final paper 4

Discussion:
Throughout the semester, the tutor was able to research reasons why college students came to the Writing Center. The Writing Center is open to all students who need help with writing, regardless of major or profession. It is ironic to find college students helping other college students without proper certification or knowledge. As John Trimbur states in his essay “Peer Tutoring: A Contradiction in Terms?”, “…students do not possess the expertise and credentials-the professional standing- to help their peer learn to write” (Barnett 289). Often, the tutor stumbles over an example or a discussion and does not know how to help his student. The tutor needs enough knowledge of writing to help those in a higher grade level, as their problems become more precise. A tutor can easily help freshmen, as their writing problems are broad and their questions are easily answered. Freshmen come to the WC to get help understanding and starting their assignment. Upperclassmen, especially those outside of English composition classes, need help with grammar and punctuation, they understand their assignments but need someone to proof read and make their paper more concise. They collaborate with their tutor and take criticism well and take full ownership and responsibility for their work.
The most outstanding difference between freshmen and upperclassmen who came to the WC was that freshman were not prepared to write; they were timid and insecure, they need guidance in every step of their writing, while upperclassmen are prepared and know what they need help with. The three freshmen I was able to tutor expected a lot more guidance from the tutor, and more explanation. The tutor had to take the lead in the session as the freshmen were insecure and clueless. Upperclassmen were eager to work with a tutor and were prepared with the assignment already written. They wanted to focus on grammar and sentence structure and the details of their papers rather than how to write a thesis sentence.
Limitations:
As this study was conducted in about a month’s time, the tutor was only about to see seven students for sessions. With a larger sample of students, results would be more concrete. All three freshmen needed help with papers for an English composition course while upperclassmen asked for help in their own majors. Other limitations include the tutor not having the necessary knowledge or experience of helping the students, which caused the sessions to run over time, or not get a lot accomplished. Some might question the motives of ESL students in the writing center, this research is not complete with enough data to include that category.
Conclusion:
The reasons for coming to the Writing Center vary upon grade level and assignment. Freshmen come to be tutored either by requirement or a last hope to pass a course. Freshmen are insure with their writing, and often do not understand the assignment, they have to be guided through their entire paper. They ask vague questions and require more time with their tutor. Some students did not even read the required text and expect their tutor to write the paper for them.
Upperclassmen come to the writing center eager and prepared to get a paper critiqued. They know what to expect, and ask about the details of writing, such as grammar and punctuation. Very seldom did they have questions about citations or thesis statements.
One of the major differences between the two groups is that upperclassmen know what to expect from their professors, they have the experience and sureness in their writing that make them more willing to work with a tutor. As one of the case studies show, Kendra and Christine had extremely few errors, they came to the writing center to make their presentation flawless; freshmen just want to get by with a decent grade.
While one might question differences of ESL students coming to the WC and native speakers, there is no difference of writing knowledge depending on grade level. In this study however, there were not enough English as a second language students to work with, therefore, this study is not fully complete.
Overall, there are many reasons why college students come to the writing center. Through this research, one can see that freshmen motives differentiate greatly than upperclassmen. There still remains research to be done on English as a second language students coming to the Writing center, and a larger group of students would lead to greater conclusions and insight behind students reasoning. Also, if a tutor can ask his students any questions without being offensive, if this was a true study and not observation or simple questions, this project would reveal true and honest motives, not assumptions from the tutor or half answered questions from the students.

