Reassessing The "Proofreading Trap": ESL Tutoring and Writing Instruction

Reassessing The "Proofreading Trap": ESL Tutoring and Writing Instruction

Sharon A. Myers, Texas Tech University Myers takes particular issue with writing center scholars and others who view sentence-level revision for ESL students as unethical. -from the abstract, 219 

 This article, which first appeared in The Writing Center Journal in 2003, serves as a thought-provoking challenge to tutors who attempt to apply nondirective approaches to ESL students. It may also provide theoretical support for tutor who tend to take a more directive approach in working with second-language writers. -from the abstract, 219 

 The Foreign Service Institute has estimated that a minimum level of professional speaking proficiency (entailing the ability to fluently support opinions, hypothesize, and explain complex phenomena) in a foreign language relatively remote from English may require a native English speaker 2,400 hours of intensive training under the ideal conditions provided by the Foreign Service. A superior level may entail hundreds of hours more. According to Liskin-Gasparro, attaining a superior level in a more closely related langauge, such as Spanish or French, is four semesters of foreign langauge classes in a U.S. university provide 200-300 hours of instruction. Assuming that these estimations of the tiem it takes English learners to learn to speak foreign langauges at professional levels would at least approximate the tiem it takes for speakers of otehr langauges to speak with the same proficiency in English, it is not realistic to expect that many ESL students will speak fluently at advanced levels. -221 

 Writing is denser than speech and in academic settings requires very high levels of reading comprehension, a formal register, sophisticated paraphrasing ability and a specialized vocabulary. Very few ESL students who walk into a writing center are likely to have such high levels of proficiency. -221 

 [She discusses Jane Cogie's idea of the "cultural informant," an idea that gives the tutor more licence to be directive than the traditional nondirective one. However, this conception still does not permit sentence-level action.] [Cogie suggests 4 strategies for tutors: Learner's dictionaries, minimal marking, error logs, and self-editing checklists. These are mechanical ways for the student to self-correct and reduce errors. In contrast to this, Myers advocates the help of a native-speaker-reader, working as a tutor. She would approve of "They Say/ I Say".]

Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum, 2000. Print. ... the very term "pedagogy," as my good friend and colleague Panagiota Gounari explains it, has Greek roots, meaning "to lead a child" from pais: child and ago: to lead). Thus, as the therm "pedagogy" illustrates, education is inherently directive and must always be transformative. -25 

 In order to have the continued opportunity to express their "generosity," the oppressors must perpetuate injustice as well. An unjust social order is the permanent fount of this "generosity," which is nourished by death, despair, and poverty. -45 

 True generosity consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish false charity. -45 

 Conditioned by the experience of oppressing others, any situation other than their former seems to them like oppression. Formerly, they could eat dress, wear shoes, be educated, travel, and hear Beethoven: while millions did not eat, had no clothes or shoes, neither studied nor traveled, much less listened to Beethoven. Any restriction on this way of life, in the name of the rights of the community, appears to the former oppressors as a profound violation of their individual rights--although they had no respect for the millions who suffered and died of hunger, pain, sorrow, and despair. -57 

 [attitudes of the banking concept of education] (a) the teacher techers and the students are taught; (b) the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing; (c) the teacher thinks and the students are thought about; (d) the teacher talks and the students listen--meekly; (e) the disciplines and the students are disciplined; (f) the teacher chooses and enforces his choice, and the students comply; (g) the teacher acts and the students have the illusion of acting through the action of the teacher; (h) the teacher chooses the program content, and the students (who were not consulted) adapt to it; (i) the teacher confuses the authority of knowledge with his or her own professional authority, which she and he sets in opposition to the freedom of the students; (j) the teacher is the Subject of the learning process, while the pupils are mere objects. -73 

 Animals are not challenged by the configuration which confronts them; they are merely stimulated. Their life is not one of risk-taking, for they are not aware of taking risks. Risks are not challenges perceived upon reflection, but merely "noted" by the signs which indicate them; they accordingly do not require decision-making responses. -98 

As each person, in his decoding essay, relates how he perceived or felt a certain occurrence or situation, his exposition challenges all the other decoders by re-presenting to them the same reality upon which they have themselves been intent. -112 The first requirement is that these codifications must necessarily represent situations familiar to the individuals whose thematics are being examined, so that they can easily recognize the situations (and this their own relation to them). -114 The theme of development, for example, is especially appropriate to the field of economics, but not exclusively so. This theme would also be focalized by sociology, anthropology, and social psychology (fields concerned with cultural change and with the modification of attitudes and values--questions which are equally relevant to a philosophy of development). It would be focalized by political science (a field concerned with the decisions which involve development), by education, and so forth. In this way, the themes which characterize a totality will never be approached rigidly. -120 

