Awaiting my First Cinnamon Roll

          Okay, so word on the street is that we newbies are getting put on the schedule next week.  What the what?!  Seriously, though—super exciting.  I’m giddy like you just put a fresh-from-the-oven cinnamon roll in front of me.  I’m also scared because it feels like the moment of truth; after the past six weeks of a consultant boot camp of sorts, the push has come to shove, and I’m being tossed in the water to see if I’ll sink or swim.  I realize this sounds pretty theatrical, but my emotions really kind of roll this way.  It’s part of why I’m so passionate about things like, um, being a writing consultant. 

            Anyways, as I anticipate my first consultation, I feel like I’m seeing a whole plethora of learning material converge.  What will my personal protocol for welcoming the writer be?  What if I get a student who barely speaks English?  What if I get a writer with a crazy Chemistry paper?  What if I get an asshole?! 

            What’s interesting is that, as I get past my initial panic and buckle down on how I envision next week to be, I see a lot of pieces start falling into place.  I’m cognizant of how intentional everything is—from the words I use to greet a writer, to the nonverbal communication I convey, and even the way I contribute to cultivating the overall climate that our writing center is supposed to have.  I’m grateful for this special space on campus, and I hope I can serve it well.

            As smitten as I am about the upcoming opportunities for diving into students’ writing, I’ve been thinking about the asshole discussions.  I’m not losing sleep over the idea of having to deal with one, but all of the in-class conversation we’ve had on the matter has gotten me to thinking of the myriad levels of willingness and commitment from other students.  There’s the downright terd-bucket that you just want to handle with a Chuck-Norris-throat-punch, the stubborn writer who says much and listens little, the indifferent student who was forced to visit the WC…the different shapes and sizes of every writer’s workability is intimidating to consider as I try to picture them.  Ultimately, what this mental meandering boils down to for me is this: how do I get writers engaged in the process?  I know this answer varies from one situation to another because of what each person brings to the table, but I want to be prepared with certain strategies in my arsenal.  What will my approach, in detail, look like?

            One thing I’m sure of is that I want to convince each writer that his or her voice is one worth listening to.  It saddens me to see someone believe he or she is not a good writer.  It’s almost like a self-inflicted, damning sentence.  Also, I believe it often has less to do with the writer’s potential and more to do with not having had a good teacher.  The power of words is so magnificent to me, and I want every student to realize he or she has the capacity to wield it.

            Ready or not, here I come!

We Are Scaffolding

          Motivational scaffolding.  It’s a term that intimidated me when I first saw it, and it’s because I had a hard time getting rid of picturing workers balancing on rickety, terrifying platforms to scrub windows or paint the walls of a skyscraper.  Moreover, when I wondered if there’s maybe another association with the term, I looked up the definition of scaffold, and, no joke, found this: “A raised wooden platform used formerly for the public execution of criminals.”  What the what?!  Finally, I remembered to place the –ing suffix to scaffold and found something entirely different in the online dictionary, which describes scaffolding as “a temporary structure on the outside of a building…used by workers while building, repairing, or cleaning the building.”  Aha!  This is beautiful, and this imagery helps my mind to comprehend just what it is we’re doing as consultants in the writing center.  The pieces of this definition connect the dots to create the bigger picture of what our job encompasses.  

            Oh, and on a side note: There was a profound difference between typing in the word “scaffold” versus the word “scaffolding”.  What’s the lesson to be learned here?  Grammar, grammar, grammar!  Grammar is phenomenally important.

            Now, back to each of the individual pieces of our yummy pull-apart bread.  Let’s start with the part of the scaffolding that is used by workers to build the building.  As consultants, we are tasked in assisting the writer with generating new ideas.  The ebb and flow of our transaction must evoke a sense of creativity—of compelling the writer to think critically and inventively.  Also, the writer is trying to build an entire infrastructure of the intellectual slice that he or she is serving to the universe.  He or she is building a stance that needs many fundamental parts secured in place in order for it to stand tall and proud and complete, especially in a world of flurries and criticisms that’d tear weak structures down in a matter of short moments.  As we help the writer learn how to pour a nice, concrete foundation that we like to call a thesis, and then as we continue on in assuring the solidity of what the writer has built (or is building), we are taking part in motivational scaffolding.

            As the definition points out, scaffolding includes repairing and cleaning.  This is an important charge we have placed on our shoulders because a good building needs improvement and polishing.  If we’ve helped the builder create a stunning exterior but failed to make sure the necessary support beams are in working order and free of defect, the whole thing—lollipop windows, laffy taffy shingles, and all—are doomed to collapse.  The hopeful essay will be destroyed by the gusting criticisms of academia.  Then, along these lines, if our deliciously tantalizing building, complete with a formidable support structure, is dirty, this poses another problem.  Who wants to admire and approach and peer through your lollipop windows if they’re covered in pocket lint?  Gag.  Yes, we consultants need to help writers with giving what has been built a good, clean sweep, too.  This is part of the scaffolding.

