Fall Resolutions

With the mid-way point in the semester coming up next week, there are goals that I have to improve my Citizenship grade.  One thing thing I would like to do more is comment on my classmates' blogs.  Because I did not realize how to follow other blogs until about half an hour ago, I wasn't aware of what else my classmates were writing about.  Last week in class we watched YouTube digital stories that had been posted on Mara's blog.  I'm interested in seeing what else my classmates are posting on their blogs and if they can spark an idea in my mind for a blog of my own.  Another goal I have is to speak more in class.  Naturally, I become so interested in hearing what other have to say that I often become distracted from forming my own ideas.  Smaller groups are always better for me because I am more aware that my contribution is necessary and plays a larger role in the discussion.

Practicing Writing Consultations

Last night my roommate was finishing up her midterm writing assignment for her history class, The Reconstruction Era.  I offered to help her edit her final draft and practice techniques that I learned from readings about being a Writing Consultant and from my experiences in the Writing Center.  Because she had other homework to do, I read through her paper and made comments and mentally took note of positive and negative patterns.  Once I went through the paper, I went through the comments I made and explained why I made them.  Some of the comments I made concerned usage of the active voice, specifying pronouns to improve clarity, and making connections from paragraph to paragraph.  Corrections that I made most often pertained to her word choice, which I corrected using the "Track Changes" feature of Microsoft word so that she could use her discretion if the changes needed to be made.  The biggest issue I found was changes in tense from one idea to the next, which I know I used to have an issue with.  She thanked me for my help and then sent it to another friend who is a history major.  He gave he the same general advice about her changes in tense and the wordiness of some of her sentences.  It goes to show that having other eyes read a paper before it is handed to a professor allows one to improve problems that he or she may have overpassed.

Writing Center Shadow 1

Last night I had my first shadowing session at the Writing Center.  As I arrived, the employed writing consultant was finishing up with her prior appointment.  Because she did not have another appointment for the hour that I was there, we just talked about different aspects of being a Writing Consultant.  She showed me how to access and complete the reports that are sent to the professors and different phrases to use when writing the reports.  After reading articles about the tutor-professor relationship and not knowing the length or formality of a report, it was interesting to see how another consultant communicates to professors.  Although I was not able to observe a consultation, it was nice to learn more about the Writing Center from a new employee and to meet the consultant whom I will shadow over the next semester.

Reading the article Youth Culture and Digital Media: New Literacies for New Times allowed me to contemplate the value of digital stories today.  The article discusses an event in Oakland, California that showed a series of digital stories on various subjects created by youth in the area.  Although I made a digital story last year for a class, I didn't consider the value that it had for both the creator and the audience.  A digital story allows the creator to utilize their creativity by making connections with images and how they portray or enhance the message in the digital story.  The music element of a digital story allows students to use their musical talents to compose their own musical pieces.  In today recession, education boards have the tendency to limit the funding to music and art departments in schools.  However, digital stories thrive off the music and art to evoke greater emotion from audience and to captivate the audience's attention.  In addition to the audio and visual aspects, the message is what is the primary focus of the digital story.  With a limitation of time to express one's message, a student must make their message as intriguing and concise as possible.  This helps a student to improve his or her writing by cutting out the unnecessary details and to get to the core of their purpose in creating their digital story.  Digital stories are limited in their length in order to hold the audience's attention for a reasonable amount of time.  Because we are in a new age of technology, digital stories are a great way to enhance a student's message for their community because the audio, images, and tone create a more effective piece of work than an essay in black ink on a sheet of paper.