 It is accomplished by the oppressors' depositing myths indispensible to the preservation of the status quo: for example, the myth that the oppressive order is a "free society": the myth that all persons are free to work where they wish, that if they don't like their boss they can leave him and look for another job; the myth that this order respects human rights and is therefore worthy of esteem; the myth that anyone who is industrious can become an entrepreneur--worse yet, the myth that the street vendor is as much an entrepreneur as the owner of a large factory; the myth of the universal right of education, when of all the Brazilian children who enter primary schools only a tiny fraction ever reach the university; the myth of the equality of all individuals, when the question: "Do you know who you're talking to?" is still current among us; the myth of the heroism of the oppressor classes as defenders of "Western Christian civilization" against "materialist barbarism"; the myth of the charity and generosity of the elites, when what they really do as a class is to foster selective "good deeds" (subsequently elaborated into the myth of "disinterested aid," which on the international level was severely criticized by Pope John XXII); -140 In the theory of antidialogical action, conquest (as its primary characteristic) invovles a Subject who conquers another person and transforms her or him into a "thing." In the dialogical theory of action. Subjects meet in cooperation in order to transform the world. -167 In cultural invasion, the actors draw the thematic content of their action from their own values and ideology: their starting point is their own world, from which they enter the world of those they invade. In cultural synthesis, the actors who come from "another world" to the world of the people do so not as invaders. They do not come to teach or to transmit or to give anythign, but rather to learn with the people, about the people's world. -180

A Critique of Pure Tutoring

A Critique of Pure Tutoring

Linda K. Shamoon and Deborah H. Burns p173-188 in the St Martin Sourcebook This article, which originally appeared in The Writing Center Journal in 1995, is important in unambiguously stating that directive tutoring, particularly when it involves discipline specific pieces of writing, is often an effective teaching strategy. -from the abstract, 173 [He responds at length to Irene Clark's Writing in the Center: Teaching in a Writing Center Setting and The Practical Tutor] Illegitimate collaboration, says Clark, creates dependency: "[T]utor dominated conferences instead of producing autonomous student writers, usually produce students who remain totally dependent upon the teacher or tutor, unlikely ever to assume responsibility for their own writing." -174 The idea that one cannot be extremely appreciative of expertise and also learn actively from an expert is an ideological formation rather than a product of research. -175 [He identifies 4 parts of the traditional tutoring view: 1. writing is a recursive process 2. process strategies are global and transferrable to any domain 3. students possess sole ownership of the text 4. 1 on 1 tutoring sessions are the best place for students to clarify their writing to themselves.] Kenneth Bruffee calls writing displaced conversation, implying that writing occurs not in isolation but in response to ideas found in other texts and other forms of communal conversation (Short Course 3). -176 [They point to student's self-reports as evidence of the value of directive tutoring. They also point to music master classes.] In fact, in "The Idea of Expertise: An Exploration of Cognitive and Social Dimensions in Writing," Michael Carter sets forth a five-stage continuum of cognitive learning that characterizes the progess from novice to expert. Carter explains that novices and advanced beginners utilize global, process-based learning and problem-solving strategies; that intermediate and advanced students shift to hierarchical and case-dependent strategies.; and that experts draw intuitively upon extensive knowledge, pattern recognition, and "holistic similarity recognition" (271-272). -178 [. . . ] during tutoring the expert provides the student with communally and historically tested options for performance and technical improvement. Also, a good deal of effort during tutoring is spent on imitation or, at its best, upon emulation. -p. 180 Three strands of research are important: research on the development of expertise (including connections to imitation and modeling) helps explain the links between directive tutoring and cognitive development; theoretical explanations of subjectivities help us understand directive tutoring and social development; theoretical explanations of subjectivities help us understand directive tutoring and social development; research on academic literacy helps us understand directive tutoring and disciplinary development. -181 The social nature of directive and emulative tutoring serves to endorse the student's worth as an emerging professional. Similarly, directive tutoring of writing presents more than a demonstration of steps in the writing process. It models a writer's attitudes, stances, and values. -184 Finally, in light of research on academic literacy, we speculate that directive tutoring lays bare crucial rhetorical processes that otherwise remain hidden or are delivered as tacit knowledge thoughtout the academy. According to Geisler, academic literacy and achievement of professionalism are tied not only to domain content and personal identity but also to mastery of rhetorical processes (88-92). These processes of reasoning, argumentation, and interpretation support a discipline's socially-constructed knowledge base. -184

