Yes, it's sad. Sticky rice or no sticky rice- you should have been there. For shame.

Reaonable Me: C'mon, you can do better than this! Let's just think about what you want to say and start this section over.

Whiney ego: Noooo! It's perfect. Obviously, anyone can see it's a masterpiece. How DARE you insinuate otherwise! No other class makes me do this. They just tell me I'm great and leave me alone. Why can't I just quit NOW???

Reasonable Me: Look, nothing is perfect. This won't kill you. Breathe in, breathe out. Namaste.

Whiney Ego: You're irritating, reasonable self. I'm not going to listen to you anymore. Nyyah!!!

Aside from realizing I can act like a three-year-old with a good vocabulary, the whole wrestling process gave me a little space to clear my head. I was able to focus and come up with more introspection than I had before. Hopefully, I can get that into my revision.

I wasn't nearly as radical with revision at the beginning of this semester. Now, I cut precious paragraphs and musings with only a small sigh.

My point is that revision and analyzation is often a pain, but it works. I just hope I have enough writing spirit left in me to work on my teaching philosophy. Hmm....

But of course, now I have to catch up with my blogs. Since the front desk isn't swamped this afternoon, I have time to blog to my heart's content. Could it be the reason we're not busy is that everyone is WRITING their papers due next week? Or having fun doing something nonacademic. But if they are, I don't want to hear about it.

The thing that's on my mind right now is the dynamic in the writing center. This is going to be more of a Pollyanna-ish entry, but I have to say that I like the dynamics between everybody who works here. I remember my sophomore year, people thought it was strange that I knew everyone's name. It was a little odd to talk much during downtime, and people didn't know the person's name in the cubicle next to them.

I think the communication now is definitely beneficial to the center. Aside from the random knowledge you pick up like how to stuff a turkey or the most entertaining websites to go to when you're bored, I think we feel really comfortable in sharing tutorial advice, experiences, etc. I don't think that would have happened much two years ago. Kudos.

And now that I feel like I should be singing kumbaiya in a muu muu, I'm off to do some seriour center work. Or at least click the mouse with a serious expression on my face.

But while looking at papers I had written for my other classes, I began to move paragraphs around, take out chunks of text, and start huge portions completely over to get my point across more accurately in a way I had never done before. I didn't even notice what I was doing, or that I was comfortable with doing it until I was almost done. Appropriately, The Simpsons was on in the background so I could join Homer Simpson in a big round of "D'oh!"

I think the idea of radical revision could easily be taken as complete decimation like Jeff tends to, but that's really not the point. I probably will never be a huge fan of the process of radical revision, but I'm warming up to it. Slowly.

And since this has been in my head all day:

If I had a 1,000,000
We wouldn't have to walk to the store
If I had a 1,000,000
We'd take a limousine cause it costs more
If I had a 1,000,000 We wouldnt have to eat Kraft dinner (but we would eat Kraft dinner. Yeah we would! We'd just eat more!)

Salut.

Mentally, I'm shot at the moment. If anyone mentions a thesis or a topic sentence to me, I swear I'll scream. Frontier is bloody intense on Monday nights. I've been booked solid every week after the first week. I love it, but I do get way more sarcastic and cynical than usual when I'm done. Yeah- more than usual. You can imagine the fun my roommates have.

Kirsten, what's the policy on hitting on your tutees? Just curious. Sarah White says only after you've talked about everything you need to talk about for the paper, which I think is a good policy. But how do you start? Something like "man... nice thesis. Not too short, not too long. Wonderful... Oh baby, and nice transition. Yeah, it's always hot in here, isn't it?"

Some thoughts probably shouldn't go in the blog, but I don't bloody care right now.

Going with the Canadian theme and in the immortal words of Red Green: Keep your stick on the ice. See you tomorrow.

Can you tell I'm surfing the net for political news? Some comparisons are better than others, but our country is pissing me off right now.

Really, I enjoyed most of the readings. I especially enjoyed the "boot camp" articles in the beginning of the semester that seemed to offer more practical advice. Williams was harder to read and the placement seemed less common sense to me. Maybe breaking Williams up into smaller sections and put him in with approriate readings (like clarity with the boot camp readings, the middle of the book with research methods because those readings are dull anyway, and the latter part with sentence-level concerns) would help us focus. I know my eyes seriously began to wander after a few chapters of Williams.

I would move Holt up into the beginning of the semester. I thought it gave me some great advice on how to respond to the "yeah... I came to get my paper proofread and checked for grammar" students.

Maybe also push down the readings on writing research papers (Oct 26 and 28) until after the sentence-level error section. I know I wasn't very far on my research question by that stage, much less writing the thing. Those articles were my least-loved (avoiding hate here), and I'd like to not have to read them, but we probably need them. Ick.

So these are my deep thoughts for a Friday afternoon. The center is quiet, the tutors have been no-showed, and we have a little over an hour before closing.

Random Fact:

Do you know a chameleons' tongue is twice as long as it's body?

Good night, and be of good cheer.

I didn't say it stunk. I had her read it out loud, and we talked about some areas in the paper that were choppy to her ear and didn't make sense. I told her what I thought might make it stronger and what the reader is usually looking for in a personal statement.

After talking a while, she didn't seem really convinced that a technique she was using wasn't working in the paper. I think she just really wanted to use this phrase that was muddling up her statement and didn't want to let go. I can understand that- I've held onto a lot of downright idiotic things.

Shoot- my student is here.

My question is, should I have done anything differently? How much personal response can we give in looking at a personal statement?

