come

to the writer with a wealth of paper-specific comments those of organization,

thesis, topic sentence, textual support and conclusion consistency are some of the most covered everything? Am I appropriating the students writing? Is he learning anything more than what I think his paper should look like? Hindsight tells me that those

Stuck in the Middle Philosophy Statement Exploratory Draft

In an effort to feel completely prepared for a conference with a writer, I typically

Jacob Fuerst WRD396 10/8/12

10/13/12 12:55 PM Comment [1]: Hello Jacob!

Of course, thank you for letting me take a gander at your UCWbL philosophy exploratory draft. FYI: if I see any sentence-level or grammatical issues, I highlight them in green. Otherwise Im looking forward to reading this! -Mo

common. And oftentimes, these comments fly by in a matter of minutes. How have I already conferences dominated by my voice and my voice alone are the ones that exemplify the to conferencing with active determination. Perhaps it is not my intentions that need

UCWbLs philosophy least. So whats the problem, then? Ive read countless articles about

proper writing tutoring; I avoid appropriation and a my way or the highway approach

philosophical overhaul; perhaps its the way I enact those intentions that can lead me on a grab. Its not as if I never catch that carrot, either. The trouble is that when I do, I cannot just as elusive to me as the reasons a meeting did not thrive as I wouldve hoped.

wild goose chase, pursuing a dangling carrot that may never gets close enough to my face to always articulate why. The strategies, the things that went right during a conference, can be After conferencing, I want a writer to feel like their paper, had they been assigned to

rewrite it, would have been easier to write and would have been stronger overall. I suppose thats one way to quantize my post-appointment wish for writers. And after reading that statement, though, Im not sure I completely agree I really want a writer to better go more smoothly and produce something even stronger. I have found that by understand their writing process, so that if they were to do the assignment over, it would

10/13/12 12:55 PM Comment [2]: I love this carrot analogy youre developing. However, Im still not entirely sure what the carrot is supposed to represent. Is it your philosophy? Is it the writers ability to learn holistically? You may want to play around with this meaning as you continue to brainstorm. 10/13/12 12:55 PM Comment [3]: Youre not sure you completely agree with what?

Jacob Fuerst WRD396 10/8/12 understanding how someone wrote a piece, I can more clearly realize the direction the writer wanted to go with it. Linda Flower and John Hayes Problem-Solving Strategies and the Writing Process defends this practice, describing protocol practices that aid in analysis used in this essay documents exactly why I find value in helping writers opening the writing process up to increased self-awareness (451). The protocol

understand their process: it shows that some writers have a limited variety of techniques they use as they write. Moreover, these limitations are often connected to an inability to home because I find myself locked into a perpetual writers block quite frequently,

change tactics when the current procedure has led to a block or dead end (451). This hits

especially when Ive been staring at the same sentence or paragraph for too long. The same goes for a writer and I during a conference, stuck on one particular item. Flower and Hayes agree that such a degree of perfection is erroneous especially during the drafting phase. Here, the writer should really be focusing on an idea structure. Building such a structure preplanned comments) and literally help a writer practice his writing process by brainstorming and focusing on content-level issues. brainstorming, essentially may actually be one of the most beneficial activities I can use

10/13/12 12:55 PM Comment [4]: Nice connection back to your own writing process. 10/13/12 12:55 PM Comment [5]: What kind of perfection are you relating to, here?

in a conference. I can circumvent my aforementioned problem (where I merely cover all my This introduces another extremely complex theme Ive seen present in many of my

conferences: the writer gets caught up in the content already on the page, not the content that could be on the page. What makes this so difficult for me to circumvent is that the writer expects help on their specific paper, whatever it currently is. They dont always

10/13/12 12:55 PM Comment [6]: I totally agree! What kinds of brainstorming strategies have you used? Or perhaps you use alternative prewriting strategies as well--what might those look like? 10/13/12 12:55 PM Comment [7]: Oh man.

jump at my broader, idea-related comments that call their current text into question. And

these content issues very often mar the meaning of a paper, desperately requiring another

10/13/12 12:55 PM Comment [8]: Look out for your usage of and at the beginning of your sentences. Its cool if you use it every once in a while, but Ive seen it a few times. Its acting as a little bit of a deadweight in your sentence structure.

Jacob Fuerst WRD396 10/8/12 look. Faced with this dilemma, I utilize a few strategies to redirect the focus of the meeting. One of them covers the first question John Bean says a peer tutor should answer in his essay Writing Comments on Student Papers a test of the writers knowledge of prompt. Even though I always have a copy of it, I find that asking the writer to paraphrase the assignment guidelines from memory betters their understanding of it (and further shows if they do not understand it at all). Helping writers better understand the prompt (and, likewise, helping them form a paper that answers the prompt) is a top priority of mine during conferences. Ive encountered papers where this doesnt work, however; a with a writer like this has helped me show writers where their paper is inconsistent. I writer will have a strong argument that answers the prompt, but may have a third body

paragraph that seems unrelated to the argument. Reverse outlining during a conference

usually have writers rewrite their thesis, topic sentences from body paragraphs, and the tangents jump out to the writer right away, and makes it easier for me to gently expose areas that dont seem connected to the overall paper.

conclusions restated thesis to check for consistency. This almost always makes unrelated In keeping with the complex nature of peer tutoring, the strategies I use to achieve
10/13/12 12:55 PM Comment [9]: These are all great examples of good conferencing strategies, but Im not sure how it relates back to the idea of generating content that isnt already on the page. Could you try and connect these two a little more?

my goals for writers during conferences are not foolproof. I still need to learn and develop a writer about ways to make their thesis more concrete, I want to be able to help them come up with ideas instead of doing it myself. I want to have a response to I dont know that doesnt assert my own answer, but encourages the writer to think for themselves. Appointments with students who are not talkative make this process even more difficult;

ways to force the writer to do all of their own work. For example, when brainstorming with

whether a writer is shy, frustrated, confused, or indifferent to the paper as a whole, I have

Jacob Fuerst WRD396 10/8/12 serious trouble maintaining my philosophies about conferencing in these situations. I find myself talking to fill the silence or doing all the work, which only serves to appropriate the process for writing. paper further. Maybe its the opposite of this that has made my successful appointments so prosperous instead of helping the writer with their paper, I helped them better their own

Hey Jacob, Wow! Youve thought about your philosophy quite a bit, havent you? I can tell that y oure really thinking about your work so far at the UCWbL and how its changing your outlook on peer tutoring. All of the themes you brought up are totally relatable and show that youre involved in what you do, which is awesome. Well done so far. Theres still a little left to be said regarding your philosophy/philosophies and the examples you use to demonstrate them. As I said, they are all great examples and I enjoy reading them, but Im having a hard time connecting them back to the big picture. This may mean youll have to take a step back and think about which one of these ideas you find most evident in your work as a Fellow. This way you can really delve out some testimonies. During our conference Id like to talk about this and hopefully some other things you may be considering for this part of your portfolio. Bring any ideas to the table that youd like, because Id love to hear more about what you think. Keep on philosophizing, and Ill see you soon! -Mo