Blog post #6 - Bethanny

I don't have specific examples from students I tutored in the Spanish Writing Center because most of them bring written work. However, I did teach a course on Spanish short stories last semester and I can definitely see issues regarding reading skills when students had to read a story, especially stories from the 19th or 20th century. Reading a story in another language and from different time periods will take time, and it also requires students to read through the text multiple times while also looking up unfamiliar words. However, most of the students expect to understand everything in a short amount of time, which I also understand because they are coming from different backgrounds and have other classes. That is why I incorporate types of questions and assessment that Bean mentions in his article. Instead of providing questions with direct answers, I ask them questions that would require students to understand the text and also be critical about it. A question to avoid would be something like: "What was the plot of X?", and ask something more like: "There is clearly a critique regarding X topic; how does the story present that issue?"

Since Bean's article was written in 1996, I was wondering what he would have to say with all the distractions that we have nowadays with the Internet and social media, and how all that would affect our reading process.

Comments

  1. Mark RheaumeMarch 3, 2020 at 10:26 AM

    There are interesting debates about technology and social media and how these interact with reading and writing skills. I tend to side with the progressive view, namely that technology likely has little effect on large learning trends. But I base that solely on reasoning, and not data or studies.

    I appreciate your desire to acknowledge how quickly students expect to "get" a reading. Is there a way to advise students how long a reading should take? I mean, how do we encourage students to revisit readings and to really dwell on the printed word?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Case study - José

For this case study I will write about one of the students that made a habit of coming to the writing center. We'll call her Casey. This student was majoring in Spanish, if I remember correctly, but had at the same time important difficulties in understanding and writing in the language. This should point to a sort of inner discrepancy in the student's experience of her academic life, but I was, of course, in no position to recommend more careful consideration on this matter. It seems evident that she should focus on a different major. Casey came a total of 4 or 5 times for help with either reading a text that she had been assigned, or with the writing of an assignment related to a text. Both of these were somewhat challenging, because the student seemed to be uninvested in the work, and to want it done for her. She brought in the letters of Cortés, a key text in colonial literature, with which I was not fully acquainted at the time. Furthermore, she didn't have any speci...
Read more
                                                                    Options for Blog Post #2   How might tutoring non-native speakers differ from tutoring native speakers?  How might tutoring graduate students differ from tutoring undergrads (see handout)?  How does the writing process chapter apply to your own work as a writer and a writing teacher?   What are your most and least favorite phases of the writing process and why? What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of your own writing process? Of your classroom and (what you know so far about) your writing center students’ writing processes?
Read more

Case Study - Bethanny

Hi everyone! Here is my case study: From English to Spanish Since I don’t have students that I work with throughout the semester, I have decided to write about one student that I worked a few times in the semester. Let’s call her Lily. I am actually familiar with Lily because I was her TA during my first year teaching at the University of Iowa. Back then, I taught an intermediate level course. When I was her TA, I remember that she was a good student who would participate often in class and does her online assignments regularly. Sure, her Spanish was not perfect, but it was above average; I also remember that she wants to minor in Spanish. When she made an appointment at the center, I discovered she is in the writing class (2000 level) that I am teaching now, but with another TA. So, I was familiar with the class material and the assignments that she had to do. When Lily came to see me, she wanted to work on her draft for a chapter essay that was about 600 words. Wh...
Read more