Nonverbal Communication by Mehrabian

Nonverbal Communication by Mehrabian

by Alfred Mehrabian Transaction Publishers, 1972 Reece and Whitman (1962) studied the effect of an investigator's warmt and coldness upon a subject's verbal output while the subject free-associated. Warmth of the experimenter was defined as more frequent smiling, the absence of finger tapping movements, more eye contact with the subject, and a greater degree of forward bodily lean toward the subject. -21 

 A subject produced more words when the experimenter nonverbally indicated a more positive attitude toward him. -21 

 Higher-status members in a social situation are more relaxed than are lower-status members. Relaxation is also related to liking. We tend to be moderately relaxed with those we like and to assume very relaxed postures with those we dislike or do not respect. -30 

 For instance, parents referring to their son's fiancee might say, "our daughter-to-be," "our son's fiancee," "his fiancee," "his lady friend," "his friend," "she," "the person," or "that thing." These examples show decreasing degrees of denotative specificity and are interpreted as expressing decreasing degrees of liking. -35 

 Some additional examples may be helpful. A speaker describing an event in which he participated can say: "I danced," "We danced," "The gang danced," or "There was dancing," with decreasing degrees of inclusion and, therefore, decreasing denotative specificity in denoting I. -35 

 Some actions ordinarily associated through habit with certain states of mind may be partially repressed through the will, and in such cases the muscles which are least under the separate control of the will are the most liable still to act, causing movements which we recognize as expressive. In certain other cases the checking of one habitual movement requires other slight movements; and these are likewise expressive. (Darwin, 1965, p.28) -quoted on 84 

 He that has eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his finger-tips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore. (Freud, 1959, p.94) -quoted on 84 

 Ekman and Friesen's hypothesis was that the areas of the body with lower channel capacity are more informative about deception. Specifically, then, when a person is deceitful his feet/legs should be the most informative about the affect he conceals, then his hands, and finally his face. -85 Specifically, when being deceitful communicators nodded and gestured less, exhibited less frequent leg and foot movements, assumed less immediate positions relative to their addressees, talked less, talked slower, had more speech errors, and smiled more. -103 

 In general, it was found that, when there was inconsistency among components, the implicit cues dominated the verbal cues in determining the total impact. Further, when the various components were consistent with one another, the intensity of the attitude inferred from the total message was enhanced. -131 

 The first, and probably more important of these traditions is restraint in the expression of feelings, particularly negative ones, outside the sphere of intimate relationships. The second is the absence of explicit instruction on the subject of implicit messages within the framework of formal education. The continued emphasis on language skills both at home and in school is a sharp contrast to the neglect of implicit communication. -178 

 When two persons are together, the one of higher status is more relaxed. His limbs and trunk tend to be asymmetrically positioned (legs crossed, leaning sideways, or reclining). -181 

 In contrast to the earlier approaches, which sought discrete nonverbal behaviors and explored their specific referents or conversely identified the discrete behaviors associated with certain feelings, our approach relied on a multidimensional characterization of the referents of implicit communication as variations in liking, potency, and responsiveness. -184-85 

 For example, the therapist verbally asserts an unwillingness to be directive, because being directive would imply his higher status in the situation and might be resented by the client. But both informal observations and recent experimental findings have shown that even those who completely deny a directive therapeutic role nevertheless use nonverbal cues to shake their clients' behaviors (Truax, 1966). -188 

 It would seem that when the verbal component includes a denial of manipulative intent, but the nonverbal cues nevertheless systematically communicate liking or respect, more effective shaping of another person's behavior will result, particularly when that person is openly resistant to influence or manipulation by a peer. -189 

 General Notes about Mehrabian -His chapter titled "language within language" is a GREAT treatment of verbal immediacy behaviors. Namely, comparing all possible ways of saying the same thing can provide a great deal of insight into the speaker's attitude toward the subjects being spoken of. (there is more to this...) - He lists a number of personality measures related to affective communication. These include a measure of affiliative tendency and a measure of sensitivity to rejection on pages 200-201

