Presented at the 2004 National Tutoring Association Conference in Nashville, Tennessee Content or Co

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Presented at the 2004 National Tutoring
Association Conference in Nashville, Tennessee
Content or Commas?

• How Content Tutors Should Work with Writing

Susie Robertshaw tutor coordinator
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Content or Commas?

• This presentation details content tutors
  training for guiding students writing papers in
  the social sciences at a liberal arts college.
• Since peer tutors expertise lies in content,
  they should help students
• analyze the writing tasks (a.k.a. the
  assignment),
• brainstorm information to fulfill the assignment,
  
• check drafts for comprehensiveness and clarity
• not help with sentence-level issues.

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What do profs complain about? ...problems
with student writing
My paper is bleeding!

• Content issues
• Question/assignment is not fully addressed
• Its Rollins WC (war room) mantra--Its the
  assignment, stupid!
• Important ideas show up at the end of papers
• When writing happens too late, students confuse
  first drafts with final ones, when they are
  really discovery drafts.
• Ideas are only superficially treated
• no support for assertions, no explanations
• sources arent integrated or synthesized (you
  need to use 5 quotes)
• Bottom line? Students dont plan the writing task
  well.

• Grammar, mechanics, style (personal style and
  APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.)
• Late-stage draft, sentence-level expression
  problems

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What writing habits do we want to encourage?

• Stretch out the writing process
• Understand that thinking and writing take time.
• Oppose the dictum, Think before you write.
• Attend to one or two stages in the process at a
  time
• See notemaking (from reading texts, class group
  discussions and consolidated study tools) as
  prewriting
• Tutors help clients understand the importance of
  notes and discussion for studying why not for
  writing, too?
• Understand that writing should always involve
  rewriting, as they refine their ideas
• Realize that they need to take their drafts from
  a writer-based to a reader-based form (Because
  all writers need readers UCFs WC motto).

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Getting feedback on writingfrom Chapel Hill WC
http//www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/feedback.h
tml
Good content tutor input?

• Understanding the assignment (Do I understand the
  task? How long should it be? What kinds of
  sources should I be using? Do I have to answer
  all of the questions on the assignment sheet or
  are they just prompts to get me thinking? Are
  some parts of the assignment more important than
  other parts?)
• Factual content (Is my understanding of the
  course material accurate? Where else could I look
  for more information?)
• Interpretation/analysis (Do I have a point? Does
  my argument make sense? Is it logical and
  consistent? Is it supported by sufficient
  evidence?)
• Organization (Are my ideas in a useful order?
  Does the reader need to know anything else up
  front? Is there another way to consider ordering
  this information?)
• "Flow" (Do I have good transitions? Does the
  introduction prepare the reader for what comes
  later? Do my topic sentences accurately reflect
  the content of my paragraphs? Can the reader
  follow me?)
• Style, grammar small errors

yes yes yes yes/no yes/no no
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and (feedback) from whom?http//www.unc.edu/depts
/wcweb/handouts/feedback.html

• yourself--reading your own notes and drafts is
  crucial!
• a classmate (a reader familiar with the
  day-to-day discussions, readings, demands but not
  expert)
• your TA (an expert, pursuing an advanced degree,
  usually familiar with daily course activities, or
  even teaching it)
• a tutor for the course (a student expert but not
  necessarily familiar with current course)
• the professor (a very expert reader)
• your roommate/friend/family member (an interested
  but not familiar reader)
• a writing tutor/consultant (an interested but not
  familiar reader, w/ special skills in the writing
  process at all stages)

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Whose knowledge? Collaborating or cheating?

• Learning is not solitary learners construct
  knowledge from conversations where they
  challenge each others biases and
  presuppositions. (Kenneth Bruffees
  Collaborative Learning and the Conversation of
  Mankind (College English, 1984)
• http//www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/feedback.h
  tml
• Asking for help on your writing does not equal
  plagiarism, but talking with classmates about
  your work may feel like cheating. Check with your
  professor or TA about what kinds of help you can
  get legally. Most will encourage you to discuss
  your ideas about the reading and lectures with
  your classmates.
• In general, if someone offers a particularly
  helpful insight, it makes sense to cite him or
  her in a footnote.

