tutors

Hello Tutors! This past unit was on error...we've learned a lot. The trick is not necessarily knowing all the parts of speech and how to use commas, but how to identify errors in a paper and how to help students learn to fix their problems without fixing them for them. So what I'd like you to do is to open the paper below and circle as many errors as you can find. Then on a separate piece of paper, write out the sentence correctly, then explain why you did what you did, telling what was wrong with the sentence and why you chose to fix it as you did.

Here's an example: This is from a student paper: Up until that point I thought Greg was one of the most amazing characters I’d ever met. It made me think about how in sensitive he was, he didn’t at all care for her, and he only cared about himself.

This is the corrected version: Up until that point, I thought Greg was one of the most amazing character I’d ever met. But in an instant, he changed my mind: I suddenly saw him as insensitive, uncaring, and selfish.

And here is the explanation for why I did what I did: First, he needed a transition from the previous sentence. He just jumped from Greg being amazing to him being insensitive. The word “it” at the beginning of the sentence was the key here: “it” didn’t refer to anything in particular and made everything unclear. So I used “but in an instant” to transition, and instead of “made me think about” I went with “he changed my mind” because he wasn’t just thinking about this guy—he actually was implying a change of opinion about this guy from the previous paragraph. The next major problem was a lack of parallel structure. He has the magic three, with is good, but because the sentence structure is not parallel, it stumbles and loses its musicality and impact. So I changed it to a parallel structure, using all adjectives.

So here is a paper for you to work on. Using handbooks or anything at all to help is totally fine. Bring this "test" with you to our meeting.

Hello Tutors! I'd like you to participate with us in our last two units as they are most relevant for WC tutors. Please feel free to browse through this wiki and read anything you're interested in, including the journals from class.

Our unit this week and next is on responding to student drafts. In class we made a list of "Dos" and "Don'ts": DO: Be positive Ask questions Address content, purpose, support, and organization Use pencil!

DON'T: Be negative Be prescriptive (tell them what to do) Address grammar or punctuation or spelling AT ALL in a draft (they'll just change everything anyway) Mark everything up and overwhelm them Use blood red...

So below are a few student papers. I'd like you to practice commenting on them. Time yourself and see how long it takes you. As you read, write down the kinds of things you'd like to discuss in a conference with a student (or have them read if you were teaching). Be sure to be specific and indicate where exactly you are responding to in the text. When you think you've got the hang of it, send one of the papers back to me, attached to an email, with your comments on the paper. There are two ways to do this electronically: One is to choose a color other than black (orange, blue, green, purple work well) and just type your comments right on the paper, interrupting the text whenever you have a comment. Another way is to click on "insert" and then choose "comment"--a pink bubble will appear in the margin and you can put your comment there. Be sure to save this, attach it to the email, and send it to me. By next Friday would be spectacular.

We'll get together again in October to discuss how this went and the next unit (GRAMMAR!!!) as well.