September 28

In class tonight you used the techniques outlined in McAndrew and Reigstad to coach a classmate on his/her response essay for Lunsford. After your sessions we reflected on what the writer brings to the session and what the writing coach brings to the session. Writers generally took responsibility for what they wanted to work on - writing coaches generally asked questions + suggested processes to help students figure out HOW to work on their writing issues. As noted by several of you - coaches need to know something about different writing genres, they need to know how to read assignment sheets, and they need to be able to suggest different strategies to brainstorm, organize, develop, and focus ideas as writing.

For Wednesday:
Blog 5: write a description of what you did in your coaching session; you might also want to consolidate or reflect on some of what other students reported as taking place in their sessions. Use this post to write down some of the ideas and approaches you are exploring. What are you learning? What would you like more experience doing?
Read: Stephen North "The Idea of a Writing Center" and "Revisiting 'The Idea of a Writing Center'" 63-92.

Note: The information about the final research paper on your course syllabus is incorrect. You are not writing two 5-page essays. You will be writing one 7-10 page research essay (graduate students will write a 10-12 page paper). The reflective writing will be informal, and part of the short essays for homework. This will be more clear when we get to that part of the course. I apologize for any confusion.

Good class tonight - and see you Wednesday.