Discussion Quesitons

Week 5
1. In What Tutoring Is on page 62 & 63 is the section Responding to the Whole Piece of Writing where McAndrew and Reigstad have come up with a lot of good suggestions on the best way we can react to a paper both in person and in writing. In the General Strategies for Writing Comments I see a lot of ways that could be used in writing workshops, notorious for crushing an author with their so-called helpful criticism. In number three of this section is the statement "Frame your comments so that you are not taking the writer's attention away from her purposes and focusing attention on your own thinking." If you were to make a comment about a piece of writing that did not follow the original idea given in the thesis statement, what would be the wrong way to put it and the correct way to put it?
2. Chapter three of The Bedford Guide for Writing Tutors has a list of factors that will determine what your time of a consulting session will be used doing on page 20. The last factor is in the form of a question asking "how willing is the writer to work with the tutor in order to improve the paper?" What would be some strong indicators to you that the writer is willing or unwilling?
3. When working with an ESL student (a lot of foreign languages do not use pronouns) and there are a lot of 'fuzziness' caused by ambiguous and vague antecedents (Rhetorical Grammar;Kolln) how would you explain this so that they can easily understand?

Week 4
1. In the Bedford Guide for Writing Tutors, another writing is referenced when talking about editing for grammar mistakes. In this article it is suggested that when a repeated grammatical error is noticed that one example of it should be pointed out, and then the writer be asked to find more examples of this mistake. Why do you think that this practice, with the possibility of being highly embarrassing, be helpful enough to risk this uncomfortable situation?
2. While reading Fulwiler's article about revision in St. Martin's Sourcebook, it was interesting to learn that revision can happen without tutoring if the writer is engaged in their work. By asking for several revisions, there are examples of people becoming engaged with their work/assignment. When it becomes apparent that the one you are consulting is not engaged, would you tell them that they need to do revision over and over to help them become engaged, or just find other bogus reasons for the revision?

Week 3
1.There is a quote in the Bedford Guide for Tutoring by William Zinsser that says, "Writing is no respecter of blue prints-it's to subjective a process full of surprises". So even though "...we cannot outline the writing process..." why are there so many books with so many different varieties of descriptions of the process?
2. There is a strong statement in Writing as a Social Process"A Theoretical Foundation for Writing Centers?" by Lisa Ede that declares that those who work in writing centers for an extended amount of time have more knowledge then those who work with grad students and teach undergraduate writing classes in a better place for research. If you were one of those that Ede is underplaying, what would your argument be to this statement?
3. In Rhetorical Grammar, Martha Kolln tells the reader that most of the grammatical rules that guide us when we speak have began to internalize in us as infants. So when we hear something spoken incorrectly, we know it is wrong, we just don't know why. So when working in the WC, would it be more difficult working with ESL students or those who have been subjected to and internalized mostly incorrect grammar all of their lives?

Week 2
1. Kenneth A. Bruffee's article about writing centers entitled Peer Tutoring and the "Conversation of Mankind" he puts great importance on the ability to carry on a conversation with other people. On page 210 he even says that conversation is the 'root' of writing. So does this mean that if you are not a good conversationalist, if you are shy and get to nervous to speak that you can't write, let alone work in a WC? 2. It seems that North is saying in his Revisiting "The Idea of a Writing Center" n number 1 on page 88 is that the WC should mostly be for those who choose to come to the center because they believe in the value of being able to write to the best of their ability. Do you believe that this a good idea? Is the WC really best fulfilling their purpose if they are not also helping those who need the WC help the most, those who don't value writing?

Week 1
1. The statement by North in The Idea of a Writing Center he says that all writers want to talk about what they have written and need someone who is a good listener and also knows how to talk about writing. Later on he says "...we are not here to serve, supplement, back up, complement, reinforce, or otherwise be defined by any external curriculum. We are here to talk to writers." Is this truly the basis's of a WC, or is this a huge oversimplification of what we will be doing as consultants at the WC?