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Whose knowledge (2)?
Level of knowledge, authority
lowest
highest
Professor TA SI leader tutor
classmate writing tutor friend/family
Force writers to make ideas very clear
Style of sessions
Top-down teacherly passive learning
Bottom-up facilitative active learning
Force learners to reveal and assess their
understanding and adjust strategies
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Whats involved in writing?

• The Rollins Writing Center consulting notes form
  sketches out our vision of the writing process.
  We hope clients will eventually realize that they
  can write better papers if they allow enough time
  for frequent revision instead of cramming all the
  tasks involved into a couple of hours.

___EARLY (IDEAS) __thesis statement __developing
ideas __supporting details __choice of sources
___INVENTION __brainstorm __freewrite __map/outlin
e __understanding assignment
___MIDDLE (STRUCTURE) __logic of argument __
organization __sentence organization in
__transitions
___LATE (REFINEMENTS) __sentence variety __style
concerns __punctuation __use of
quotations/paraphrasing
___FINAL EDIT __proofreading __citation
format __spelling __paper format
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The writing toolkit for tutors

• Ways to help students understand the assignment
• Before starting, or after writing a draft
• Tools to help brainstorm
• Before they start writing, so theyre already on
  the right track.
• After a draft, when realizing they need to add
  more info.
• Techniques to analyze student drafts for content
  and adherence to the assignment

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Understand the assignment

• The content tutor can guide students in
  understanding the multiple layers of an
  assignment.
• For a superb structure to follow, see the handout
  on reading assignments from The Writing Center at
  UNC Chapel Hill http//www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/h
  andouts/readassign.html

__INVENTION __brainstorm __freewrite __map __outl
ine __understanding assignment
assignment formats overview, task, style,
addtl. material, technical details interpreting
the assignment why? to give info, to relate
it, to interpret it (think about Blooms levels
of cognitive tasks, look for
the verbs used) who is audience?...tone,
level of info what kind of evidence?depends
on the discipline, what is valued
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A paper assignment used in training

• Write a six-page film review of Pleasantville
  from a historians point of view--not like the
  Orlando Sentinel critic more like Alan Brinkley
  writing for The New Yorker.
• DO NOT SUMMARIZE the plotanalyze the movie. How
  does the filmmaker portray the 1950s? What are
  the strengths and limitations of his vision?
  Refer to at least three primary or secondary
  sources in your critique. What do Jennifer and
  David, the time-traveling teenagers, learn from
  their sojourn in Pleasantville? Is this merely a
  personal lesson, or do the 1950s have something
  to teach Americans as a whole? Refer often to
  the materials we discussed in class
• TVs the Thing and Growing Up, chapters from
  The Fifties The Way We Really Were published by
  Douglas Miller and Marion Nowak in 1977
• The Americans, a book of photographs taken by
  Robert Frank in 1955/56
• Pleasantville, a movie made in 1998 by
  writer/director Gary Ross
• The American Experience, a collection of primary
  and secondary sources about major social and
  political developments after World War II
• The Fifties (selections from it), a 1993 book by
  David Halberstam

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Parsing the Assignmentone approach

• Write a six-page film review--not like the
  Orlando Sentinel critic more like Alan Brinkley
  writing for The New Yorker.
• DO NOT SUMMARIZE the plotanalyze the movie.

• What do Jennifer and David, the time-traveling
  teenagers, learn from their sojourn in
  Pleasantville? Is this merely a personal lesson,
  or do the 1950s have something to teach Americans
  as a whole?

• How does the filmmaker portray the 1950s? What
  are the strengths and limitations of his vision?

• Refer to at least three primary or secondary
  sources in your critique. Refer often to the
  materials we discussed in class.

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Check the draft against the assignmentwhere to
look?

• Often student writers throw some ideas on paper
  and assume theyre done. As a consultant, part
  of your job is to brace them for the rigorousbut
  rewardingwork of revision.

Some teachers call early drafts DISCOVERY drafts
because writers often DISCOVER what they mean to
say as they near the end. Dont give up if the
first couple of paragraphs seem formlessand make
sure you skim the conclusion.
I never know what I think about something until I
read what Ive written on it. William Faulkner

• (Rollins WC training manual)

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An early drafthow to respond?

