October 4

I returned your response essays - you did a great job on these - and we talked over talked through the kinds of difficulties students generally have when composing response essays. I also pointed out that response essays are a model of one of the primary moves academic writers make - where they create a conversation with another text. Ryan and Musheerah have consented to let me post their essays as models - so they will be available (for a limited time only) as links on this site.

We then talked briefly about how to take good notes on coaching sessions. Your purpose for taking notes it to provide "evidence" for new theories about how and why writers develop their writing - and how coaching affects the process. To gather this evidence - you need to write down the particulars about the actors, actions, contexts and consequences of writing center sessions. After developing a quick list of some of the observations you might note - you conducted short sessions on developing a response to North's 2nd essay - "Revisiting 'the idea of a writing center'." We talked briefly about in between sessions and you seem to be doing a great job of taking detailed, descriptive notes.

For Wednesday:
Blog 7: What was your experience of taking notes on a writing session? What do you think it is most important to write down about what happens in a writing session?
Read: McAndrew and Reigstad, 89-102, "Tutoring different people," & "Minimalist Tutoring" by Jeff Brooks, 219-224.
Write: A draft response to North.

Good class and see you on Wednesday.