Youth Culture and Digital Media: New Literacies for New Times

Past Experiences as a Writing Center Tutee

In his essay "The Idea of a Writing Center" North exemplifies frustration with the perceived expectations of a Writing Center.  It is not a place for those who write poorly and need extra attention to be caught up to the rest of the class, but instead it is a place for writers to enhance their writing by having a companion by their side in the tedious and lonely process of writing.  North strongly adverses the idea that a Writing Center is a place for students to drop off their papers and have them proofread.  Likewise, teachers have a notion that the Writing Center is only beneficial to students with poor grammar skills.  My experiences at the Writing Center both at my high school and at the University of Richmond have been more positive than what North describes.  At the University of Richmond I have gone to the Writing Center about five or six times, visiting a different tutor each time.  Many times I hand my paper to the Writing Consultant and sit next to her as we read through my paper aloud to correct grammatical errors, once the Writing Consultant read my paper to herself as she fixed my mistakes.  But to their defense, I spent hours creating outline after outline, then rough draft after rough draft before I went into the Writing Center with my nearly completed work.  When I have gone to the Writing Center in the past, I'm guilty of just what North criticizes- the image of the Writing Center as a "fix-it" shop.  The most beneficial time I went to the Writing Center was when I believed I completed my paper and needed some finishing input before I handed my paper in the following day.  The assignment was to compare two challenging novel.  I knew that I had made a stretch for one of my points, but I figured I had made sufficient support after working on it for so many days.  Once the Writing Consultant read until my last point, she told me that she wasn't going to read any further because  either my last point was not relevant or my thesis was needed to be changed entirely.  She gave me advice about how to resolve my issue considering the essay was due in less than 24 hours.  Although I felt very frustrated and overwhelmed, I knew that had I gone to the Writing Center while I was in the process of writing- knowing that I was not comfortable with my points- I would have created a better writing piece.  In addition, I would have eliminated a great amount of the stress I felt as I scrambled to change my thesis and parts of my essay without starting from scratch if I had talked about my thesis and possible points of support with another person before I began writing. What I found the most intriguing about North's article was that he ended with the fact that the idea of a Writing Center and a place to discuss ideas has been around since Socrates first opened up a shop in the Ancient Grecian times.

Compost Heap

In class we compared the writing process to a compost heap and the more I think about it, the more similarities I can draw from the process of a compost and one's writing process.  In the beginning both are just bits and pieces, each with a purpose to something at one time, whether it is an idea about Macbeth or the peel of a banana in the midst of the other disposed items. The heat in the compost from the chemical process of the materials is like a writer's motivation to write and to generate new thoughts about the topic at hand.  In the end a final product results from both processes, both of which are used for other purposes.  Compost is used for gardens and to catalyze the growth of plants and other forms of life.  Writing pieces is used to educate others and to inspire readers to draw greater conclusions from analyzing the piece and possibly embark on the same messy cycle we call the writing process.

CMP Tutoring Session 1

Today I had my first consultation today with a high school senior from Chesterfield County.  The goal of the session was to start brainstorming for a college application essay.  Prior to our session, the students had time to freewrite after given prompts about things they care about, injustices they see in their community, and other open ended topics.  With my tutoree, we discussed the ideas that she wrote about to have her further develop her ideas through explanation.  We then went through the handouts about the different types of essay questions that colleges ask for as found on the College Board website- The "You" Question, The "Why Us" Question, and The "Creative" Question.  I further explained to her that the college admissions staff is looking for an essay that is entertaining and makes the applicant different from all the other applicants.  When we got to the question about career goals, I told her that I found that one difficult because even as a sophomore in college majoring in Business Administration, I do not know what specific career I want.  She began to tell me that she wants to be a nurse in the pediatric department.  I continued the conversation by asking her what specifically she likes about working with children and what led her to that career goal.  In her high school years she works in a Big Brother/Sister program with troubled teens, babysits in her community,  is part of a peer mentor program with her school, and plays on a co-ed soccer team at her high school.  We put those thoughts on the back burner while we talked about other ideas, like her response to Elon University's inquiry about how she sees an ethical problem in her community through race discrimination.  Returning to her thoughts about her career goals, she decided that she wanted to incorporate what other people say about her generous personality into her response.  We discussed how the programs that she is a part of exemplify her nurturing spirit and her motivation to try her hardest.  I asked her to freewrite about what we discussed, but she seemed a bit lost about what point to start.  To guide her more, I made up a prompt for her: "What are your career goals and what experiences and personal qualities have driven you to this goal?".  She wrote nonstop until the three-minute warning was announced.  As she wrote, I looked at the prompts for the Nursing and Health Sciences departments for UVa and Georgetown.  They both similarly asked about experiences that guided the applicant to their career choice.  When there were a few minutes left, we discussed the possibility of her applying to VCU and asked the director if she knew about the VCU's Nursing School application.  We discussed that the student search the VCU website for more information.  At the end of the session, the student asked me what I wrote my college application essays on.  I am glad that I can use my past experiences writing college essays to help her while becoming a better writing consultant.