Tutoring Second Language Writers

Tutoring Second Language Writers

Tutoring Second Language Writers

Edited by

Shanti Bruce

Ben Rafoth

Utah State University Press

Logan

© 2016 by the University Press of Colorado

Published by Utah State University Press

An imprint of University Press of Colorado

5589 Arapahoe Avenue, Suite 206C

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Manufactured in the United States of America

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The University Press of Colorado is a cooperative publishing enterprise supported, in part, by Adams State University, Colorado State University, Fort Lewis College, Metropolitan State University of Denver, Regis University, University of Colorado, University of Northern Colorado, Utah State University, and Western State Colorado University.

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ISBN: 978-1-60732-406-5 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-60732-414-0 (ebook)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Bruce, Shanti, editor. | Rafoth, Bennett A. editor.

Title: Tutoring second language writers / edited by Shanti Bruce ; Ben Rafoth.

Description: Logan : Utah State University Press, [2015] | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015004619 | ISBN 9781607324065 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781607324140

(ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: English language—Rhetoric—Study and teaching

(Higher)—Handbooks, manuals, etc. | English language—Study and teaching

(Higher)—Foreign speakers—Handbooks, manuals, etc. | Report

writing—Study and teaching (Higher)—Handbooks, manuals, etc. | Tutors

and tutoring—Handbooks, manuals, etc. | Writing centers—Handbooks,

manuals, etc.

Classification: LCC PE1404 .T878 2015 | DDC 808/.0420711—dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015004619

Cover illustration © Rudchenko Liliia / Shutterstock.

Contents

Foreword: Beyond How-To’s: Connecting the Word and the World

Carol Severino

Introduction

Shanti Bruce and Ben Rafoth

1 Second Language Writers, Writing Centers, and Reflection

Ben Rafoth

Part One—Actions and Identities

2 Building a House for Linguistic Diversity: Writing Centers, English-Language Teaching and Learning, and Social Justice

Frankie Condon and Bobbi Olson

3 Identity Construction, Second Language Writers, and the Writing Center

Michelle Cox

4 El Centro de Competencias de la Comunicación and the Fraught Status of English

Shanti Bruce

Part Two—Research Opportunities

5 Multilingual Writers, Multilingual Tutors: Code-Switching /Mixing /Meshing in the Writing Center

Kevin Dvorak

6 The Digital Video Project: Self-Assessment in a Multilingual Writing Center

Glenn Hutchinson and Paula Gillespie

7 Examining Practice: Designing a Research Study

Rebecca Day Babcock

Part Three—Words and Passages

8 Investigating Social Justice in the Writing Center

Elizabeth (Adelay) Witherite

9 Building a Cultural Bridge between Ghana and the United States in the Writing Center

Jocelyn Amevuvor

10 These Sentences Sounded Like Me: Transformative Accommodation in L2 Writing

Pei-Hsun Emma Liu

11 Some Things I Did to Help Myself Learn to Write

Jose L. Reyes Medina

Part Four—Academic Expectations

12 Tutoring against Othering: Reading and Writing Critically

Valerie M. Balester

13 Unfamiliar Territory: Tutors Working with Second Language Writers on Disciplinary Writing

Jennifer Craig

14 Helping Second Language Writers Become Self-Editors

Pimyupa W. Praphan and Guiboke Seong

About the Authors

Subject Index

Author Index

Foreword

Beyond How-To’s

Connecting the Word and the World

CAROL SEVERINO

Reading Tutoring Second Language Writers, I recognized how far writing center scholarship on second language writers has come in the last twenty-five years, even in the last decade. Second language writers are now regarded as enriching our writing center work, teaching us as much about their ideas, disciplines, languages, and cultures as they do about our own. Less and less do we regard them as a challenge to our growing cultural and linguistic competencies; less and less are we uncertain about how to approach them and their drafts; therefore, less and less do we need writing center literature composed of tips and how to steps in order to work with them. More importantly, we no longer assume that writing center tutors are monolingual English speakers and the only arbiters of what is and is not standard in English. We no longer assume that only writing center professionals, especially monolingual ones, are sources and makers of knowledge about second language writers. In fact, second language writers can speak powerfully and eloquently for themselves and for the benefit of other second language writers and tutors, as do Jose L. Reyes Medina, Pei-Husun Emma Liu, and Pimyupa Praphan and Guiboke Seong in this volume.

