Untitled: Because I Can't Think of a Clever or Representative Title Yet

I don’t know why, but every time I am in the writing center I end up at the desk because everyone else is in consultations. Because of this, and feeling intrusive if people don’t ask if I want to sit in, I have not sat in on a consultation in a week or two, but I have heard debriefings and that is what I would like to talk about.

When I get into the writing center at 10:00 AM on Tuesdays and Thursdays Max is typically still there. This past week he left a little later because he was debriefing an hour-long appointment with TJ. They were still talking about the appointment when they came out of the OWL and then everyone in the writing center at that time, because it was slow, briefly discussed the appointment. While I was not there for the appointment or the official debriefing I am using this as my example for this week’s journal.

From what I gathered in this discussion the student was ELL who was writing a movie review for a class assignment. Max said that even though it was an hour long, there was little communication between them because the student struggled with English and wouldn’t respond to Max speaking in Spanish to help. This piqued my interest because one of my biggest fears in consulting is the student and I not being able to understand one another. I am hard of hearing to begin with and for some reason my brain doesn’t process accents as well as I wish it would. My fears are that the student will feel like I am mocking them or think that they are the problem when it is my inability holding us back. This is relevant for all students and consultations, but something I am most worried about with ELL students.

I asked Max how he handled a consultation that he described as awkward and a little painful because of the lack of communication. He said that he asked the student as many leading questions as possible, speaking in both English and Spanish when there was a particularly difficult academic English word, and eventually had to move to more directive methods of tutoring (directive wasn’t a word he used, but one I apply to all that he told me). I guess the student added lines from a brochure in his writing without citing them. Max said he had to explain to the student that the quotes needed to be edited away or cited. There were a few more concerns Max had during the consultation, but he said ultimately that even though it was awkward and hard that sometimes consultations just don’t go well and that isn’t the fault of anyone involved. The whole interaction with Max where he was explaining and reflecting was extremely important for me, because even though I didn’t sit in on the consultation, I was able to hear how he handled it and why. He explained that he didn’t know of anything else he could have tried with the student and that he hoped the student learned anything that would help him revise. I am relieved that someone I believe is so good at his job can even too have a difficult consultation or situation.

Knowing that Max tried a lot of the skills and tactics we have been reading about, and also knowing that I believe he is fun and awesome and likely fantastic at writing center work, I believe that I can make my way through any consultation. The goal, of course, is to help the student in any way we can, and I know from teaching that the people who come through our doors are sometimes enthusiastic, sometimes able and ready, and other times none of the above for any variety of reasons. Not everything is going to go well and my anxieties are legitimate but also inevitable. There will be days when the student next to me and I are not functioning well together, but I will do my best to help them, and debrief with lovely writing center friends after.

I don’t know if this counts as an observation or journal, but I hope it does, because this was an important experience to have been relayed to me! Also, in other news, this past week of my TEFL course was grammar and lexis and (because no where is as awesome as here) I had five grammar quizzes to do. I made it through the week and the quizzes thanks to some help from Skyler and a growing awareness of what makes up all these sentences I am reading and writing.

In other other news, it is great to have you back! I hope you are feeling better and I can’t wait to set up my additional 503 tasks and duties.

Affect Feels

So this has been yet another up and down week. The quote from Brand’s piece that you had us analyze was an important one for me while reading and still now:

“Pure meaning is endowed with images and connotation. Pure meaning is saturated with affect. But the profession sidesteps this” (437).

My biggest struggle (besides grammar) after enrolling in this master’s program has been learning about the ways academia talks about anything it deems… irrelevant? And emotion seems most definitely… irrelevant?

Emotion has played a pivotal role in the ways I have been thinking and writing for my entire life, and is thus essential to writing itself. From the anxieties of emailing instructors to the safety of a never-sent letter saved in the depths of a dead laptop, writing emerges in elated days where words ripple through my thoughts like the wind on grassy hills in Ireland or trudging along with me in the darkness of worried nights and poorly-written poetry. Pursuing this degree has made me realize that writing is my life and the way I process and feel anything. But academia generally says writing is meant to be logical. Writing is objective, structured, and information laden—never emotionally exploratory, or anything like that. However,

“We need reminding that the very idea of being both human and impartial is a contradiction in terms” (Brand 438-9).

Writing may have helped me through my life in ways similar to that of a great friend, but I have come to realize this is a rarity. I believe writing and emotion to be innately tied. But for professionals, students, and people generally writing is a means to an end. For them writing is not a subject of study, let alone something to seek help with. The histories of composition, writing centers, psychology of learning, and rhetoric meet with the knowledge in fixed or growth mindsets.