Ah, quick tips. I've used them in the two sessions I've had so far today. One student came in without an assignment (now THAT'S planning ahead!) because his instructor didn't give it to him today. We ended up talking about themes in the movies he watched and what the paper might focus on. His confidence was completely shattered by his high school AP teacher and he was really worried about grammar, so I tried to simultaneously calm him, empathize with him, and load him up with about 10 Quick Tips. He left smiling, relaxed, and a sworn advocate of the writing center.

My second appointment just left. She had a few organizational issues and discovered she had to put a new slant on her paper that would fulfill the assignment. So after we worked on her new masterpiece and became better people in the process, I ran over and grabbed the Quick Tips on organization to cement things for her.

One-on-one interaction is best, but I like the Quick Tips because it does the job of an editor (which, yes, is taboo) or it helps crystalize what we went over in session. It's a thrill.

Anyway, I wanted to talk about something. Something relevant.... This is the danger about blogs. I could go on forever and no one could stop me. If I could cackle, I would.

Discussion! Oh MAN is my brain wandering around today. I think I'll try and fit in a nap before I tackle the freshmen tonight.

FYI: I tutor, not actually tackle.

So here comes the actual information you need to know:

I agree with Jim that I'd like more discussion about specific sessions and strategies in our class. Tomorrow's readings give a great opportunity (or learning experience or whatever cliche you want there) to talk about particular sessions where you've encountered someone nontraditional in any sense of the word. Please think about struggles you've had and how you've successfully (or not so successfully) dealt with them. I'm really interested in how everyone's helped students "unlock ideas" or when they have any kind of mental block or other barrier.

I also want to talk about how much background information on a paper is needed and whether we as consultants show enough sensitivity to a writer's particular needs in our Center.

Whew. Consider yourself warned.

It's so easy to feel like your work doesn't need any revision because you understand your paper completely. But that's bull. We all sit across from students with very little direction in their papers, and disillusioning ourselves that our papers wouldn't do the same thing sometimes is silly.

And I appreciate the criticism. Or at least, I'm trying. What do you all think?

And just because I have this in my head, here's an ode to Ben Folds and "The Luckiest."

I don't get-
many things right the first time
In fact-
I am told that a lot.

But I know all the wrong turns and stumbles and falls
brought me here.
To this room.

See you all this afternoon!

I'm probably not alone when I say "huzah!" to not having class yesterday. I spent that time in deep writing centerish meditation... or I watched sitcoms while cleaning the kitchen. You decide.

Sarah just had a consultation where the student didn't fulfill the assignment at all, and she had to explain how to write a college paper. Whew. I'm determined to become better at scrapping things and starting over (yes, radical revision), but I find it's hard to tell others to. I've only had one case of that so far, and the woman made it as easy as possible for me by not answering a single one of the assigned questions.

So have a great weekend, dear reader, and I'll see you next week! ; )

It was also one of the first sessions I've had where I couldn't really praise right off. I used pretty hard language with her because she kept holding on to what she had, but it ended up working. We flipped over her paper, I asked her about what she wanted to say for each question, and starred what she kept mentioning as her themes. THEN I could praise. She ended up with clear ideas she could put on paper as opposed to the five pages of summarized articles she had in the beginning.

I definitely tend to overpraise than underpraise because I want people to see their strengths in their writing and become confident. I think the articles generally had good advice, but I wish I had some suggestions for when it's time to scrap it and move on.

Laura is sweet, patient, and kind. She looks both ways when crossing the street, and I'm sure she would be kind to animals if I saw her with one. I consider myself honored to go to the same church as Laura (rock on, Hope!!!), see in class three out of the five days of the week, and learn to "find the bear" in every type of news story.

Laura Aarsvold sparkles, and deseves much more than two mentions on her Google search. Love you!

Thanks to everyone else for reading this, and I promise my next entry will have relevant substance.

That actually comes from a student I saw this morning. He actually wanted to say something about the expanding gay population, but it came out with more of a Willy Wonka blueberry feel.

the "Learning to Praise" article, something I read for one of my other writing classes, and students I've seen recently have all fit nicely together into one little lesson that is both extremely obvious and extremely easy to forget:
writing sounds so much better when you like what you're doing

And if you don't like what you're writing about, find an angle- any angle- that appeals to you. Whatever I write that I don't care about turns to absolute crap before my very eyes, and I can't imagine that the reader is all that captivated either. I try to encourage interest in what people are writing, which can be difficult when faced with a freshman comp paper about something the student cares little to nothing about. Suggestions?

I've only had three sessions with ESL students, but mentioning my experience as a second-language student has helped release tension in all of them. The references to the five minutes of friendly conversation before the meat and potatoes of the session were right on target- they were some of the most beneficial of the session. And as for the occasional outlier student who does not wants to just get to work, that's fine. It happens with native speakers, too. However, I would think that most of these focused students are not going to have a problem taking control of the session and talking about their papers.

The phrases I've heard Kim or Susan use or that appear in these readings have helped me greatly. I haven't had awkward silences yet, but maybe I'm just too ready to fill them with a rephrasing of the question I just posed to them. The charts and lists were helpful.

In one session, I wrote out what he was saying to me ver batim and showed it to him. After we discussed where we could put it in his paper, he said "it isn't all mine anymore." I was crushed and thought maybe I had given him too much or inadvertently written something for him, so I asked him what he meant. He told me he had a lot of work to do and had to think things out, but reread what I had written and agreed it was all his.

Before dealing with language limitations on a regular basis, I thought ESL students and my foreign friends were sometimes overly rude and abrupt. I wouldn't have asked my student what he meant or tried to understand where he was coming from. Now I'm learning. It has got to beas terrifying for some of them as it was for me, and they're doing way more than buying ham.