I had never heard of OWL. In fact, halfway into the semester is when I figured out how OWL is used at USI. I've only seen or heard of one session with OWL. The 'mock session' was a good practice before beginning a real OWL session. Like face-to-face sessions, I was forced to decide which appraoch to take, how directive to be, and to what extent. For very simple mistakes, I highlighted it without leaving any comments. Most of these errors included misspellings. This is a risk I had to take, since I didn't know if the client would know the correct spellings. I had noticed a few errors the client had made that were seen throughout the essay. For the first mistake, I explained why it was incorrect, how to correct it, and provided an example. I believe this was for comma splices. For other errors, I struggled trying to find out what to say so that I wouldn't say too much yet also provide a good explanation. In the mock session, however, we weren't able to continue the session with more e-mails. We weren't able to further explain any questions or concerns the client may have had. All in all I believe this mock session was beneficial and a good practice. I am motivated and anxious for my first OWL session, especially one on Whiteboard.

Throughout the semester, I've been required to read a new text of the ways of tutoring. Each text was different: Some focused on the client, some the text, some the collaboration, and others the interpersonal communication. Each week I felt like I was being pushed one way then pushed another, never staying in the same spot. Of course, each week I would attempt to apply what I had learned, often failing miserably. I don't believe whether I failed or did well really mattered, though. I believe it was the recognition and attempt of applying a new way to work in the Writers' Room. It was the mixture and change I made to each way of tutoring that helped me develop a way that worked for my clients and for me. The feeling of being pushed and pulled was, at times, frustrating, but is the way I feel in the Writers' Room.

As Matthew Ortoleva points out in "Centering the Writer or Centering the Text: A Meditation on a Shifting Practice in Writing Center," consultants are often pushed and pulled from a text- or writer-centered session. I'm certain all of the consultants feel like they're pushed and pulled, even within a session. Sessions should be individualized. This should also pertain to sessions that are only text- or writer-centered. If a session is text-centered, the consultant (as he should see from consultation notes of previous sessions) may see that the client struggles with tenses and choose to individualize that session to solely that. If a session focuses on the writer, it may be individualized to developing and brainstorming an essay and its parts and organization.

I have come to realize that the feeling of being pushed and pulled reading the articles and texts was foreshadowing the feeling of being pushed and pulled in the Writers' Room. Yet with the article by Ortoleva, I am certain that this feeling is no feeling at all; it is the way the Center works. There is no center. There are middles, middles that, like a sailboat in a river, sway back and forth, wherever the wind takes it. It is a middle we must get accustomed to, though it is always changing, like wind and water. The consultant is the wind; the client, the river; the text, the boat. The wind must work with the river to make the sailboat float, to make it flow towards its destination. It is a collaboration between the river and the wind - the consultant and the client - that keep the boat afloat, that make the session successful.

Ortoleva, Matthew. "Centering the Writer or Centering the Text: A Meditation on a Shifting Practice in Writing Center Consultation." Praxis: A Writing Center Journal. http://projects.uwc.utexas.edu/praxis?q=book/print/209

We already know a common misconception of the Writers’ Room is that it is for bad students, those who require specific and guided assistance to make up for their “lack of intelligence.” We already know that, when a student walks into the Writers’ Room, he believes his writing can be better, implying it’s not good enough. Yeah, a student with a learning disability has to face up to his situation, (if he hasn’t already in high school or middle school) but will he? I think it’s easier for him to do this compared to, let’s say, someone “who can’t write.” I think it is those strengths that outweigh the difficulties he may have. It is the “…but I am really good at X” he says after pointing out those difficulties.

At the university level, the client should already know what it is (or isn’t) that helps him. This leads us back to what we continue to hear echoing: collaboration. The consultant must ask questions, must provide statements leading a client somewhere, but not telling him where that place is. These are clearly strategies we’ve learned in class and already applied in our practice. We work to the necessities of the client. We individualize.

Today, I met with a freshman who was writing for a biology class. Her paper (filled with subscripts, scientific elements, graphs, long scientific names you can’t pronounce, and all of those cool things we English majors hardly experience) was by far the best-written paper I have seen this semester. She wanted her essay to be proofread for silly mistakes writers often oversee, check for grammar, and to be “polished up.” Constrained by time (go figure) I took the line-by-line approach, an approach I feel most comfortable with and the one I’m probably best at. I, however, find myself wanting to move away from this approach, to try something new, to experience, to modify, to mix, to individualize.