final paper 3

Data Analysis:
I want to concentrate and analyze three sessions. The first tutoring session was with a freshman girl that we will call Molly. Molly was nervous coming to the Writing Center, and did not know what to expect from the tutor. It was her first time coming to the WC.
After brief introduction:
T: So, Molly, what do you want to work on today?
M: Um, I don’t know. I have to do a persuasive essay.
T: Do you have an assignment sheet? What class is this for?
M: It’s my English comp class, the teacher didn’t give us an assignment sheet, but I have notes from class.
T: Very good, so do you understand the assignment?
M: Not really, I never had to do this before.
Here the tutor pauses, trying to decipher the students notes, and what she needs help with. Her notes are detailed, probably written straight from the board or from a book.
T: Have you thought of a topic yet? Anything that interests you?
M: I was thinking of doing it on the war.
T: Hmm?
M: Like on why we should not be in the war. My brother is in Iraq.
T: Oh, well I’m sorry to hear that. I’m guessing your anti-war?
M: Yeah.
T: Okay, lets start by listing some pros and cons. Why are you anti war, and back it with some facts.
M: Okay. (Molly stares at the paper for about 2 minutes). I guess because a lot of soldiers died.
The tutor is frustrated by this weak statement, and tries to redirect Molly’s focus on her notes.
T: How about you start with, “The war on terror has taken many lives, so we should not send more troops there?”.
Molly smiles, “ I get it”. The tutor is then able to help the student with the introduction, but comes to a standstill after a sentence or two. Molly is just typing what the tutor says, and needs a lot of prompting. The tutor realizes that Molly wants the tutor to write the paper. Molly gave up ownership of her paper, allowing the tutor to give her own ideas. “Writers should feel welcome to explore their own ideas and find their own ways to express them,”(McAndrew 19), however, Molly was either too timid or unprepared to write her assignment.
T: Molly, I can’t write this paper for you, this is your assignment, however, I can guide you and help you with some ideas.
In this session, the tutor was frustrated with Molly’s lack of interest or knowledge of her paper. Collaboration was not an issue in this session, as Molly gave the tutor all ownership to the paper. The tutor felt that she had to guide Molly along every step, and when Molly said something, the tutor had to encourage a lot and give false praise to keep the conversation flowing. While McAndrew and Reigstad said “Writers need honest feedback, not empty flattery” (Tutoring Writing 17), the tutor hoped that to an insecure freshman who had no background knowledge of writing persuasive essays false praise might make the writer surer about her writing. This session demonstrated the frustration of tutoring freshmen, who come unprepared, unsure, and with little knowledge of the subject matter. The tutor was able to help Molly was an introduction, and three main sentences, and encouraged Molly to come back to the tutoring center.
While freshmen are harder to tutor because of their insecurity and little knowledge of assignments, upperclassmen need help with small details. A second example of a tutoring session comes from a sophomore college student, who needs help with a history paper. Kelly came into the tutoring center and threw her books and folders on the desk, unzipped her coat, and started talking to the tutor immediately. With little prompting, she told the tutor her assignment; a history paper on the novel “Flags of Our Fathers”.
T: I never read the book, can you tell me about it?
K: It’s a memoir about this guy and his friends and their story about rising the flag in Iwo Jima and the struggles they went through.
T: Okay, so what did you have to do for this assignment?
K: Ummm… (some hesitation).. find two things in your life to relate to the story, compare and contrast.
T: Wow, that sounds hard. What did you write so far?
Here, the tutor makes the student read her paper out loud, while the tutor takes notes on several mistakes, including thesis statement, diction, and some grammatical errors.
T: Is English your second language?
K: No, oh my god I know its bad right? I’m such a terrible writer. I don’t know why I picked to major in history…
The tutor offends the student, and while the student does have weak sentences, it is significantly better than an ESL student, though not as good as a native speaker. The tutor apologizes, and changes the subject to some things she noticed in the paper. Kelly has a very weak thesis, which is easily fixed with stronger, more concise vocabulary. There are several “fluff” sentences that had nothing to do with the main topic, and were erased. The tutor spent several minutes explaining comma rules, and had the student look up a website to help her understand. Whenever the tutor pointed out another punctuation mistake, the student got embarrassed, knowing that she should know punctuation, however, she took all criticism with a smile and needed little encouragement. Kelly is a high level writer, she focused first on her paper in general, rewrote the thesis, fixed some sentences with the help or the tutor, but most importantly, after a few minutes, understood comma rules. The tutor sat back and let Kelly fix her errors, and praise such as “You got it! Good job”, boosted Kelly’s self esteem and the tutor saw how confident Kelly fixed her paper. Lastly, the tutor spent a large amount of time on MLA citations, which the student never learned properly. Overall, the session was only 25 minutes because the student knew what she was doing and needed little help. The tutor let the student leave early but asked Kelly to have a peer proof read or come back to the WC before turning the paper in.
Finally, the last session I want to concentrate on was for two students who were partners for a presentation. These two students, who we will call Kendra and Christine, are seniors. They are nursing majors, and this is their presentation to the head of the department in order to graduate. They are both from Nigeria, and have been in ESL classes for everything but their major courses.
T: Okay, so what do you want to do today?
K: (in heavy accented English) We made a power point for class. We want you to proof it with us. It is a very important presentation. (Notice that Kendra said “with us”. )
T: Do you have an assignment sheet or any instructions from your professor.
C: No, this is our senior presentation. We can do what we want. We printed out the presentation for you. (hands presentation to tutor)
K: I hope it’s good. Do you think so?
T: Let’s see what we have here first, do want to go through the slides with me and discuss anything you’re not sure about?
Kendra and Christine gather around the printed out slides and take out red pens, allowing the tutor to practice minimalist tutoring. The tutor does not know anything about the subject matter, instead points out citation mistakes and punctuation. Both students ponder over any errors and ask why it has to be corrected. The tutor has no teaching experience, and directs them to a citation website, where all three read the proper way of citing in a presentation.
T: Good job! See, you have very few errors, and I hope you get a good grade on this.
(K & C laugh) C: This is not for grade, this is to graduate.
T: Oh, I think you know what you are writing, just get confused with all these English rules. I had the same problem. Sometimes it’s easier when someone looks it over because you can’t always catch your mistakes. But I think you’re ok with this presentation.
After several more minutes of questions, the session was over, and the students went to class. Kendra and Christine were more knowledgeable about the subject than the tutor; the tutor could not correct the truthfulness of the statements, rather, few grammatical and structural mistakes. Both girls took ownership of the presentation, and after a few minutes started to correct the slides themselves, which proves that they learned what was wrong in their presentation, and hopefully, will remember that in their future presentations. Though the tutor did not know Kendra and Christine’s writing abilities in previous years, they were high ability writers and took the tutors advise to further their development.
Freshmen have trouble starting a paper and the big picture of writing. Just like Molly, who did not know what to write about and came unprepared, she needed to be guided through her entire paper, from brainstorming to conclusion. Molly was insecure and unsure of her writing ability, and expected her tutor to watch her write every sentence. The tutor had to use a lot of encouragement and reinforcement, “You got it!” “You know this!” in order to keep the session moving. Upperclassmen such as Kelly, Kendra, and Christine were prepared for their tutoring sessions, knew what they needed help with, and corrected their work themselves. They were more sure of their writing, and asked the tutor specific questions.

