On the issue of censor

Sherwood's article on the potential dangers of exercising censor touched me deeply. It is indeed true that although we are taught to pay the utmost respect to students and their writings, we as writing consultant also seem to share a common idea of what is and is not acceptable in academic writing. Either through our training or our absorption of academic values, we are always concerned about expressing ideas that could be potentially offensive, sexist or racist etc... Yet it is important to notice that NOT all good writers uphold such notions equally. I've read papers that are very, very well written but contain full of politically/religiously charged bias. That, however, doesn't mean that we can feel free to take away their freedom of speech. By doing so we are violating one of humanity's most natural rights. Although we are "trying to help the student" because we think that such writing would give them into a lot of trouble, we should also remember that more often than not, the students who are confident and reckless enough to write such things are also confident and reckless enough to accept criticism the world can throw at them. Sometimes it is the best form of learning. Holding students back from expressing their beliefs could be detrimental to their academic development.

This reminds me of my Vietnamese education and of my primary reason to come to the United States. Back home, teachers act as constant and watchful overseers and enforcers of the state's doctrines. They ensure that students will only say what they are allowed to say, and that revolutionary ideas are suppressed with extreme prejudice. I remember well the frustration of such mental imprisonment. Consequently, I would not travel half way across the Earth to enact such censorship on students again.


It is true though that sometimes students are not sure of what they are saying and thus they put much faith in writing consultants. In such case I think the best course of action is to inquire a little deeper to see if the students' beliefs are adamant enough to hold up on their own. If yes, we should do what we are supposed to do: helping them articulate their ideas. If not, we could offer a more careful approach and encourage students to go deeper in their beliefs. By doing so we eliminate the risk of censorship and we encourage pro-active learning.

Interview with Academic Skills Center tutor

As stated in my last blog post, I have been asking myself question on how to improve the writing center. How can we gather feedback from students? How can we use that information to better serve our goals of making better writers? Has anyone put such ideas to good use?

In order to find out more about how our peer departments solicit feedback from students, I scheduled a meeting with a friend, Ryan, who was a tutor at the Academic Skill Center. We had a long talk over an hour and what he said really interested me. Basically, according to him, Academic Skill Center operated upon a strict and highly structural system of feedback from students. At the end of each tutoring session, the tutor would give the student a sheet of paper containing the link to the online evaluation form. There the students would take about a few minutes to rate the tutoring session and the tutor, as well as giving their own recommendations. The evaluations would then go directly to the overseer of the Academic Skill Center, and they would be entered into the tutor's specific service record. Not only did this practice help the Academic Skill Center improve itself, it also sped up promotion or demotion in the Center. "That way we are able to distinguish the great tutors from the bad ones, if there is any", Ryan said. Interestingly enough, Academic Skill Center tutors don't work permanently. Employment in the Center is merit-based. The head staff of the Center decides which tutors will continue to work next year based on the students' evaluation and their own evaluation. Ryan referred to this as "being called back". Obviously, evaluation is vital to the employment and promotion of the tutor. It helps maintain fairness in the workplace and instills motivation in the tutors to work hard and to be responsible.

On a side note, Ryan also mentioned the overseer of the Center could sometimes drop in suddenly and watch the tutoring session to get an idea of the tutor in question. This system of monitoring is thus highly structural and instrumental to the principles of the Academic Skill Center.

Ryan also mentioned the Speech Center employed a similar system, but he could not specify.

It is such a great system and its incorporation would greatly benefit the writing center.

Possible suggestion for the writing center

Throughout the whole class and my shadowing experience, there was a consistent idea that has been hammered into my head: that a critical element in the success of the consulting session lies in the writer-consultant relationship. Needless to say, it consisted of several things, from the initial greeting to the actual written commentary. Every discussion we have had so far has been on how the writer could better perceive his/her own writing and how or what he/she could learn more after the consulting session. In the end, I personally think it all boils down to what the writer thinks about the session and the tutor. Indeed, the consulting session is a learning experience. If the writer does not think positive of it, how can he/she feel motivated to become a better writer? Simply put, the skill of the writing consultant and the quality of the session is determined by what the writer thinks or how he/she feels after leaving the writing center.