But I continue asking myself in what ways I could have benefitted her without the line-by-line approach, since her essay was well written. Trying to think of another way I could have worked with her, and in attempt to move away from this approach, I find myself returning to it. I find myself returning to the line-by-line approach but not as myself as the “aproacher.” In fact, I’ve flipped it around. I think I could have had her look at her essay, as if it were mine, and follow the line-by-line approach. I would’ve asked specific questions about uncertainties in the essay (transitions, organization, formality, etc.). I think this would have been beneficial for both of us because she was already, in my opinion, a good writer, and because most of her mistakes she caught on her own. If she were to miss something, I could ask non-directive ways for her to see corrections. I also believe this is a good strategy because it allows her to read it critically from a consultant point of view rather than reading it as her paper for BIO 127.

Editing line by is probably the most common way I’ve found myself working with the clients. I am sure most consultants will agree when I say that most clients just need their paper to be read aloud. Most students spot their errors by just listening to a sentence or paragraph. Just yesterday, I had a friend read to me the last paragraph of my essay. When I have someone read my writing, I make sure she reads it aloud, not too fast but not too slowly. I do not read the text as she writes. I believe that if I read the text along with her, I’ll be listening to my internal voice reading, and not her. I’ve incorporated reading aloud with my clients in the “line by line” method Cynthia Linville talks about.

The other day I had a client who kept repeating the same errors throughout his essay. Most of the time he would catch the error the first time I read the sentence aloud. When he wouldn’t, I would have him identify parts of the sentence. For example, he had several comma splices, so I would have him identify the subject and verbs of both sentences, and I would ask him if they were complete sentences. Once he realized that both sentences were independent clauses, he would see that the comma in between them required a conjunction, or would just be substituted by a period or semicolon. I believe Linville’s strategy of having the clients mark the errors of the paragraph ahead of time is a good strategy, especially if one underlines subjects and double underlines verbs, as she mentions. This strategy, however, requires a lot of time, time I don’t have since I have to work one hour shifts because of my schedule.

When I notice a cultural difference in one’s writing or response, I usually try to incorporate those ways into my own writing. I believe one should look at many situations, stories, people, cultures, almost everything, through different lenses. I think this helps us as writers and as people. It helps strengthen beliefs one may have, but it also enlightens one to new ways of writing, new ways of learning, new ways of thinking, and new ways of being. An understanding of several cultures gives us in insight to the people of that culture, to their beliefs, their traditions, and to their ways of life. This, in my opinion, is not only key for each individual, but especially for consultants in the Writers’ Room. In a way, we are the medium that passes cultures on. We may work with someone from Nepal, see his way of writing and reasoning, and pass that on to an American we may assist later that day. This is why it is key consultants notice cultural differences and be aware of how we are distinguished culturally, yet also as a way to link each culture to another, each person to another.

Some may think I'm unlucky that I have already had four sessions with ESL clients, but I think I'm lucky. One of those clients is one I've met with three times now. Monday I met with her. She wanted help expressing her thoughts "grammatically correct." We weren't able to finish her one-page paper (though we met again later the day and finished it) because I noticed the same re-occurring error. She was having difficulty using the correct pronoun. She would say his instead of he. By the third time she had made this mistake, I pointed out the sentence and asked her what was wrong. Puzzled and becoming impatient with herself, she pointed out whichever word her pencil landed on. It was then I noticed we had to step away from the plan and focus on pronouns. I pulled out a scrap sheet of paper and wrote short, simple sentences, each of which used different pronouns. I emphasized who was the doer of the verb was and who was the object. I think it helped her seeing simple three word sentences. When I was unable to explain to her the difference between his and her, the examples I provided did. Though it took moving away from the plan and writing examples, she was able to provide examples with the right pronouns.

Although I believe the time spent with this client was beneficial for both of us, I think next time I meet with her (which I am certain we'll meet again since she asked for my hours), we should focus on the text as a whole, leaving the tedious, grammar details later in her drafting. I think I should begin by asking questions about the assignment, what she thought of the text, what her opinions are, how she felt while reading the text, and what she wants to say in her essay. I believe it'll be beneficial to get to her tell me what it is that she wants to us to say, rather than have her ask me how she should say something (grammatically correct). I am quickly seeing that most clients only want their grammar to be perfect. I am quickly seeing freshman writers ask where they should use semi-colons, as if the more of them they use, the better grade they'll get. Many students are beginning to put a lot of emphasis on the grammar that they forget it is what they say. It is the content, not the formality or "correctness" of the paper.

In my high school, there was one classroom where no native English speaker entered. It was a room filled with flags and pictures from around the world. It was a room filled with students from around the world. One could say that when you looked into the classroom all you saw was darkness: dark hair, dark eyes, and dark skin. The area of my high school had a large population of Burmese and Hispanic, mostly Mexican, students. They never left that classroom. They never had class with American students. The occasional intermixture of Americans and foreigners was mostly in two places, the Spanish Club and on the soccer field.