final paper 2

Methods:
Context: This research took place at the Kean University CAS tutoring center. While the tutoring center does not currently have a Writing Center, students of a peer tutoring class helped fellow students in writing various assignments.
Procedure: This study was conducted on human subjects for a university class; therefore, all tutors had to pass a certification demonstrating safety knowledge, and had their students sign waiver forms before each session. After one month of tutoring, the peer tutoring class was able to compile information for their personal research and compare notes with other tutors.
Over the course of one month, students of a peer tutoring class researched fellow students at the Kean University tutoring center. Students were assigned to the tutors; tutors had no prior knowledge of their students or what subject matter they will discuss in a session. My topic of study was why do students come to the WC, and if their grade level gives an insight of what help they need. I was able to ask all my students their grade and background without seeming too nosey, and I developed an easy working relationship with all my students very quickly.
When a new student came to be tutored, I always introduced myself, and asked how their day was. I asked them what year they were in, what their major was, and why they chose it. By this time both student and tutor are familiar with each other and prepared with materials on the desk. Depending on how nervous the student is, I might ask a couple more questions or go into a quick conversation so that the student will be more comfortable. This way, even though it seemed like small talk, I gathered my information.
All three freshmen were insecure and shy when they came in. They all had questions about their assignment which was for the basic English composition course, and had nothing written besides class notes. Luckily, I was able to look over the assignment sheet with all three students, however, they were not helpful in anything that was not written on the sheet. One student did not know what format to write a formal paper in. After a couple minutes with one freshman, whose second language was English, I realized that he did not even read the story he was supposed to analyze. After that, I asked all my students if they understood the assignment and did the required reading before we started working on the paper. All of the freshmen could not relate to the tutor what their writing problems were; the tutor had to ask many detailed questions in order to set an agenda for the session. Freshman needed more prompting and time to get thoughts down on paper, and a lot more clarification from the tutor.
Upperclassmen were more confident coming to the Writing Center, and their reasons for coming were personal, rather than forced to by the professor. They clearly demonstrated what their problems were, and were eager to start the session. One student, however, surprised the tutor by showing up late, with a poorly written paper, and no assignment sheet. I made a mistake by asking if she was a freshman, and if English was her second language, which was offensive to her since she only knows English. Upperclassmen concentrated on grammatical errors, and especially punctuation and diction. All of them had the paper to work on already written, but needed to concentrate to the details as well as more sophisticated criteria such as headers, work citied pages, and quotations.
I always took notes at the end of the session, or as the student was brainstorming, or, in some occasions, when the student said or did something that I thought was unusual and I felt was important. Most importantly, if I did not have an assignment sheet to work from, I asked the student to read the paper out loud while I jotted notes on what to help the student with or any other problems I found. My research was uncomplicated because I was able to ask my students what they needed help on, what grade they were in etc, my project revolved around asking, not observing.

