This Is How I Write Papers For School

I haven't written anything in a while so I'm going to copy/paste this here. It will probably be boring.

Christopher James Palafox
ENGL482 – Tutoring Narrative
May 6, 2010

My Life As A Tutor or How to artificially reach a page minimum with a title that’s too long (that’s what she said)

I told myself that this reflection would be easy. All I had to do was start at the beginning and then go until I reached today. I mean how hard could that be? I was just taking a year of my tutoring life and putting it on five sheets of paper. But then I couldn’t decide where the “beginning” would be. The final weeks of class have explicitly tied teaching and tutoring in a way that takes my experiences at the writing center and contextualizes it in a way that in the very least has given me meaningful labels to my philosophies (I say “my philosophies” as if they are solely original and not just stolen from previous scholars- but don’t worry I stole them from people much smarter than myself). I mean I’ve learned about feminist theories and its different waves, but I never drew the connection that I was in fact a feminist (which oddly is totally liberating). It’s not quite like finding out that I was dead for the entire movie, but it was pretty eye-opening. Anyway, I know this was supposed to be a tutoring narrative, so logically the start would be when I started tutoring. But the connection with teaching and also how much of tutoring deals with the subconscious thoughts rising from preconceptions made me question my starting point. Clearly I wasn’t going to start when my ideals and preconceptions were formed because that would be too broad, vague, and impossible, but I tinkered around with the idea of starting with my decision to be a teacher or at least the start of my methods courses here at UIC. Ultimately, I decided to go the easy route and just start with 222 with Chartianne because it is the formal start to my tutor training.

I just realized I’m being really meta about this assignment and am in my defense going to say that I’m merely being post-modern- something we talked about in class so this is just an example of me taking something we learned and applying it in a meaningful way. (Move over Mr. Armstrong there’s a new “stretch” king in town).

Coming into 222 and having to go through the trouble of getting approval by bringing in a writing sample and letter of recommendation, I came in with a feeling of WRITING SUPERIORITY to others on campus. Which sounds terrible when I type it out (and not because it’s in ALL CAPS so it sounds like yelling but) because it seems in conflict with the idea and spirit of “peerness” that is championed at the writing center. Don’t get me wrong, I think peerness is a wonderful ideal, but no matter how much or little self-consciousness is put into being a peer, it’s hard to erase the idea of being one of the chosen ones with the secret “Key of Academia” that only teachers and tutors have. This applies to the writer as well as the tutor. For my first semester and a half of tutoring I carried this idea with me- the idea that I could never be a “perfect” or “ideal” tutor for the center because I was merely “playing peer” and not being one. But this last semester I realized that I was had too rigid preconception of the idea of a “peer.” I think that constantly thinking about how we think and perceive things allowed me to realize this. What matters is not actually having to be a perfect peer insomuch that you are equal, but to keep the spirit of peerness. By realizing that “playing peer” is not completely wrong, but also that just because I know more about writing does not eliminate the idea of being a “weaker” writer’s peer. The idea and spirit of peerness is more fluid as to allow that. Being a peer is opening up a dialogue where the writer is allowed to speak about their writing and their process. The fact that I have more experience in writing does not make me any less of a peer if the two parties involved work together in discussing the writing and what can be done- which is possible in any tutoring session. I would like to emphasize that this is always possible but not always likely to happen.

