Punctuation

I've never really thought before that I needed help with punctuation, but when we started discussing it in class, I realized that there's still a lot left to know. After Travis asked that first question, tons of others came to mind. It's so complicated trying to know all of the rules and how or when they apply. It's an entirely different chore to remember exactly what those rules are called or what part of speech the refer to. While reading the Grammar Snob, I've learned that on top of all those complicating issues, different style books have different rules and conventions. I suppose, though, that it is better to know how helter-skelter everything is rather than remain ignorant of it. I was actually typing something today and thought, "I wonder of I should write it like this or like this?" I actually had the Grammar Snob with me, opened it, and found what I needed. Amazing. If only I were such a good reference tool for the people I tutor. Alas.

ESL

The class discussion about ESL situations intertwined well with what I've been learning in other classes recently. In Multicultural Education, we frequently discuss the discriminations that take place toward people who speak languages other than English or who speak non-standard dialects of English. Currently, I'm volunteering at an after school program for middle school students who are struggling academically. We meet in the basement of a small Baptist church, all 12-15 of us, and work together on various types of homework. All of the students and the other tutor are African American. One of the leaders is white; the other two are AA. As a minority there, I often feel inadequate in that I don't speak like the do. Sometimes, I'll try to sound cool and speak like they do (last week I even rapped a bit in trying to help a student memorize Latin root words... that was interesting). Not only do they use different a different vocabulary, syntax, and grammar, the very subjects and goals of speaking are often different from my own as far as conversational parlance is concerned. Most of the students struggle in several areas; several of the students with whom (right?) I've spoken have expressed that they didn't like reading and that Language Arts was one of their least favorite subjects. I wonder if they read material that is reflective of their speaking styles. How do the teachers, administrators, and other kids of different ethnicities view them? Working with them and working with ESL students at the Writing Center have really helped me to avoid potential prejudices I could have accrued if I had never been exposed to intelligent and industrious people from other cultures.

Reading the two sample papers today really got me shaking in my boots. I always feel intimidated when I read a paper that has a significant amount of errors; I often don't know where or how to begin. The paper about Japan and Austria wasn't too bad; the paper by the Chinese woman was daunting! Articles, pronouns, punctuation, organization, and so many other problems presented large and important issues. Most of the time, I find a starting point in trying to focus on what the student wants to accomplish. I know that often times we need to give students the help that they need and not necessarily what they want, but that can be a difficult balance for me sometimes with some tutees. I'm glad we're going over this section fairly early in the semester; I'm sure it will help a lot later on

Thoughts About Monday... and Today's Tutoring

Class had a good balance on Monday. An assignment was distributed, some discussion was had about tutoring techniques, and technical aspects of English were reviewed... now there's a well-rounded day in an English classroom. I particularly enjoyed writing my own simple, compound, complex, and compound/complex sentences. Rather than an animal (particularly a dog), I wrote about a chair. The subdivisions of conjunctions and pronouns into specified categories seemed complicated and new to me. These some cognitive feelings were also aroused in me while reading the Grammar Snob over the weekend. I think that first grade was the last time I received a dissertation on possessives. Maybe it's just me, but as I read that chapter I was convinced that the rules had changed since I was a young tot being taught about ending words with apostrophes and s's. I think I understood what the G.S. was saying, but I think it'll be really easy for me to continually revert back to my nascent training in possessivising words.

In my own writing, I guess it wouldn't really bother me if I used a contemporarily incorrect form of possessives, but in the case of a tutoring session (especially one with an ESL student) I'd really like to know what the nitty-gritty modern rules are. It seems that I've tutored more ESL students already this year than I did all of last semester. It's such a different kind of task to tutor someone who knows English in an overtly taught, rather than intrinsically learned, manner. Just today I tutored an English student and then an international student, back-to-back. The American wanted to work on his thesis and the organization of his paper. he told me about the assignment; we read over what he had; and then we discussed his concerns. We talked about how to make his thesis fit in with what he had already written and how to make it organizationally influence the rest of the paper for the better. We brainstormed, and he did some writing on his own. By the time he left, he felt very confident about it. The foreign students was very worried about grammar and other mechanics issues. Interestingly, while we read through her paper, I found that her grammar was better than the American's! We didn't discuss things in a theory and thought driven fashion. Rather, we discussed her concerns in a very technical way. I gave several examples of how exceptional rules apply in certain situations. Amazingly, we got through all of her long paper, and she also felt very good when she left. I think this class is really helping me to reevaluate myself as a tutor, discern which of my tutoring habits are ineffective, and adopt better strategies for helping students who are from diverse backgrounds and who have diverse problems with their writing.

Good job!

Tutoring Love

This was definitely one of the most intimidating tutoring sessions that I've ever been in. It wasn't hard in terms of working with the student to improve the paper; it was hard in the sense that I had two classmates and one teacher observing me. These factors made me feel slightly uncomfortable before the session, during the session, and after the session. For better or for worse, I thought very carefully about everything I did and said.