            Okay, so now that the writer’s work is built, weak areas are repaired, and it’s all cleaned up, scaffolding has just happened.  Then, factoring in the motivational part to this scaffolding means something extra—this is an interactive process that requires helping the writer realize the desire to want to complete it.  Through the different politeness strategies discussed in our readings from Mackiewicz and Thompson, we can encourage the writer to find the will for wanting.

            Lastly, I just want to point out one more thing.  The definition of scaffolding leads with the words, “A temporary structure.”  This detail is a very big deal because it means that, for all of our assisting and supporting and instructing, our role is temporary.  However it is we’ve taught what we’ve taught, it has to have been done in such a way that it leaves room for us to step out without the building crumbling.  We are ultimately meant to have prepared builders to be able to build entire, lasting structures on their own.  We were never central to their work, for we are only scaffolding.

            If you’ll excuse me, I now feel motivated to build a gingerbread house.

The Dichotomy in Bread

We’ve had some great in-class discussions this week, and my nerdy brain has been mulling over one question in particular:

How do we, as tutors and writing center advocates, balance student writers’ needs of both comfort and conflict?

           

            It seems that, amidst the list of do’s and don’ts of a good writing center tutor, there exists a dichotomy between two ideas.  For one, tutors should promote a welcoming comfort that warms writers up to the task of sharing their writing, pulling free from the sticky mud of self-doubt, and believing in themselves as conveyors of valid thought.  Then, on the other hand, we’re also obliged to create a collaborative learning-thinking-writing climate for the sake of empowering the writer, as Sloan points out while also commenting that “such a venture cannot be made without conflict” (71).  So, when a student writer comes in for a session, I’m supposed to be like, “Hey, let me butter you up, and then I’m gonna cut your crusts off!”  (Yes, I often think in food—especially bread.  I love bread).

            In my meager attempts to understand this mini-war, it has helped a lot to hear the dialogue we’ve had in class.  Yes, we must need to be positive confidence-builders.  At the same time, we must be willing to push writers to consider various perspectives, stretch, and see the cracks in their own ideas.  That being said, I think tact is paramount in the success of these dueling transactions.  I can be encouraging AND point out weak places in their views.  My pointing isn’t an irritated jab into the chest—it’s a gently respectful tap on the shoulder.  My pushing to expand ideas (and even overturn some) isn’t a confrontational shove driven by my own emotional disagreement; in fact, if my conduct is being propelled by my negative reaction to the writing, then I’ve already taken a wrong turn.  (It’s like the difference between spanking your kid to get a teaching moment internalized versus spanking your kid because you’re pissed off—one is a disciplinary tactic and the other is child abuse).  Instead, the push I give writers is an affectionate pressure placed evenly on the shoulders to direct them down a path they don’t necessarily know they want to explore but totally would if they knew how much it’d strengthen their writing.  So, what I’m ultimately getting at here is a key element to successfully navigating through the precarious tides of comfort and conflict and their tendency to collide, and that key element is…wait for it…drum rolls…emotion!  Ta-dah!

            Let me explain. Brand’s essay packs a powerful one-two punch on the importance of emotion in writing.  To this I say, since emotion is such a heavyweight in the processes of creating meaningful writing, then there must be something to its potential in having a profound impact in the process of teaching writing.  Everything in our mannerisms—the smile we give, the inviting gestures in our body language, the interest and attentive respect in our eyes—is powerful.  This should not be overlooked or underestimated.  While we’re saying what we’re saying during a session, the display of our emotions happens simultaneously through our behavior and the ways we choose how to say what we’re saying.  It’s like a tune is being carried on a different frequency and sent across while words are travelling in the air, and the writer can discern both because emotion-speak and spoken language can harmonize. While we are piloting the writer through the cliffs and mountains of thinking critically about what he or she is trying to write, everything in our emotional language is reassuringly saying, “Wow.  You are awesome.  I like listening to you, and I desire to help you figure out how to best make your point because people should hear you.” 

Today I got to be Wallpaper

            “Hi Sierra.  Would it be okay with you if I tagged along during your consult?”  “Absolutely!  You’re most welcome to.  Pull up a chair,” she responded.  Nervous and eager, I followed Sierra and her patron into the cubicle.  I wriggled my chair back into a corner, thinking myself to be still as a fly on the wall—a little observer making way for big things to happen between writer and peer tutor. 

            In the several minutes that followed, wonders unfolded.  Yes, the consultant was velvety smooth in her transitions between complimenting, offering empathy, and constructively pointing out spots for improvement on the pages.  She navigated through his thesis and supporting thoughts gracefully.  She helped him thread his overarching meaning more seamlessly and evenly throughout his writing.  She listened.  Oh, how she listened!  There was no passiveness to the way she sat and let his dialogue take the stage; she listened to him in a way that made him feel like she’s is doing more than just hearing him; she is understanding what he is expressing.