Okay now I’m going to transition to a different area, possibly one I said I wasn’t going to delve into, but my stream of consciousness is taking me here so let’s just go with it. Before I formally tutored at the writing center I was always involved in some sort of tutoring within my friends and family- I was the boy who wanted to be an English teacher and so obviously I wanted to “fix” everyone I knew’s papers, because everyone loves unpaid, time consuming work (I hear it builds character). But the “tutoring” that occurred here was decidedly not one of a peer. I would proofread and possibly ridicule portions of writing that seemed unnecessary or written poorly- which in the short-term can be very helpful and lead to good grades, but is terrible for self-esteem and for creating lifelong writers and learners. Besides this informal form of tutoring I also volunteered briefly at a Homework help/Daycare/Tutoring center called 826CHI before I began my writing center career and this again mainly involved proofreading and me offering “suggestions,” which is code for “do this or you will FAIL.” At the time I felt I was really helpful, but in hindsight (fun fact: in flashbacks I never wear glasses because hindsight is 20/20… *ba dum tish*) I was severely limiting, possibly demoralizing, and most likely not very helpful. Here is where I say I’m not any of those things anymore, but the truth is the methods I use today can still have the same effect. Dialogue can be limiting if you don’t actually talk about what the writer wants, or you misinterpret what they want. Dialogue can be demoralizing if done incorrectly because a writer feels like they don’t get anything done. And the not being very helpful thing can happen for a variety of reasons, even when you take into account what a writer wants and you feel like you did the best you could. But at least now my tutoring is rooted in theory and ideas from more experienced scholars who sound like they know what they’re talking about instead of someone who still uses “that’s what she said” jokes.

My growth as a tutor stems not only from the breadth of theories we’ve read and discussed, but most evidently from experience. As tutors or teachers, we know that converting theory into practice does not occur instantaneously, and it may in fact never fully manifest- but the ideas are always present. The Condon and Villenueva readings about anti-oppressive, race issues are ideas that I carry with me, but in practice I am rarely ever confrontational about possible race issues. I am aware that these issues exist, and while I do not avoid the issue, I do not pressure a writer into delving into something they do not want to talk about. I may simply point out a possible interpretation of certain lines of text, but I do not make it an agenda of mine to delve deeper to issues that may not deal with their paper.
Taking Charitianne’s class, and being placed as an ESL/ELL “specialist” I think severely limited my tutoring for my first semester. While it was very informative and I think I did good work, I spent most of my time honing my skills in cheerleading- letting a writer know that they can write. This is an invaluable skill, but not the only one I needed to become an effective, rounded tutor. But more importantly from that first semester of tutoring I learned how to connect with writer’s and break down the idea of tutor as a surrogate teacher because many of the ESL/ELL writers I had met with came in with the preconceived notion that I was a grammar checker and proofreader (which I am, but that’s not ALL that I can or want to do).

From there I feel like the ideas of writing center as a safe place and peerness became more intrinsic parts of my practice and that I could concentrate more on thinking about the moment- the paper and the writer. That first semester I felt like I was concentrating more on the feeling of a session, than the actual “work” of a session. Through time and experience I have taken what was once an ever present weight in my mind, so something that I happened even if I wasn’t thinking- like breathing (which apparently you can breathe incorrectly too, so I run the risk of that here too, but no one’s died yet so I think we’ll be cool).

So this was the year of bringing theory to practice which is both exciting and disheartening at the same time if we’re to look at my possible future as a teacher. Because my teaching philosophy is pretty set, and I think I know the theories I would want to implement- but only experience will tell. At the time I thought I had a firm grasp on the theories I was learning, but my implementation didn’t manifest itself until the next year. So I know that I can implement these ideas, but does it have to take so long for it happen? But to recap, as a tutor I started out as an insensitive grammar Nazi and now I’m a sensitive grammar Nazi that knows that what’s important are global issues as well as local. Obviously, I still have lots of growing to do as a tutor and a future teacher, but I think I’ve done a lot of that over this past year. The thing is I never would have realized it without these constant reflections- the way I tutor now is not something that I feel that my past self couldn’t do- it was just the way he didn’t even knew existed. Because honestly, I never stepped into the writing center before I started tutoring and never knew this sort of discourse was available. In fact, I never used to think of writing as an ongoing process- or a way of merely thinking on paper- but now these are things that I tell writers that come in all the time (I also happen to believe these things now, I don’t just like telling writers things to make myself sound cool). And hence just like I learned that writing is a process and is under constant revision, this can be applied to myself- as not only a tutor and a teacher, but as an individual. Much like how writing is in constant revision- so is an individual. And so this is me- for now at least.