With decidedly better weather this week, our writing center staff and directors gathered together once again to work on training. This week’s topic “What do YOU need to know” took our session from homes to falling leaves and back again. In case you’re wondering, here’s what you missed:
We started the afternoon with a reading, by Ms. Davis, of George Ella Lyon’s Where I’m From. Using this poem as inspiration we wrote in our notebook’s about where we are from. A few people chose to share, but as a group we were quiet during this time.
Next, we workshopped a student essay (from one of Ms. Davis’s classes) comparing and contrasting the poem Ithaka by, CP Cavafy and Homer’s epic The Odyssey. Ms. Davis, Ms. Ruark, and Mr. Pittis prefaced the workshop session with the idea of EDIT vs REVISE. Our goal, as tutors, is to help students REVISE. As pointed out by one of the students, this means “substantial change” in a piece. The directors were very impressed by the group’s observations about transitions, structure, and purpose in the essay. Students seemed to have a natural idea about tutoring. This discussion led the directors to point out that WC staffers will never be expected to be copy editors, bleeding in pen on student work.
One of the concerns several students had expressed was that they aren’t experts at all punctuation or style. Mr. Pittis, Ms. Ruark, and Ms. Davis made it a point to discuss with students that editing is NOT the aim of the writing center. Instead, student staffers will work with students on substantial changes in their pieces. We can’t be sure, but it looked as if there were some relieved faces when this news came about.
Even though it’s a few weeks until we cover running a session, here are some things that the students and editors discussed today. Tutors should …
look for positives in student work
ask students what they want to work on in order to focus sessions
choose one or two major issues to address with students
NOT be copy editors (but if there are patterns in misuse of language, point them out)
We ended today’s session with poem shared by Mr. Pittis. He quickly explained that it could not be read out loud, so he handed out a sheet with this poem by e.e. cummings. Do YOU get it?