Final Paper... and my hypothesis was right!!!

Introduction:
When a student walks into the Writing Center (WC), he has expectations that his tutor must fulfill in order for him to be satisfied with the session. Many students come to the WC because they were forced by their professors or to receive a participation grade. Some students come to the WC because they are just about failing the course and it is their last attempt to bring a grade up. Even fewer students come for personal learning reasons; they have a paper due and are not sure how to rewrite a sentence, or want to make sure their grammar or diction is correct.
Throughout the semester working in the Writing Center, I had the opportunity to tutor several students in different areas of study, backgrounds, and education levels and determine if there is a solid, common reason for college students to come to the writing center. I put my students into two categories; freshman, and upperclassman. I studied their writing and assignments, asked many questions, and tried to understand their problems in writing and why they came to the writing center. My goal was to find why students come to the Writing Center, and if their grade level determines what their problems are. I was able to tutor seven students, three freshmen, and four upperclassmen. While some of them were English as a Second Language students, they have been in America long enough to be fluent. I discovered that the differences of freshman and upperclassman coming to the WC are few, but dramatic. Freshmen come to the Writing Center because they are unsure of the assignments. Their questions are broad, “How do I start this paper?”, “How do I quote this?”, and the tutor has to guide them rather than just explain. Freshmen seem to be more insecure about their writing and teachers expectations and allow the tutor to have the upper hand on the assignment. Upperclassmen, on the other hand, come to the writing center to have a paper proof read, they already know the assignment and what to write, but they have concerns in sentence structure and grammar. Overall, the differences of students coming to the WC vary upon their grade and knowledge.

Review of Literature:
As this was research conducted for a peer tutoring class, the tutors were not certified and did not have prior knowledge or experience on tutoring. Tutoring Writing, A Practical Guide for Conferences was a great help in tutoring students. McAndrew and Reinstad state many guidelines and examples for tutors as they may come across challenging students. Cheerleading and assignment ownership issues are stated, as well as a chapter on tutoring students with different learning styles and abilities. However, they did not have much on students of various grade levels and how a tutor might differ his way of facilitating a session. A chapter on ability levels aided with this research and reminded the tutor that some student might not have learned the proper writing methods. Some students might be new to writing assignment, which from this research, freshman seem to come across a lot of new writing styles and ideas. McAndrew and Reigstad mention Freedman and Sperlings theory on high ability and low ability writers. High ability writers demonstrate positive attitude on writing, a confidence when working with tutors, and focus on discourse level topics. Low ability writers focus on discourse and correctness issues. Discourse-level focus is the character of the revision that is most improved after a tutoring session (91). Through this research, one will be able to identify high ability writers from low ability writers, but most importantly, classify these two categories as freshmen, or upperclassmen.
The Longman Guide to Writing Center Theory and Practice by Robert Barnett and Jacob Blumner focuses on the Writing Center as a microcosm. The WC is where students come to fix mistakes, but also learn outside the classroom. Barnett and Blumners chapter on minimalism was helpful for this research, as the tutor encouraged students to take ownership of their papers, by the end of a session the student was able to correct his work with little guidance from the tutor. Minimalist tutoring refers to the tutor guiding the student with an idea or simple correction, and the student LEARNING to use that idea to make it his own, or LEARNING to apply that correction to other papers. The tutor’s job is not to edit, but to teach how to fix ones mistakes. The tutors job is not to improve a paper, but to improve the writer (219). A minimalist approach is most helpful to freshmen, who need the skills and guidance to write similar papers in the future without a tutor.
Persons in Process by Anne Herrington and Marcia Curtis is a case study of four students of various backgrounds and levels of development. Nam, Steven, Rachel, and Francois are all college students who participated on a long term study. Herrington and Curtis’ study show the personal and private struggles of these students and how their writing changed over time. Herrington and Curtis address issues of ESL writers in the WC and problems college students encounter with their writing. It is important to note that this was a formal study conducted between one and four years to exemplify each students journey to become better writers, not by college students tutoring other college students for a month with little training or experience. Development in this study is stated as positive change, where all students improved their writing. This study parallels the students development, with their personal experiences, that their writing improved as they matured.
John Harbords article Minimalist tutoring--an exportable model?, asks the question “does the writing center teach students by minimalist tutoring”? By making students do all the work, is it helping them develop the skills to do work by themselves? Harbord states that the role of the tutor is to listen to students, set goals, guide the student through problems, help the student develop a thinking process to enable them to be better writers in the future. Harbord exemplifies a colleagues thoughts by the metaphor of product and processing. Product and Processing refers to a piece of paper and how its made; its not what the product looks like in the end, but why it looks like that. Similarly, a student can write a well written paper if he went through the process of developing himself into a good writer. Minimalist tutoring helps to develop critical thinking, making the student be accountable for his work, and learn, rather than have the tutor edit.