            Throughout their exchange, my own insides turned many colors.  First, I was timid and nervous.  Then I was captivated.  My mind began swirling with ideas and as it darted between her and him and them and the pages they were carefully bent over.  I became almost reverent, considering the ideas of my own approaches to another’s writing process someday.  It was, in a way, a courtship—the giving and receiving of parts of one’s self, in the mutually agreed context of honesty, and reaching for a better relationship between the writer’s words and his heart.

            Comfortable as a plain strip of wallpaper, I sat back and enjoyed the different passings of this experience.  Then I focused my attention on Mr. Student Writer.  There he was, anxiously reaching out for Sierra’s expertise.  He was uncertain about this and that.  He struggled to put his point in the rights words during the conclusion paragraphs.  He was proud of the personal experience he was brave enough to share on page four.  And, through each moment, he was given a guiding response that provided clarity, often even in such a way that he found himself doing his own clarifying. 

            There I was, meticulously observing the writer (furtively, of course—I didn’t want him to think I was a creeper!), amused by the movement of the consulting process, when I suddenly realized something amazing.  This young man stepped into the writing center with an insecure countenance and sweaty palms that he tried to wipe inconspicuously on his jeans.  When he was led into the cubicle, he nervously rambled about how this piece of writing was his eleventh draft, and he just can’t seem to get it right.  Then he sat down.  Then the consultant took his writing and, with much optimism and resolve, assisted him through the process of revision.  What was especially remarkable, too, was that she not only helped to revise his writing—she taught him how to think like he was his own reviser.  Towards the end of the session, he was reading aloud certain parts of his own draft and correcting them; he switched this phrase for that, scratched out something redundant, and saw where he needed to elaborate.

            Then it hit me so blatantly that I had to control my palm from smacking my forehead and exclaiming “Duh!”  The satisfying click in my mind had unhinged a flooding moment of insight.  THIS is what is meant by the idea that tutoring is less about the writing and more about the writer.  The progress that the student writer made that day is what’s paramount; he improved his thinking process as a writer in such a way that he was able to revise his own writing, and this is a valuable skill because he can generate an internal dialogue of revision from within.  Fulwiler’s words happened this day: “Teaching writing is teach re-writing.”

Knowledge Has a Heartbeat

           My first week as an intern in the writing center was a lot of things.  For one, it helped to dispel my fears of the unknown.  Those who work there are lovely people!  The atmosphere is warm and accepting.  I appreciate the kindness that abounds, and I love the passion everyone there has for English in all its beautiful ways, shapes, and forms.  Also, I was amused to notice how dorkishly giddy I was when a few students came in for a consultation.  I’m excited for it to be my turn to welcome someone into a cubicle and delve into the writing process.

            In the classroom, I learned much from discussions over the reading materials, and one of my favorite ideas was the concept of knowledge Bruffee discusses in his writing.  I’m intrigued by his description of knowledge and how “knowledge is the product of human beings in a state of continual negotiation or conversation” (214).  He therefore describes education as, rather than something to be obtained, to be “a process of learning to ‘take a hand in what is going on’ by joining ‘the conversation of mankind’” (214-15).  Amen, Mister Bruffee!  His description of knowledge and education compels me to rethink how I think about the things I know.  Instead of viewing knowledge as a finite substance, it seems to now take on a three-dimensional, kinetic energy that inhales and exhales as a life of its own, shifting and evolving as it’s fueled by social contributions.

            Both Bruffee and Wingate point out how this active temperament of knowledge rubs the current conventions of our education system the wrong way.  As a whole, mainstream students are instructed under a fundamental tenet of viewing knowledge as cold, hard, facts that are inanimate and unforgiving, and that calculate the breadth of someone’s intelligence by seeing how many facts were practiced correctly.  It’s a sad reality but also a common one, so it helps me to prepare myself for the mindset of many (if not most) of the students I will someday be peer tutoring.  This all makes me wonder, “How can Bruffee’s description of knowledge influence my methods as a tutor?  How can I help students reach beyond the confines of the old ways of thinking about knowledge and realize their capacities and responsibilities in being a part of the conversation of mankind?”

            In one of our class discussions, it was pointed out that many, many students enter the writing center with an almost obliterated sense of confidence in their writing.  More than anything, this self-imposed handicap came from negative remarks they’ve received about their work—remarks that were often dished out from instructors who subscribe to the rigidities of right and wrong, grammar mistakes equal poor writing, and so forth.  The way I see it, the only shortcoming of these students is their lack of experience in having the great types of conversations that translate into strong writing.  And, of course, this isn’t their fault!  Therefore, as a hopeful tutor-to-be, I want to target that outdated thinking and blast away!—kindly, of course.  I want to immerse them in the evolved, collaborative art of knowledge by engaging in meaningful conversation with them about their writing.  If I can generate in them a momentum towards thinking like useful contributors to the dialogue, then I think this can help wriggle their confidence out of the mud and into the place where they work, respectably, as creators of knowing.