My high school divided the “foreigners,” the “ESL students,” from the Americans. They made what Ilona Leki calls the “ESL ghetto.” Though I never wondered if they were being helped by being segregated, I always wanted to be in that classroom. Not only did I want to be with other Spanish-speakers, I also wanted to be with those who had similar cultures as to the one I left at a young age. Furthermore, I wanted to learn more of the Burmese culture, of their language, and of their political struggle, which led many of them to the States.

I found Theresa Jiinling Tseng’s article “Theoretical Perspectives on Learning Acquisition” really interesting because Second Language Acquisition (SLA) is something I find intriguing. Though she talks about the four major theories of SLA, I think we should look at L1 language acquisition. Yeah, we probably won’t remember how we learned – or acquired – the way we speak, but we have an idea. We learn by a combination of those four theories. Behaviorist: we learned by drill and practice. Just the other day, I saw a mother telling her daughter “what do you say when you burp?” She, from a very young age, was being drilled on what is done after certain actions, on what is considered courteous. Innate: we learned by listening, by hearing what sounds right or wrong. We learned at a young age that we don’t have tooths but rather teeth. Cognitive: like a dancer learning to waltz or like a young boy learning how to dribble a basketball, we learned to notice how things are pronounced or said and eventually imitated what we heard. And we learned by interaction. This can be done by speaking to others such as parents, friends, or even teachers. I don’t even know how many times I had to ask to go to the bathroom simply because I said one wrong word, can. I quickly learned the difference between may and can.

As we can see, the four main theories of SLA can fit as theories of native language acquisition. So, what big differences are there between the two? In what ways can SLA mirror native language acquisition? I think all four theories must be applied. This is difficult to do for many since they are unable to travel or live abroad. One great way to do this, however, is to use the internet. It is very easy to watch TV shows, movies, or documentaries in the L2 wanted to be learned and acquired. One can read books, magazines, blogs, and websites in that L2. One can even find a virtual pen pal, where she can use Instant Messaging to practice writing and also use a microphone to practice the pronunciation and listening. Furthermore, one can use a webcam to learn the kinesics and facial gestures used, as well. The pedagogy of any L2 still requires much research to help perfect the best acquisition, but I think that with the right research and the right pedagogy, we’ll be able to bring second and first language acquisition closer together, where the learning of either language is difficult to differentiate.

Leki, Ilona. "Before the Conversation: A Sketch of Some Possible Backgrounds, Experiences, and Attitudes Among ESL Students Visiting a Writing Center." ESL Writers: A Guide for Writing Center Tutors. 2nd ed. Eds. Shanti Bruce and Ben Rafoth. Boynton/Cook: Portsmouth, NH, 2009. 1-17.

Tseng, Theresa Jiinling. “Theoretical Perspecitves on Learning a Second Language”. ESL Writers: A Guide for Writing Center Tutors. 2nd ed. Eds. Shanti Bruce and Ben Rafoth. Boynton/Cook: Portsmouth, NH, 2009. 18-32.

Jumbo shrimp. Deafening silence. Serious joke. Ordinary Joe. We all know shrimp aren't jumbo, that silence isn't deafening, that jokes are never serious, but who is Joe?

He is definitely not ordinary. Ordinary Joe is the name of the Super Tutor we created. When my group was presented several images of traditional super heroes, we thought the cartoons wouldn't be good examples of, essentially, what 490 students are striving to be. Of course we will never read minds, see through walls, or read a book by just touching it, but the qualities our super hero, our Ordinary Joe, has are ones we strive to achieve. Joe's powers include mind reading, strong writing skills, lots of writing strategies, patience, sensitivity, and experience in every field imaginable.

I am certain every consultant has asked a consultant a simple question to which she replied "I don't know" or "I just don't know how to say it." Ordinary Joe doesn't have this problem. In fact, he doesn't even ask the questions because of his mind-reading capabilities. This ties in with another power, his experience in every field imaginable. He doesn't have to ask clients writing about math what the Absolute Convergence Theorem is. In fact, not only does Joe know what it is, he can do it.

Moving to what some consider a polar opposite, Ordinary Joe has strong writing skills. His strategies and experience allow him to be a great consultant, explaining the pros and cons of several forms of writing, theory, and rhetoric. Of course, if Joe can't communicate well with his clients, he won't be a good consultant. Therefore, Joe is patient and sensitive. He understands some clients struggle not only with writing but also with the regular stress they may have throughout their week.

One power I wanted Ordinary Joe to have was the understanding of the learning process. If he knew the ways of learning, and if he applied his mind reading capabilities, he would be able to know which learning method best suits the consultant. This would reduce time by being direct to the client. The client would quickly understand whatever it was Joe was telling him. I also like this power because it could lead the client to learn by himself, leaving him self-confident, self-satisfied, and eager to continue.