Post #4

The language shifts suggested in the "The Writers You Tutor" chapter was particularly helpful for me in both my tutoring and teaching. By re-framing work-in-progress as not "bad" or "good", as my students in both the Writing Center and my classroom tend to see it, but simply in need of further development as a draft, has been helpful in shifting the conversation away from the stagnation of "this is wrong" to a more active engagement in evolving a draft as part of a larger process. Helping students to recognize that in crafting a college paper in a second language/differently from how they did it in high school, etc., there is a process that doesn't necessarily end up looking the way it started out, has been useful in generating confidence in the students.

The Fei case study had three areas of particular interest for me: the student's self-evaluation, the variety of papers Fei wrote, and the description of Fei's experience over the course of her time in the university. Fei's assessment of her skills didn't see a tremendous change, but felt her structural abilities had improved, as well as her rhetorical skills. Considering the discussions we have had in class about the gap between the assignment and the student's understanding, as well as the fact that some genres of English writing were new to her, which may have affected her early adjustment work for a course versus a genre she has had experience in, it seems difficult to put together a full picture of progress. I liked the section discussing Fei's life outside the classroom, as I have found (also discussed in the Writing Tutor's Guide) that the students' work and engagement in tutoring sessions are directly impacted by what is going on in their own lives.