can learn to understand general expectations, but for certain types of writing, it is impossible to know how a professor will evaluate it in the end. There are alternative ways to handle the situation, including suggesting that the writer visit with the professor, or asking about any previous feedback given for similar pieces, but my final thought it this: there are, of course, sessions in which we, as writing center advisors, cannot be as useful as we hope to be, and in some cases, we may not even realize how little help we’re actually able to give a writer. Because of this, I think it is important that we consciously evaluate both the writer’s assignment and his or her concerns in order to be sure the advice we give is helpful. Then, if we’re aware of the possibility that some of those concerns may extend beyond our advising abilities, we’ll be prepared to direct the writer to the professor instead of offering advice that may harm his/her work.

As I read over this post again, the problem and solution seem somewhat obvious, but thinking through these situations surely helps us to prepare for our future work as advisors. I know I certainly would rather evaluate these sorts of possibilities now instead of feeling lost when I encounter them in actual sessions, and in this case specifically, it is better to be aware of the possibility of these issues to avoid giving destructive feedback or false assurance.