The paper was horrendous, which made it difficult to know what the focus of our session should be. When Sarah had made the priority that we should concentrate on clarity and persuasiveness, I was thinking in terms of the overall flow of the paper. Because of this, I didn't take the time to address technical errors. Even with omitting the process of correcting those mistakes, it still took us a long time to get through the paper because we'd brainstorm how to improve each individual paragraph, and then she'd rewrite it. Because of this, we didn't get through the whole paper. This situation of not completing a paper occurs in many of my sessions. Previously, I've thought that that was okay. My thoughts were that after reworking the first part of the paper, students would then know how to approach the rest of the paper on their own or with a friend. While thinking about it during class, though, I think that I'd feel cheated if I took my paper to the writing center and the tutor wasn't able to help me with all of it. Somehow, I need to figure out how to do both: get through the entire paper and help students resolve their concerns.

Bedford 3 and 4

I thought that it was interesting how the book talks about doing things that kind of come naturally as you tutor. I don't remember formally reviewing and learning some of the techniques that are discussed in these chapters, but I still use many of them to some extent. For example, the book identifies several main actions that are to be performed by the tutor: reacting as a reader, requesting information, requesting clarification, developing critical awareness, refocusing, and prompting. To me, all of these are kind of one streamlined interconnection of related processes. I suppose that it's good to break these down and analyze the steps one by one so as to better understand each part, but I've never really thought of them as separate actions before. Another interesting separation of thoughts that they enumerated, which were, in my mind, one conglomerate thought, was the idea of tutors' many roles. The ally, the coach, the commentator, the collaborator, the writing "expert," and the counselor are all roles that I have filled as I've tutored. But I've never consciously recognized that I was filling them. Doing these things just seems to come naturally over the course of a session as the student's needs change. Again, I suppose that it is good to sit down and pick these apart in order to become more aware of these roles and how to better fulfill them.

English in all its Confusations

Class last Wednesday was pretty interesting, I must say. It was difficult at times for me to properly identify which words represented what parts of speech. I think that the problem was that I would read a word in one of the sentences and then search for it on the class handout. Unfortunately, some of the words belonged to several different parts of speech, and that really confused me. It seems like that is a state I am prone to fall into when I work on the technical aspects of English.

It's great that we're going over the parts of speech in class. I definitely need this review. The approach that we're taking, I think, is also very effective and entertaining. Since we, as students, made the sentences ourselves, we're automatically more interested in understanding them. It's almost like we're coming to understand ourselves... in a very linguist-hippie kind of way.

While tutoring at the WC the other day, I felt less confident about myself concerning the rules of grammar than I have in the past. I think that this is because some of my previous ideas of 'good' and 'bad' English are being redefined by what I'm reading in the Grammar Snob. She includes so many rules, exceptions, and disputations concerning rules that it's difficult to know what to tell students, especially when they turn to me for direction. Perhaps this humility is a good thing, though, and I'll now be able to build up confidence based on a more contemporary and comprehensive understanding of the rules and conventions of English.

I found several parts of the Grammar Snob to be very helpful and entertaining. The explanation of the differences between 'that' and 'which' was good to hear. For a long time I have been confused about when and how exactly to use which one. I also liked the chapter that talks about Jeopardy because I knew that rule about quotation marks and, therefore, felt somewhat smart for a bit.

Who & Whom

Information:
subject pronouns - I, he, she, they, we, who
object pronouns - me, him, her, them, us, whom

Rule:
1) Use "who" if it is the subject of the sentence.
a) ex: "Who is the smartest person in the world?"
2) Use "whom" if it is the object of the sentence.
a) ex: "You are going to the concert with whom?"
3) Hint - if you don't know which one to use, insert another fitting subject or object pronoun
to see if the sentence still makes sense
a) ex: "You are going to the concert with (him)?" - right
b) ex: "You are going to the concert with (he)?" - wrong

Exceptions/Special rules:
1) In situations where "who/whom" would be both an object and a subject, use "who," the subject form.
a) ex: "I'll go to the concert with whoever is a lover of heavy metal."
2) When "who/whom" follows some form of "to be," use the subject form.
a) ex: "I am who high-fived the orangutan"

Star Rating: ***

Peer Reviewing and Other Thoughts Over the Last Few Days

I really enjoyed and benefitted from the peer reviews we did on Wednesday. I was fascinated to find that the two people's papers I reviewed were completely different in terms of tone, organization, style, and effect. This was very enlightening, especially since my paper was very different from the two I read. My paper was fairly formulaic in its five-paragraph approach. After writing so many essays in this style, it's kind of hard for me to break free of it. It's so natural and second-nature now that it's almost like a function of my brain that helps me to organize, qualify, and quantify the contents of my mind in relation to an assigned topic. At some point, I should probably try to break free of this habit just to stretch me mind and improve my talents.

I thought it was interesting that I did a lot in the way of correcting grammar and other mechanical errors in the papers. During the writing center meeting on Friday, it was emphasized that, as tutors, we should worry less about technical problems and more about issues related to writing processes, organization, the formation of thoughts, and the logical support of statements. This is something that I could improve upon in my efforts to tutor my classmates and my writing center clients.

I like the books that we've been reading this semester. They're all so different in their style and approach. I like how Grammar Snobs makes me laugh so much, how Mary Pipher's book gets me pumped about writing, and how the Bedford Guide gives practical ideas for improving as a tutor. If only there were more time to dig deeper into each of these books and other related ones. All of these books exemplify different kinds of good writing that all contribute to my own. Now, I just need to try to make my writing more entertaining, informative, and inspirational.