Journal #3
In this weeks reading of, The Longman Guide to Tutoring, several of the points Gillespie and Lerner made resonated with me. The more explicit of them being: take notes, and listen. (73,87) Specifically, I found myself pondering the “…power of silence.”. (P. 87) As someone who finds themselves experiencing a rather substantial amount of social anxiety, the idea that not all silence is awkward, is both novel, and unsettling to me. However, I also think Gillespie and Lerner express a very important thought: you have to let the writer, write. Through their comparison to how little time teachers often give students to respond- I realized that the inclusion of silence in a tutoring session can have a multi-faceted effect; not only will it give the writer actual time to think, but it will also reiterate the (somewhat fragile) power dynamic between the writer and the tutor.(Gillespie, Lerner 87) Additionally, while the writer is silently thinking, the tutor will have an opportunity to go over the notes they took on the writer’s work- which, I can Imagine, can be especially helpful when it comes time to break the silence and regroup. This leads me to the next series of thoughts that Chapter 6, of, The Longman Guide to Tutoring, elicited- which were on the topic of taking notes. Something that especially stood out to me about Gillespie and Lerner’s design for note-taking, was that it enables the tutor to meet the writer where they are. Meaning, they don’t draw out a rigid diagram and entitle it The Note Taking Outline for Tutors. Rather, they recommend that the tutor listens to the paper– emphasizing that they listen in full– and progressively write thoughts on what they like and dislike. (Gillespie, Lerner 73-74) This is beneficial to both the reader and the writer because it expresses that the reader is attentively listening, and also allows the writer to have a physical copy of their writing’s weaknesses and strengths. (Gillespie, Lerner 74) This is, clearly, immensely helpful; however I think their design could also be a bit theoretical. It’s hard for me to imagine myself taking notes while someone reads me their paper- or while I read it while sitting next to them. Perhaps it is because it enforces that the tutor is more of a ‘knower’, rather than, simply, a tool for their peer to utilize. That being said, Gillespie and Lerner make an important point on why note taking is so imperative to the beginning of a meeting with a tutor: “…It’s important to form an impression of the whole paper”. (73) In order to still meet this goal of understanding the paper in it’s entirety, I might try taking notes in tandem with my peer as I tutor them. That way, we can work through which of our thoughts coincide, which ones don’t, and which thoughts we had that the other person might not have. For me, this will be a much more comfortable way to include Chapter 6’s main technique, note taking, into a writing meeting with my peer.
