Initial Observations

The strategy of Talking and Writing was evident in my first observations in the writing center. The professor guided the tutor throughout the hours long session. He did not feed her the words but coaxed her words from her by asking questions. It was interesting to observe how the process unfolds as a third party.When we are in the moment of writing we do not realize how much usable material we come up with. Her line of thought was not faulty however, the tutor was instrumental in keeping her on topic paragraph after paragraph. When she was at a loss, attempting to remember the appropriate word choice he did not give her the word but asked "What do you call it when we can't sit still, we drum our fingers, we talk to ourselves?". She responds, "We feel anxious?". Now he has, by asking questions, let her be the owner of the word choice. The only writing he did was to show her the parts every essay should have namely: thesis with hook in topic paragraph, at least three supporting paragraphs, and a closing paragraph which he illustrated in diagram form to help her visualize how it should flow. The most time was spent on the the topic paragraph because all her ideas seemed to be bunched together and considerable teasing out/organizing had to occur for her to write topic sentence/supporting/ support/support and close. Eye contact was consistent on behalf of the tutor. The student would roll in and out of participating in conversation with the tutor while thinking through what she was writing as she was writing.