• David and Jennifer get into a fight over the
  remote control. Hes a geek that wants to watch
  old shows on TV. This strange repairman pulls up
  out of the middle of nowhere and gave them a new
  remote control that sends them into the TV
• Everybodys so dumb they think geography ends
  with main street and elm. dumb and lucky. The
  guy at the coffee shop cant function, when his
  routine gets messed up. When the sister starts to
  have sex he sees a red rose.
• (snip, snipto the last
  paragraph)
• David learns that hes not such a dweeb.
  Jennifer learns that she has a brain so she drops
  the slut act. This is a personal lesson. In the
  end David is comforting his Mom who feels sad
  that shes 40 and divorced, maybe shes dreaming
  of a husband who says honey, Im home but
  probably shed divorce him if he did. Davids
  lesson for her at the end is that nothing in life
  is simple. Maybe thats what the movie is trying
  to say. We have a simple view of the fifties
  like Ozzie and Harriet or Leave it to Beaver.
  Nostalgia. We forget that people were worried
  about the Bomb and the War in Korea.
• (See the photocopies for the full text.)

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Wheres the beef?

• Decide which facts would be best used where, to
  support the clients assertions/thesis
• Do I have a point?
• Does my argument make sense?
• Is it logical and consistent?
• Is it supported by sufficient evidence?

• Understanding the assignment
• Factual content
• Interpretation/analysis
• Organization (UNC)

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Ask clients to analyze their own drafts for
content

• Underline the thesis. Is there a thesis? Can
  the writer summarize the main idea of the paper
  in a sentence? Is it a dead end thesis, which
  will corner the writer into obvious conclusions,
  or is the thesis a thoroughfare with interesting
  avenues to explore?
• Gloss. Have the client write down the main idea
  of each paragraph in the margin. Do all the
  sentences in the paragraph add up to a single
  topic? (If you have a couple of highlighters,
  you might get the client to mark all similar
  ideas in a single color. A pink idea might not
  belong in a blue paragraph.) Do all the
  paragraphs relate back to the thesis?
• Discuss evidence. Does the assignment offer
  guidance? What kind of support does the writer
  plan to use? How is the writer evaluating
  sources and keeping track of where supporting
  details come from?
  (Rollins WC training manual)

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A later draft Improvement? Problems?

• Pleasantville The Movie Review
• Pleasantville is an entertaining
  movie about two teenagers from the 90s that
  travel back to the 50s. They are not time
  travelers like in Back to the Future however
  because Pleasantville is not a real place but a
  TV show. The director makes some good points
  about the fifties, but he is not pretending like
  Oliver Stone that he is telling real history. The
  movie relied on magic and fantasy so you knew
  this was fiction. One just has to accept that
  these two teenagers can ride the airwaves back in
  time and that the sitcom parents dont even
  recognize that there children have changed. But
  Pleasantville shows that, women and even men
  felt oppressed by the culture, this is a great
  strength of the movie. If the movie was really
  trying to teach history than we should have seen
  soldiers leaving for Korea and air-raid drills in
  school and black people marching for their civil
  rights. In my opinion one can get some history
  from the movie, but only if you all ready know
  something about the fifties. If you dont you
  might be decieved by the black and white and
  think it was a documentary which its not.
• (the introduction to a seven-
  page paper)
•  

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Using brainstorming at the beginning

• Starting out the writing process with
  brainstorming is both a creative and structured
  way to ensure that later writing is not
  off-track.
• and in the middle
• When working with drafts, tutors can use these
  same graphical methods to help the writer
  structure new information, as they understand the
  assignment better and/or see where their paper
  has gaps or needs clarification.

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Generate ideas to fit task

• HOW?
• Appeal to various styles
• WHERE FROM?
• Pinpoint sources of info
• written texts (books, supplementary readings,
  internet sites) notes
• class notes
• other consolidated notes (study tools) made in
  groups (SI, tutoring, study groups) and/or by
  individual student

__INVENTION __brainstorm __freewrite __map __outl
ine __understanding assignment
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Brainstorming from the Creativity Web, Australia
http//members.ozemail.com.au/caveman/Creative/Te
chniques/brainstorm.htm

• The term brainstorming has become a commonly
  used word in the English language as a generic
  term for creative thinking....other people's
  remarks act to stimulate your own ideas in a sort
  of chain reaction of ideas.
• The generation phase is separate from the
  judgment phase of thinking.
• Someone writes down all the ideas as they occur,
  as another facilitates
• Suspend judgment
• Every idea is accepted and recorded
• Encourage people to build on the ideas of others
• Encourage way-out and odd ideas
• Michael Morgan, Creative Workforce Innovation,
  cited on the Creativity Web

