Their main take away from the book was the concept of "thinking together" behaviors. Some of those skills inclue:
- Listening: Allow the tutee to talk for an extended period of time without interrupting them. You may find that they hit on a key part of their writing process that you wouldn't have known about if you'd interrupted that stream of consciousness.
- Respecting: Issacs described this as "as sense of honoring or deferring to someone" according to their handout. If you get that stressed out student, acknowledge where they are. Ask them why they're stressed, or how you think this Writing Center session could help them alleviate some of that pressure.
- Suspending: One way they described this was to acknowledge that the tutee probably does not have a through understanding of Writing Center tutorial pedagogy. If they don't know why you want to do something or seem hesitant, describe to them the purpose behind creating that web or outline, or why you won't just proofread their paper for them. You need to "suspend" your own thinking process for just a second so that you and the tutee can both be on the same page.
- Voicing: This part is more on the tutee than the tutor. The tutee has to be willing to engage in a dialogue with the tutor if they are going to be able to work on the writing together. This actually made me think back to ENG 3670 when Liz kept telling us, "You can't be afraid of silence. What may seem like an eternity to you, may be the tutee thinking through something. If you start talking to fill up the space, you could disrupt that."
Thinking together behaviors are some key aspects to how a tutor can build rapport with a student, and not loom over them like an authority figure.
No comments:
Post a Comment