Week 5- McKay

Some other people have commented on that balance between commenting on macro or micro  (global or local) issues in writing. While the pedagogical shift is certainly toward focusing more on macro levels of thought, I have found in my tutoring sessions that my students would way rather have me deal with micro level critiques. They would way rather have me point out every single grammatical error than to sit down and have a discussion about something more conceptual. I have also found with the few english language learners I've worked with, that they are even more interested in doing things "correctly." Going along with what Kyle said, it is especially difficult to navigate this terrain with the instructor is emphasizing the opposite. In my cases recently, the instructor has emphasized the grammar and my student has come in very focused on the grammar in her essay rather than what seems to me to be way larger structural issues. I think grammar feels easier to deal with. There's a right way to do it.

Onto the Bedford book, We all have probably heard about "visual" vs. "auditory" vs. "kinesthetic" learners, but it difficult to apply that in a writing center setting. I appreciated the way the books bullet pointed some key ways to incorporate these different ways of learning. With the two students I have back to back, I consistently have to adjust my way of speaking because they seem like they learn and think in just totally different ways. The first student I have has me write in a specific color pen and write down things in great detail. She is also very emotionally distant and uses humor to distance herself form her assignments. My second student seems to respond well to talking things out and has more of an earnestness about her. I think she is more of a kinesthetic learner because it has been a struggle to work on her computer. I think next week I will see if we can work more with paper at the table. She gave me a copy of her essay and I think it could be useful to her if we print it out and can rearrange it physically.

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