I have spent years long past believing logic ruled the world, tampering down my own emotions. I have seen what I like to think of as the other side, obscured in darkness by a societal norm that “emotional neutrality is… morally the most advanced” (Brand 438). But emotion won me and now I fight for it. And, yet, another lesson I am continuing to learn in classrooms and the writing center is that emotion can win other people—and students, specifically—in emotional ways, sure... in fearful, anxiety-ridden ways.

This week in the writing center I was sitting behind the desk all worried about forgetting some part of the process. A student came in and as I was setting up an appointment with him he asked me what “Is this a required visit?” meant. I explained it in the first terms that came to mind (and may not have been the proper ones) and asked if he was asked by a teacher to come or was here because he wanted to be. It was unfair to pit want and requirement against each other, but I was trying to explain it to him in a way that he would understand. He responded quickly with “teacher’s forcing me.”

“…forcing me.”

I tried not to wince at the way he said force, but asked no questions and enthusiastically (hoping he could see the sincerity the writing center has) scheduled the appointment and welcomed him to our comfortable couch and colorful candy. He declined politely and left for the thirty or so minutes until his appointment. For the rest of the day I couldn’t help but think about how well he knew the word “forced” and imagined all of the emotions he must have toward writing in English.

And, full circle, I compare my experiences with emotion and writing to those of any person who walks in the door of the writing center or classroom. I wish to find ways to rewrite the narratives and help students build positive emotions or experiences with writing. I also know many people wish this, too, and feel daunted by a general or university-wide disinterest in writing. All of my prior knowledge from my undergraduate degree, theory in education courses, and words I have heard cohort members express collide in frustration. Sometimes I am upset that I was so lucky to have the relationship with writing that I do, because it feels—at certain moments—at the expense of those who want or need it most.

Affect exists in and with writing—it cannot be ignored any longer, or else we continue to have well-meaning dialogues with important voices absent from them.

***

In other less-depressing conclusions, I have narrowed down my portfolio “thread” and am quite excited about it. It is still rough around the edges, but I am interested in pursuing the ways that we in academia can connect with each other in various ways that dissolve potential isolation and protection of expertise. I will continue to think about how I could use this idea or thread for my 503 paper.

Tutor Tutoring a Tutor

I know that we are supposed to be writing about the readings more but my journey into the writing center is incontestably colored by this almost paralytic grammar concern of mine. In class today I was able to laugh at the oh-so-wonderful cat grammar memes, but when I was told to read page 158 in Rhetorical Grammar I felt like I was reading a foreign language. After making it through class, eating lunch, and finishing my second shift of the day I scheduled an appointment with Skyler. We had two 303-ers sit in on what Skyler and I called “tutors watching a tutor tutor a tutor.” We hoped you would like it. We also discussed a game plan for grammar Thursdays continued and will meet regularly once my shift ends to work through the ins and outs of sentences. I am hopeful yet again, but it is more real than last week’s post; I am incredibly grateful that I have friends and supports that are able and willing to teach me these invaluable skills. I will be a better tutor, teacher, reader, and writer by taking thirty minutes each week to break down sentences and learn Rhetorical Grammar in the ways it ought to be.

So far every chapter of Kolln has been extremely difficult for me. I spent today’s walk after class from the Education building back to the LA building explaining to Skyler that I am grateful for the challenge. For the first time in years I have been confronted by a text, not because it is troubling me in an ideological way, but because I read the words and have no context. Sentence upon sentence is filled with foreign words and all of a sudden I am able to empathize (if ever so slightly) with students that struggle reading [English] at all. I am struck by revisiting this feeling with new knowledge and skills, and am humbled by the inability to grasp a concept quickly. This will quite possibly be one of the most difficult series of lessons I encounter in graduate school and I welcome it, knowing that I can handle it and have wonderful mentors.

But the record must show: I don’t mean to sound dramatic in all of this. Explicit, intentional grammar knowledge is something I never thought I would obtain. It is the apex of my imposter syndrome feelings as a future teacher of any thing English. In thirty minutes I made it through one sentence of identifying parts of the sentence and still, hours later, find it hard to write without thinking about my natural sentence construction. Why are my sentences so long? Why do I construct them the way that I do? How did I get here? When Skyler asked what sentence I would like to choose—either random or from my own writing—he chose for me and said he was familiar with my writing and my typical sentences would be too “complex.” Am I unnecessarily wandering? Do I pack too much into a sentence? Does my writing style even work for people? And now another layer of my experience with Rhetorical Grammar is born: a smile and slow nod of understanding why we were assigned the book.