Years ago, we surely needed how to literature if only because we wanted to be as helpful as possible to second language writers. Trapped in the monolingual context of our courses and institutions, we were not prepared; we needed to learn new tools and techniques. We had, and in fact, still have many lingering questions addressed by the contributors to this volume: What is the best balance of global and local work in a second language writing tutorial? Does the balance always depend on the writer and the situation? Or should the global always prevail even when the writer asks for language help? To what extent do the rhetorics of students’ other languages and cultures influence their writing and their perceptions of how to respond to their assignments (Cox, Craig)? And what does it mean to ask students to demonstrate their critical thinking skills (Balester)?

To address these questions, the authors in this volume do more than embrace the complexities and nuances of language and culture. To paraphrase Paulo Freire, whose influence on progressive education complements Dewey’s (Rafoth), the authors also closely connect the words brought to and used in the writing center to larger worlds—concentric and intersecting circles of context—textual, disciplinary, linguistic, cultural, social, political, national, international (Amevuvor). Some authors smartly explore writing center connections to language politics: what does it mean when writers are writing and speaking about their writing in English, a language they perceive as threatening their identities? (Bruce) And then what does it mean when writers and tutors decide to use their shared native language in writing center conferences, for example, to talk about English writing in Spanish? (Dvorak)

Other authors explore writing center connections to issues of othering, racism, xenophobia, and social justice (Condon and Olson; Witherite) that confront writers on and off campus. If a campus is a microcosm of society, the writing center—the most culturally diverse unit on campus—is also. Therefore, the words spoken, read, and written in a writing center intimately relate to the world and all its injustices. And through writing center work, writers and tutors can collaborate to address them.

Perhaps most importantly for writing centers as a field, contributors to this volume also connect writing center words to the world of research. After all, writing center words—in conversation, on the page, on the screen—can be investigated and analyzed in countless ways. In order to better interact with, teach, and learn from second language writers, in order for the writing center field to grow, it is imperative that we create knowledge through research; that is why accounts of the research process here (Dvorak; Hutchinson and Gillespie; Babcock; Witherite) are among the highlights of the collection, suggesting that writing centers seem to be in transition between needing to know tutorial how-to’s and needing to know research process how-to’s.

By connecting writing center words to multiple relevant worlds outside the center, Tutoring Second Language Writers sets a new, positive direction for writing center growth, research, and scholarship.

Tutoring Second Language Writers

Introduction

SHANTI BRUCE AND BEN RAFOTH

Tutoring Second Language Writers is a book for tutors. It is intended to advance the conversations tutors have with one another and their directors about tutoring second language writers and writing. The aim of this book is to engage readers with current ideas and issues that highlight the excitement and challenge of working with those who speak English as a second (or additional) language. The contributors to this collection have geared their chapters toward a US context, but we believe all readers, regardless of locale or the organization of their tutoring center, will find points of entry in these pages that lead to meaningful discussions about working with culturally and linguistically diverse writers and tutors.

Suggestions for Using This Book

This book can be used in courses and programs for preparing tutors and teachers. The chapters can be read individually or together and may be used as a basis for discussions in staff meetings and as follow-ups to tutoring sessions. The chapters serve as references to help answer questions about theoretical and practical issues. Equally important, they raise questions about the complicated task of preparing to work with linguistically diverse populations of writers. Readers can use this book to enliven their curiosity and advance tutor-led research. At the beginning of each of the book’s four parts, we offer a glimpse of the topics and questions raised in each chapter. We hope readers will be drawn into the chapters and carry the discussion forward into staff meetings and the many informal discussions tutors have among themselves and with others.

Organization of the Book

The book opens with a chapter that frames the broad focus of the collection around philosopher John Dewey’s belief in reflective thinking as a way to help build new knowledge. It continues with part 1, Actions and Identities, which includes chapters about creating a proactive stance toward language difference, thinking critically about labels, and the mixed feelings students may have about learning English. Part 2, Research Opportunities, includes two chapters that demonstrate writing center research projects and a third that explains research methods tutors can use to further investigate their questions about writing center work. Part 3, Words and Passages, offers four personal stories of inquiry and discovery, and in part 4, Academic Expectations, authors confront some of the challenges tutors face when they try to help writers meet readers’ specific expectations.

All of the chapters in this book draw upon research in the fields of second language writing, composition, and applied linguistics, and they connect ideas from these areas to the contexts of one-on-one tutoring. We hope readers will make them a part of the conversations they have over coffee and in staff meetings as well those they have with multilingual students outside the writing center and in the larger community.

