Hope everyone had a Great Thanksgiving and Black Friday :)
I wrote a little bit of the introduction because i would like to incorporate something I like, nothing more. but it is justified!!
Still reading up for some more information in my Literary review.(he citations may be a little off )
Please enjoy!!
TRADITION! Tradition! We, the audience, are bombarded with opening musical number of Fiddler on the Roof . the plot is narrated by Tevya as he tries to marry off his daughters.
Dai dai dai dai the song continues to list the variety of rules to promote good living with in their community,
As early as 1904, Writing Centers have traditionally (Carnio,1995)aided student to improve their writing skills. Like our traditional sessions with in a writing center, in a traditional Writing center the tutoring style is prearranged like the marriages of Tevya’s daughters. Only when Tevya is willing to break with his ‘tradition’ does he ensure the happiness of his daughters, we as tutors should do the same by trying new venues of tutoring.
In Stephen M. North passionately gives his definition of a writing center as “simply one manifestation-polished and highly visible-of a dialogue about writing that is central to higher education…..we are here to talk to writers.”(North 71-72). Within a writing center the student’s paper is the focus were the improvement can take place. From brainstorming an idea to helping with grammatical errors, it is the duty of a tutor to aid a student writer in composition. A writing center can “be a site where experts and novices meet often to externalize tacit information-those values, assumptions, and options that inform all texts within a discipline”(Shamoon and Burns,239). Here, in a writing center ”what counts as knowledge ”( Freebody,Luke and Gilbert,1991,pg454).
We can take the definition of a writing center a step further; in Collaboration, Control and the Idea of a Writing Center. Andrea Lunsford breaks-up writing techniques into three categories (similar to the three daughters of Tevya.) “storehouse”, a more traditional venue, requires the writer to a absorb information like a sponge. “garrets” minimal tutor involvement being key, it is completely dependant on the writer, or Burkean parlor, where tutors are to give up their role as the leader and critical thinking/ collaboration reins supreme. But“ we must also recognize that collaboration is hardly a monolith. Instead, it comes in dizzying variety of modes”. We are going to explore one of these genres of collaboration in the writing center coined the writing studio or as Rhonda Grego and Nancy Thompson coined studio in thridspaces.
According to Grego and Thompson in Writing/Teaching in Studio Thirdspaces a writing studio or studios thirdspaces works by encouraging students writers “to “teach” other group members the terms and concepts taught by their teacher, to discuss issues of writing, brain storm in front of the group with the group about their topics, read their drafts and revise parts of their drafts. (99)This process allows the student writer to increase their self esteem through group presentations it also allows them to actively express themselves, think critically and convince others in the group of their conceptions. By sitting in close proximity of each other (Grego, Thompson pg200) student begin to built a relationship that, over the course of time, creates a bond among the participates. Not only is this bond between the students and tutor, but also with each other. This bond allows a more relaxed state of mind that eventually leads to “ teacher and student let[ing] go. Slightly of their defensive hold on their exclusive cultures, and the interaction between their scripts creates a thridspace for unscripted improvisation(452-53)
Methods
Case studies, Observations and Literature were primarily used for collecting data for group one over a period of one month. Researching by case study, I was allowed to analyze what techniques are used by an initiator in a writing studio session. By Observation, I could witness first hand the process of writing in a Writing studio setting. Also, by participation I cold compare and contrast my own experiences as a rookie tutor.
All those who participated in group one were Undergraduate and Graduate humanities majors at a fairly new writing center at an east-coast University. All participating students were readily engaged. The first set of students were all involved in the same course and were familiar with each other before the tutoring sessions began. engaged in their work/same genre of work.Each session was were an hour in length, now my categories to date are:
· Initiators questions
· Participates body language
· Shifts in attention.
Most participates had some form of tutor training previous to joining the group ranging from novice to expert (initiator); two participates where tutors within the university’s writing Center.
As an observer I chose to focus on these points as well as:
© shifts in attention,
© which students chose to participate in the conversation,
© what verbal/nonverbal feedback was given to those who participated.
© Points of interruptions
© When the conversation went off/back on topic
During each observed session I kept a list of questions present as well as a diagram noting: seating arrangements, the number of interruptions, number of positive feedback given by the initiator/participates. and a count of when the group “got off topic” and returned to the topic.
In these sessions the tutor takes on the role of an initiator In this position, s/he does not readily offer an opinion, but through particular questions, gets the participates to answer critical questions. For example, the student writers take on a Burkean parlor position as the tutor takes on garret or a minimalist approach.
