Writing Centers are Not Neverland

By Melanie Solano

Five years ago I sat in my Writing Fellows and Peer Tutoring class. While it was a small class of only ten students, we still found ourselves cramped in a tiny room with an oversized table and little personal space. The course took place on Thursdays, and, as if we were cursed, almost every Thursday was marked by dreary weather that left me feeling beaten and somber from the storm. I found my brain flying to a warmer, happier, and much drier place—much like Wendy and her siblings flew to Neverland to avoid the pressures of their changing lives.

Over the course of the semester we muddled through textbooks and slideshows. We observed how the “best” writing centers operated and, over time, developed a list of things not to do when working with a tutee. As a new tutor and diligent student, I took to these rules as Wendy’s dog Nana took to hers, and I vowed to follow each rule during every future tutoring session.

Rule One: Never pick up the tutee’s paper and start reading it yourself. Instead, always ask the tutee to read it to you. This causes the student to take ownership of their writing and gives them a chance to find errors on their own.

Rule Two: Never write comments on a tutee’s paper unless absolutely necessary. Make suggestions to the tutee, but ask the student to write down their own notes and corrections.

Rule Three: Never worry about the small errors when there is a major problem to fix first. Small grammar mistakes can wait when the paper is missing a thesis or proper conclusion.

Over four months the “never statements” continued, taking up pages in my notebook and space in my mind.

My first official tutoring session occurred the next semester. Annika was a nervous freshman—an international student who did not speak perfect English and had an even harder time expressing her thoughts on paper. In fact, she approached me much like Wendy first approached Peter Pan: expecting all of the answers and advice an older student would surely offer, only to find that her teacher was far from grownup.

As we took our seats, I asked Annika what she hoped to gain from our tutoring session.

She was looking for a quick fix and one last read before submitting the paper to her professor the next morning. She handed it to me and was stunned when I refused it and asked her to read it to me out loud. Her face flushed red and she began reading in a shaky whisper of a voice, obviously mortified by my request. It was apparent that I was already losing her trust as a tutor. Almost immediately I heard the errors: subject-verb agreement problems, quotations with no citations, and switches between present, past, and future tenses. I tried hard to ignore them–to focus on the bigger problems–but the meaning of the paper was lost on me when I could not comprehend what she was trying to express. I asked myself, “What is this paper even about?” Why did she bother to write it in this way?”

Annika stopped reading and looked at me, noticing my head in my hands and the look of confusion upon my face. “It’s bad, isn’t it?” she asked quietly. “I am not a good American writer like you.” I shook my head slowly, buying time before allowing myself to speak.

“A good American writer?” I wondered. I was just a sophomore, barely an adult, but in that moment I began to identify with Peter Pan and took charge of the situation, just as Peter did for the Lost Boys. Peter had escaped to a land without rules, and rules were exactly the thing holding me back from assisting Annika.

I turned the paper over slowly, laying my hand on top. “Forget about this paper for a moment, Annika,” I told her. “Just tell me exactly what you are trying to say…In your own words, what you are trying to talk about?” For the next five minutes, Annika poured out a story of heartbreak, love and compassion. She told me of the struggles within her family—her father’s job loss, her mother’s miscarriage, and her upbringing. And through her words I felt her passion. I felt her story take flight.

I slowly turned the paper back over, ready to try again with new eyes and a sense for where the paper was headed. I read the paper out loud this time, pointing line by line, in a clear and slow voice that Annika could follow. When I reached a mistake or discrepancy I explained to Annika why I was confused. I showed her how to spell the words and make the phrases and tense structures that she needed to put down to make her paper presentable. I always asked for permission before changing something, using my pen as a guiding star, not a pointed hook.

Annika stayed for over an hour that night—so long that the Writing Center closed and left us locked inside. After tutoring for four years, I’ve come to follow something else—not never statements as before, just small guidelines I try to abide by: Don’t criticize. Don’t make judgments. Don’t be nervous. Remember to smile. Acknowledge when you don’t know something too. Remember that every paper is important because it tells someone’s story. Be firm, yet gentle. And above all else, never say never.

 

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