Freud in the Writing Center: The Psychodynamics of Tutoring Well

Freud in the Writing Center: The Psychodynamics of Tutoring Well

Christiana Murphy, Marshall University Christiana Murphy explores the quality and importance of the interpersonal relationships that tutors build with students by comparing such relationships to those psychoanalysts develop with their clients. "a good psychoanalyst and a good tutor both function to awaken individuals to their potentials and to channel their creative energies toward self-enhancing ends." -abstract, 95 Truax and Carkhuff, in Toward Effective Counseling and Psychotherapy, would contend, however, that fundamental and profound similarities exist amongst all interventive processes, from therapy, to education, to the managerial interactions of employer and employee. They state "the person (whether a counselor, therapist, or teacher) who is better able to communicate warmth, genuineness, and accurate empathy is more effective in interpersonal relationships no matter what the goal of the interaction" (116-117). -97 For psychotherapy to be successful, (1) two persons are in contact; (2) one person, the client, generally is in a state of incongruence, being vulnerable or anxious; (3) the other person, the therapis, is congruent in the relationship; (4) the therapist experiences unconditional positive regard toward the client; (5) the therapist experiences an empathetic understanding of the client's internal frame of reference. -98 As a result of the process of psychotherapy, (1) the client is more congruent, more open to his or her experiences, less defenseive; (2) as a result, the client is more realistic, objective, extensional in his or her perceptions; (3) the client is consequently more effective in problem-solving; (4) as a result of the increased congruence of self and experience, his or her vulnerability to threat is reduced; (5) as a result of the lowering of his or her vulnerability to threat or defeat, the client has an increased degree of self-regard; and (6) as a result of all of the above factors, the client's behavior is more creative, more uniquely adaptive, and more fully expressive of his or her own values (Patterson 486-87). If we substitute tutor and student here for therapist and client, the model holds true for the learning strategies and experiential awarenesses that ho on in a writing center environment. -98

Really Useful Knowledge: A Cultural Studies Agenda for Writing Centers

Really Useful Knowledge: A Cultural Studies Agenda for Writing Centers

In this article, Marilyn Cooper discusses tutors' roles in helping students understand the cultural constraints that affect their writing. -53 She suggests that a writing center rooted in a cultural studies approach can help to empower student writers by teaching them to find within professors' restrictive writing assignments autonomous spaces from which to address their own experiences and beliefs. -54 . . . students come for help in making their document perfect (for very good reasons, like getting into law school, getting their dissertation proposal approved, passing the course and getting their degree) and are confronted with tutors who have their own primary concern, a concern with the process of writing. In this situation, I think that tutors must not only make clear what their concern in tutoring sessions is but also explain why they think this concern should be primary for students as well, and they must negotiate a common goal in their sessions, one that does not simply ignore the students' concerns. -57 Agency in writing is not a mater of simply taking up the subject positions offered by assignments but of actively constructing subject positions that negotiate between institutional demands and individual needs. -59 When a social group becomes well established and dominant, its intellectuals often come to see what they do as valuable in and of itself and see themselves as somehow specially qualified for intellectual activities: they lose sight of how their activities function primarily to further the goals of their particular social group. -61 Rather than "always focusing on the paper at hand (Brooks 2), tutors build personal relationships with their students and come to understand how their students' lives and experiences shape their writing practices. Rather than insisting that students are the only ones responsible for their texts, tutors help students understand how their words and their texts are inhabited by multiple and often alien voices that they must learn to deal with. Rather than "supporting the teacher's position completely" (North 441), tutors celebrate students' ability to develop new "templates" for texts. Rather than learning to sit across from the student and not write on their papers, tutors learn to critique the social and institutional setting of writing pedagogy and to reflect on their practices in light of theories of writing and language. -65-66

Collaboration, Control, and the Idea of a Writing Center

Andrea Lunsford, Stanford University.

(A chapter in The St Martins Sourcebook)

Her essay, which originally appeared in 1991 in The Writing Center Journal, is especially helpful for tutors in providing an overview of social constructionism and its impact on writing center philosophies. In essence, the essay establishes a theoretical context for the work tutors do by contrasting the collaborative writing center with earlier writing center models, shaped by expressivism and current traditional rhetoric. Ab+stract, 47




The shift involves a move from viewing knowledge and reality as things exterior to or outside of us, as immediately accessibly, individually knowable, measurable, and shareable--to viewing knowledge and reality as mediated by or constructed through language in social use, as socially constructed, contextualized, as, in short, the product of collaboration. -48

[The above theory threatens the following...]
This idea of a writing center, what I'll call "The Center as Storehouse," holds to the earlier view of knowledge just described--knowledge just described--knowledge as exterior to us and as directly accessible. -48

[She calls another type Garret centers]
Garret Centers are informed by a deep-seated belief in individual "genius," in the Romantic sense of the term. (I need hardly point out that this belief also informs much of the humanities, and, in particular, English studies.) -48

[Garret Centers] see knowledge and interior, as inside the student, and the writing center's job as helping students get in touch with this knowledge, as a way to find their unique voices, their individual and unique powers. This idea has been articulated by many, including Ken Macrorie, Peter Elbow, and Don Murray. . . -49