As my last post mentioned, in college I was finally called out for writing in one particular way. I knew I wrote in one way… but I wouldn’t have been able to explain it. Last year Ali told me that my sentences needed to be more varied for a seminar paper and I agreed but didn’t know how to accomplish what felt like an immense feat. It is an immense feat, but now I am beginning to gain some sense for how and why. Now that I understand how a sentence can vary, be changed, or tell stories (maybe?) about their authors I can begin to help students, too. I feel empowered and intimidated by this awareness of sentence structure.

I am self-conscious of everything I write in a way I haven’t been, also, in quite a long time. I question what my fingers and brain naturally want to do and yet again I am empathizing with students who feel this way constantly. Through reading Kolln I have become opened to new feelings and ways of thinking and doing and will likely continue to write about this process throughout the semester.

As a nod to the writing process readings from Tuesday, I was thankful for yet more practical strategies for writing center work and teaching. Thinking about our own work was a great way to ground the theory and consider how to transfer consideration of process into consultations. Between these conversations about process and the re-opening of my own writerly identity I am feeling more and more prepared to work in the writing center.

Thank you for creating such a great space filled with amazing people. I also hope me posting a few days early doesn’t mess up your reading and responding process… I just wanted to write while the confusion and feels were still raw.

P.S. I kept trying to decode my sentences while writing this entire journal like we have been reading about and the way Skyler is helping and it was painful. Mental note to myself is to try to hold back this live-time hyperawareness and save it for revision? My brain hurts and my feels feel.

P.P.S. the Broadway Bridge is apparently opening tomorrow (I’ll believe it when I see it)! I don’t know if that changes any aspect of your typical driving but it is very exciting to me living within audible distance from the construction.

P.P.P.S. I wrote 900 words again and I AM SO SORRY.

The Hopes and Fears of Grammar

I never learned grammar officially. I don’t remember ever receiving grammar instruction beyond attempted sentence diagramming and the difference between long and short vowels. Grammar has been a great and unspoken fear of mine since entering formal education.

In the first grade I was pulled out of my regular classroom and put into a special classroom for students that didn’t understand contractions… and looking back I realize I was pulled out for not understanding grammar lessons I believe I must have selectively removed from my memory. I was told nothing about my writing.

In sixth grade I memorized a helping verb song. I was told my writing had hope, but was simply grade level.

In high school we began writing research papers—lots and lots of research papers. I became quite skilled in the art of academic and research writing. I found a style and used it from then on. I was never recognized for writing well.

In my sophomore or junior year of college I was pulled aside in an introduction to the English major class and asked to meet for office hours. He told me that my writing was brilliant, but formulaic. He asked me about my history and I admitted to him, for the first time ever to another person, that I didn’t understand grammar beyond the ability to write coherently. He empathized and told me to challenge myself. I never quite figured that out.

In graduate school my cohort members were all in the writing center, and I wanted to be in the writing center with them. I felt unsecure about my skills despite now knowing that I do, in fact, write well. Once I found out I would be working there I made plans over the summer to catch up on twenty years worth of grammar instruction. I was unsuccessful in that attempt.

This week has been yet another week of feelings, but also of grammar and feelings about grammar. My own students have been learning about literacies and how we acquire our languages and skills and I felt compelled to briefly look at mine (above). My writing experiences have been tumultuous and wrought with frustration and a want to be better without knowing how to do that. Reading has always come easily to me and I read avidly, but writing did not because of my fears of words like “adverb,” “preposition,” and so on.

And now we have traveled through time to this week and the beginning of our grammar specific classes. I sat next to Ariel, and Skyler joined our jeopardy group; the two of them are brilliant in the ability to identify parts of a sentence. Your game was hilarious and Monica could barely read the questions aloud but I was unable to answer any of the questions on my own. Let the record show I read Chapters 1 and 2 in great detail. My greatest fears of being this honest about what I do not know about grammar identification have to be pushed aside. After each question I asked one or both of them to explain. They both offered to help me outside of class and I plan to take them up on the offer.

Because I will be in the writing center as well as plan to teach English abroad after graduation the time has come for me to learn the wonderful world of knowing what I am doing when I write… and being able to explain it to tutees and future students when they ask. I know that the Writing Center and people you have employed are finally the safe space I have needed to catch up, and I look forward to adding the grammar vocabulary to my knowledge base. I feel hopeful that I can finally learn.