Monday, Septemebr 15

You began class by writing about a "bad" experience with writing - a time when your writing did not turn out - or wasn't received - the way you hoped. Problems included not having a clear understanding of instructor or genre expectations; not having useful feedback on what to do; procrastinations; not being able to connect to the topic; and having too much going on in your life to do the project the way you envisioned it. After discussing your experiences we talked about what kinds of coaching might have enabled you to move forward with your work - and to have a more successful outcome.

In talk about the reading assignment we pointed out the complexity of the writing process, and observed that it is important for writing coaches to understand these different parts of writing => because they need different strategies to support writers who are "stuck" in different parts of the process. We talked about cultural differences in expectations about the "right" way to write, and noted that it is important to assure students that our coaching is not about the "right" way - but about how to write to the expectations of a particular assignment. In the discussion of the three approaches to tutoring - student centered, collaborative, and teacher centered - we noted that while student centered coaching provides the most active role for the student, in some cases, particularly when students do not know or know how to find a particular piece of information, teacher centered or collaborative tutoring will be important.

The assignment for Wednesday is (almost)correct as listed on the calendar. The only revision is that in addition to turning in your summary of Lunsford as an attachment to the ENG4070 address, bring a hard copy to class so you can work on it in a tutoring session with a classmate. Good class today!