There is a growing need for tutors who are better prepared to work with writers who speak multiple languages, including English. We see evidence of this need in the interest and concern generated in the pages of journals and conference programs and in the talks we have had with students and tutors around the world. One collection cannot tackle every question, but readers can add to the conversations begun in these chapters and carry them forward in ways large and small.

1

Second Language Writers, Writing Centers, and Reflection

BEN RAFOTH

Tutoring involves multiple responsibilities. Tutors must ask the right questions and listen carefully when writers respond. They are expected to read critically, explain clearly, motivate, and empathize. As they work with writers from different backgrounds and abilities on assignments from an array of disciplines, they are also expected to know their limits and reach beyond them. Tutors are asked to do many things, but it is hard to imagine any writing center where the expectations for tutors’ responsibilities do not begin with understanding the purpose of education because understanding education’s purpose shapes the meaning and practice of tutoring.

Philosopher John Dewey believed that the purpose of education is to foster a love of learning and a desire for more education. For Dewey (1920), education is an end in itself because openness to learning leads to greater social cohesion, democracy, and equality. These ideals were not idle abstractions in the first half of twentieth-century America when Dewey’s writings were taking shape against a backdrop of grinding automation, income inequality, and child labor. Dewey’s ideas were born in an American context of swelling immigration, crowded schools, and racial and ethnic tensions that were no less severe than the ones we face today. Dewey believed education was the lever that would move the United States and the world to a better place. It still holds that promise.

For tutors reading this book—from those who have little experience to those with a lot, and from undergraduate to graduate tutors—it is worth taking a moment to understand why Dewey’s vision of progressive education provides a foundation for the work of writing centers. I believe it does so for three reasons: Dewey’s vision is grounded in real-world experience, it looks toward the future, and it is embedded in a robust philosophical tradition. When learning is grounded in experience, it is driven by curiosity and the desire to discover new things through research and inquiry. When it looks to the future, learning is ambitious and hopeful; it tries to make a positive difference. And when learning is embedded in a robust philosophy of life, like Dewey’s pragmatism, it helps us to think about teaching and writing in the context of broad philosophical perspectives that include epistemology, politics, and aesthetics.

When L2 writers striving to develop advanced literacy step into a campus writing center in the United States, they put more on the table, figuratively speaking, than drafts of their papers. They carry with them a history of their experiences with English, when and how they learned it, the values they associate it with, and the parts of their lives it displaces. They carry with them the struggles and rewards that are part of the experience of learning English. More important, they come to the table optimistic about their future and the role that education plays in it. If they seem intensely focused on their papers, it may be because they know the stakes are high. Second language writers want for themselves and the world they inhabit many of the same things almost everyone does, and they see learning to write well, in English or some variety of it, as a way up, and perhaps out. Coming as they often do from rich traditions of literacy in their homelands, they are also familiar with the aesthetic and intellectual rewards of writing and reading. They seek tutors who can help them attain whatever goals they have for writing.

Aspirations such as these find their way to writing centers because tutoring is transformative, as a number of writing center scholars have shown: Condon (2012); Fels and Wells (2011); Greenfield and Rowan (2011); Grimm (1999); Harris (1995); Kail and Trimbur (1987); and Grutsch McKinney (2013). Each of these works has its own philosophical grounding, and it is not necessarily in Dewey’s pragmatism. As a whole, however, writing center scholarship devoted to bringing about greater justice in the world through education builds, at least in part, on Dewey’s legacy.