Categories for Analysis:

Qualities of tutor:
patient
communicator
listener
team worker/ participant
leader
flexible
open minded

Training:
note taking
communication
ESL
multi cultural
team work
attitude



Academic levels of students/ tutors:
materials needed
community involvement
different majors

Materials needed/ used/ space:
books
resources
faculty
area for writing center


Involvement:
should teachers be involved or only the tutor?
should teachers give the tutor the assignment sheet?

students responsibilities
tutor responsibilities
director responsibilities
faculty responsibilities
institutional responsibilities

Introduction:
I will be studying the reason of why students come to the writing center and if there are difference between their grade level and their writing problems. I have had mostly ESL students which make my research alot more difficult, but it seems that even english speaking students have the same problems as ESL, ie: grammer, sentence structure, understanding the assignment, knowing how a formal paper is written.


review of the literature:
occurding to several books, freshman are most interested in looking at the structure and understanding the assignment, while upperclassman want to focus on the grammar and sentence structure.

methods:
i always asked the student first about their day, the class, the teacher, the subject, if they have any other work that the professor graded. i also ask them if they have an assignment, and if they even read the material, and if they understood it. i then quickly go over the assignment with the student, taking notes for myself to structure the paper. i ask the student if they have any questions, and what they want to go over with their paper. most students just shrug and nonchalantly say "everything, i really don't know what im doing", some are more assertive and will say " i need help with ....", making my job a lot easier. i usually ask the student to read the first paragraph, or first sentence, asking if they see any problems, and of course, they ALWAYS say no, until i point out a punctuation mistake, or that a word doesn't belong. By making the student read outloud, they can almost always pick out mistakes, most of the time, the student reads what he means to say, but doesnt write it correctly. By going over a few mistakes, students are able to realize problems throughout their paper. ive had 6 sessions with 5 undergraduate students, at least one student per grade level in the past month.

Data analysis:
My ESL students always came to me about grammatical problems. Surprisingly, my only english native speaker had the same problems. I mistakenly asked her if english was her first language, and she got very offended. As a junior, her writing was equal to or worse than an ESL. I still have to look over my notes, but it seemed like all my students have grammatical concerns, and most need to learn how to write a strong sentence.


* look at google books/ bibme.org for extra resources!

draft of mt research plan (blog 17)

Statement of purpose:
I hope to dissect the differences that students according to their grade level come to the writing center.

Detailed statement of research question: Does a students academic level determine what they go to the writing center for?


Information to gather: Detailed analysis of what the tutor found problems with in a students work, the grade level of student, and what the student thinks they need help with.

Preliminary list of sources:
Persons in Process by Anne Herrington and Marcia Curtis
observation of students


Plan for gathering information:
Asking the student why they came to the writing center for, trying to see what their writing problems are, and seeing if a senior student comes to the writing center for the same reason as a freshman student.