Liz F/Leslie TALKING IN THE MIDDLE:

“Writing centers do not and should not repeat the classroom experience and are not there to compensate for poor teaching, over- crowded classrooms, or lack of time for overburdened instructors to confer adequately with their students. Instead, writing centers provide another, very crucial aspect of what writers need-tutorial interaction (Harris, 27).”

1. Why is important that writing centers do not repeat classroom experiences?
2. What is the type of environment that a writing center should create and why?

“Tutors are thus other than teachers in that they inhabit a middle ground where their role is that of translator or interpreter, turning teacher language into student language (Harris, 37).”

1. Tutors are expected to be the middle ground but how can tutors support students who are coming with very diverse subjects in a place like the ESL center?
2. Can a tutor help the writer in a subject like anthropology or business presentation if the tutor has no back ground knowledge in the subject? Why or why not?
3. What should the tutor do in that situation?

 

“Students readily view a tutor as someone to help them surmount the hurdles others have set up for them, and as a result students respond differently to tutors than to teachers, a phenomenon readily noticed by tutors who end a stint of writing center tutoring and then go off to teach their own classes(Harris, 28).”

1. Do you agree or disagree with this passage and why?
2. Why might a student see a teacher as superior than them but see a tutor as an equal or someone who is willing to help them?
3. Why can tutors question lead students to understanding, while the teachers question might lead to more question and anxiety?

 

“No one doubts that student writers too often lack confidence in their skills or that they find writing to be an anxiety-producing task, but the classroom teacher cannot attend to the variety of worries that inhibit some student writers (Harris, 35).”

1. What role does confidence play when tutoring?
2. And how can a tutor help a student develop self-confidence in their writing?
3. Or does the tutor even play a role in increasing or decreasing the writer’s self confidence in their writing?