Yet important as it is, to my knowledge the writing center has no system or procedure to obtain request from students. If any, it's in the form of good-bye talking between the student and the consultant. How can we determine the success of that session then? By the consultant's gut feelings, which are prone to misjudgment? How can we separate the good consultant from the exceptional ones, since what determines their successes and skills lies with the student? Even worse, how can we improve the writing center if we don't know what people are saying or talking about us? I think the writing center might need some ways to felicitate feedback from students writer. It would benefit everyone greatly. First, it shows that students' opinion is highly value and that we regard the consulting session highly. Second, it helps us better improve the writing center. Third, it can serves as an indicator to the skill of the writing center and felicitate promotion. How we are going to do that is the big question here. I will ask around our peer departments like the academic center and see what they are doing. If we can put it together it can become a big reformation project for the writing center.

A mark of readiness

I've always felt a little anxiety whenever we went for the out-of-class projects, whether it be with the high school students or with the Boys and Girls Club. The first consulting session with the high school student went out smoothly, yet I was still feeling a bit tense, since I was still new to the "job" and did not know much to do. This time it has changed. I came to the last consulting session feeling very easy. Part of it had to do with me knowing exactly what to expect and the rest was the confidence honed through training and many shadowing sessions. I met with my student again. When I called her by her name, she was pleasantly surprised that I still remembered. Maybe that's something I should keep in mind from now on: always call the writer by their name when it is appropriate to do so. She had THREE drafts that needed help with. Based on what I had learned about prioritizing, I knew there was no way I could adequately help her with all the three. So I asked her which one she thought was the most important. She pulled out the one where she described her most important accomplishment up to date: relearning Spanish. Upon finishing reading, I told her that she accomplished two things instead of just one: learning English and relearning Spanish. That was something she did not see in her own writing. We made some changes in order to highlight the most important points. Seeing the significance of her own successes that she had not discovered before made her feel much more confidence. I was very glad that I could instill such good feelings in my writer. With the 10 minutes left we went briefly through her second draft. At the end of the session she was confident that she could revise the third draft herself based on what we had worked on together.

When we were leaving, Emily asked me how I felt, for she knew I was not comfortable working with the Boys and Girls kids. I told her and Ms. Dolson that it was "just as expected", if not just like textbook. That was something I was trained to do and has become familiar with. I could see that the same could well be said for all of us. Ms. Dolson was right. I am ready to be a writing consultant.

ESL writers: what works and what does not

It's good to have Dr. Nuray in our class today. It was very engaging and, in a way, surprising. Dr. Grove started by speaking out loud in Turkish. For a moment we were all startled and confused. I personally found it funny. She continued speaking in Turkish while giving out hand gestures. We had to rely on the latter to glint a hint of what she wanted us to do. Later we learned how to exchange greetings in Turkish. It was quite fun, but Dr. Grove later explained, in English, that the feelings we had at the beginning of class was exactly what most ESL student experienced here: confusion, being overwhelmed, being alienated. That were the first and most difficult challenges for them.

Later, Dr. Grove moved on to answer our questions. The first two issues were priority and grammar. What Dr. Grove revealed to us proved to be one of the most unorthodox practices we had heard so far. She explained that for ESL student, we were not simply writing consultants, but also teachers. We were the only ones who could tell them that they were now in America, and that that fact elicited a new way of writing that they would have to learn. Therefore we needed to be more directive. We should not use suggestions. It will further confused students since they would not know what the options were. It made a lot of sense, but it clearly moved away from the textbook instructions of being suggestive. What works for native speakers clearly do not work for ESL speakers then.

The rest of the class was devoted to watching an interview video Dr. Grove made. It described in detail the problems of ESL speakers and how we should best address it. Overall it was very instructive. It shed lots of light on my understanding of ESL speakers, and of myself.

Classes like these were so educational. I wish we will have more of these.