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Graphic Organizers
Not encouraged by MS Power Point!!
Categories from the Center for the Advancement of
Learning (CAL) website

http//muskingum.edu/cal/database/organization.ht
mlMatrices

• Brainstorming webs
• What we remember from k-12
• Mind-mapping
• Links between ideas are not specified
• Concept maps
• Links are spelled out relationships are clear

• Matrixes
• a.k.a. charts/tables
• Flow charts
• If, then processes, business writing
• Those auto-shapes in MS word

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Brainstorming Web
http//www.graphic.org/money.html
Web -- Money -- Initial Brainstorming Contributor
Jennifer KeiserJennifer is the webmaster at
Inspiration Software. UsesWhat do sixth graders
think about money?Teacher collects information
in an initial discussion on "what they know"
about money.
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Mind-mapping

• Used in K-12
• Appeals to visual and kinesthetic learners
• http//members.ozemail.com.au/caveman/Creative/Mi
  ndmap/index.html

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Concept Maps
Unlike with brainstorming webs, links between
concepts are named, with verbs
The Biology Teaching webpage has many examples of
biology concepts mapped out, along with
justification for their use, especially in
science. http//www.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/johnson/misco
nceptions/concept_map/concept_maps.html
Digestion
The U. of Victoria (Canada) website explains the
process gives readers a chance to practice and
compare to U Vics map. http//www.coun.uvic.ca/le
arn/program/hndouts/map_ho.html
Maps are for thinkingto summarize and understand
readings, and to generate ideas for writing.
http//www.graphic.org/concept.html
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Concept Maps 2

• This rich website shows different types of
  concept maps
• Spider, hierarchy, flow-chart, systems.
• http//classes.aces.uiuc.edu/ACES100/Mind/CMap.htm
  l

A concept map of concept mapping--gt
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Matrixes--tables

• from a paper/essay Q, decide which categories are
  crucial
• then gather information in chart/table/matrix
  format
• students can study info for short/long essay
  tests, and/or write paper from the visual
• The Learning Strategies Database of the The
  Center for the Advancement of Learning (CAL),
  Muskingum College, Ohio is an exceptional
  resource.

http//muskingum.edu/cal/database/organization.ht
mlMatrices
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Flow charts

• Flow charts describe processes, from beginning
  to end.
• They include instructions (rectangles) and
  decisions (diamonds) to be made at crucial
  juncture points.

http//www.ex.ac.uk/cimt/mepres/book8/bk8i1/bk8_1i
2.htm
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Responding to a draft (followed by student
rewriting)
Rollins Writing Center consulting notes form
___EARLY (IDEAS) __thesis statement __developing
ideas __supporting details __choice of sources
___MIDDLE (STRUCTURE) __logic of argument __
organization __sentence organization in
__transitions
___INVENTION __understanding assignment

• UNC Chapel Hill Getting Feedback
• http//www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/feedback.h
  tml

• Understanding the assignment
• Factual content
• Interpretation/analysis
• Organization

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From the UMKC SI web site (go to
http//www.umkc.edu/cad/SI/ then click on
Publications ( Research), then choose SI in the
Content Areas)
From their long list, here are two categories I
found similar to the ideas in my presentation.
Wonderful resources! Read them at the UMKC site.

• Social Sciences
• The Use of Spatial Representation in History
  Courses and in Courses with Historical Content.
  1997. Heerspink.
• The Use of Supplemental Instruction in an
  Introduction to Sociology Course. 1985.
  O'Flaherty and Siera.
• Humanities
• Discipline-Specific SI Strategies for Writing.
  1999. Zerger
• Supplemental Instruction in the Humanities. 1994.
  Zerger.
• Writing partners Improving writing and learning
  through Supplemental Instruction in freshman
  writing classrooms. 1995. Ochae
• Adapting Supplemental Instruction to English
  Composition Classes. 1983. McMillin.

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Many thanks to Sylvia Whitman, Writing Center
coordinator and partner in crime, for her help in
the middle- and late-stages of this writing
process. Check out the Rollins Writing Center web
site at http//www.rollins.edu/wc And dont
hesitate to contact me. You can find this
PowerPoint presentation off the Tutoring at TJs
web site at http//www.rollins.edu/tpj/tutoring S
usie Robertshaw 407 646-2652 srobertshaw_at_rollins.e
du