I have been a writing center director and tutor for twenty-five years, and it is still remarkable to me how much knowledge, skill, and understanding it takes to be a writing tutor. Compared to a lecturer who stands before a room full of students and imagines everyone in the room to be smart, eager, and appreciative, tutoring is personal. Each session is unique, and a tutor needs to think about a lot more than the talking points in a lecture. This is the case for all of the writers we work with, but it is particularly true for L2 students. More than twenty years ago, Harris and Silva (1993) observed, We should recognize that along with different linguistic backgrounds, ESL students have a diversity of concerns that can only be dealt with in the one-to-one setting where the focus of attention is on that particular student and his or her questions, concerns, cultural presuppositions, writing processes, language learning experiences, and conceptions of what writing English is all about (525). Tutors must contend with learning as it unfolds in the ways Muriel Harris and Tony Silva describe, and when they falter, they must come up with something else. They also must deal with a broad range of individual differences because each student’s approach to writing and learning is different, some proceeding methodically and efficiently as they navigate their boat down the middle of the river while others push off and go wherever the current is strongest. Still others spend days on dry land before they embark, collecting supplies and pacing back and forth. Amid the various courses and disciplines, levels of study, linguistic backgrounds, types of assignments, and writing processes, tutors must work close to the ground because language is always stuck to the particulars of context. Tutors must also know that language is also a practice—a tool—and thus a means for changing contexts. Alastair Pennycook (2010), an applied linguist and author of Language as a Local Practice, sounds a lot like Dewey when Pennycook writes, To think in terms of practices is to make social activity central, to ask how it is we do things as we do, how activities are established, regulated and changed. Practices are not just things we do, but rather bundles of activities that are the central organization of social life (2).

Dewey’s ideas are apparent in any discussion of language and practice, which is why they remain relevant to composition theory and pedagogy (e.g., Crick 2003; Phelps 1988) and why they have also appeared in national reports on the future of teaching (National Commision on Teaching and America’s Future 1996). Given the problems Dewey saw in the world at the time he wrote, in the first half of the twentieth century, it is clear his notion of reflection is the antithesis of thinking based on prejudices, impulses, unexamined beliefs, old information, discredited theories and sources, and suppressed curiosity and imagination. These ways of thinking must be isolated because they impede individual growth and social progress. One of the challenges to today’s tutors is to use reflective thinking to expand opportunities for growth for themselves and all writers they work with.

For tutors who work with multilingual writers, understanding reflective thinking is an essential requirement for the job and the title. There is a lot to know about language and how people use and experience it, especially when it comes to assisting L2 writers in the context of a writing center. To read and learn from the chapters in this volume, as well as from the many other opportunities provided in the courses, books, journals, and collaborative projects that make up writing centers, means making a commitment to reflective thinking.

There is little doubt that tutors work diligently or that their directors aim to prepare them well, but the challenge is enormous nonetheless. The expectations for advanced literacy are high, and helping students learn to meet these expectations can be a humbling experience. For this reason, however, tutors must expand their capacities for teaching and learning by thinking in systematic and discovery-oriented ways. Those who supervise tutors and direct writing centers are also implicated in this call to expand their capacities for thinking (see Bushman 1999; Farrell 2007). Teaching Second-Language Writers provides a step in this direction, and in the remaining pages of this chapter, I hope to elaborate on reflective thinking and how it relates to tutoring and the various chapters in this collection as I see them.

Tutors have probably heard the term reflection used to refer to many different things. We are now to a point at which being asked to reflect on something means we are asked to think about it—in other words, reflecting, musing, pondering and thinking—they all sound the same. Teachers sometimes implore students to really reflect on an idea, which may mean they want students to do more than merely think about it. But what is that, exactly?

In How We Think, Dewey (1933) tried to distinguish between reflection and conventional thinking when he defined reflection as the active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions toward which it tends [that] includes a conscious and voluntary effort to establish belief upon a firm basis of evidence and rationality (9). Carol Rodgers (2002, 845) points out that Dewey’s notion of reflection involves these qualities:

• continuity, or connecting experiences and ideas to achieve greater understanding and social progress;

• systematic thinking, including rigorous, disciplined, and critical thinking about practices;

• interaction with others; and

• a favorable attitude toward personal and intellectual growth.

The first of these, connecting experiences and ideas to achieve greater understanding and social progress, begins with tutors connecting with the writers they serve. Ilona Leki made this point when she wrote,

There is a tendency among humans to see their own social and cultural group as highly nuanced and differentiated but to be less able to fully grasp that all social and cultural groups are equally nuanced and differentiated. . . . But the most effective way for writing center tutors to experience these nuances firsthand is to take advantage of the visits of these multilingual, multicultural individuals to the writing center and show interest in their home language, country, or culture by engaging them in the kind of small talk that usually accompanies tutoring sessions, and so get to know them one by one. (Leki 2009, 13)

The chapters that appear in this book speak to matters of language, locality, and practice. When they are read and shared in the context of a larger program of tutor training and education, these chapters provide new information, theories, and practices essential to the four qualities of reflective thinking listed above.

Take, for example, the question of tutor education and what tutors need to know in order to work collaboratively in a writing center. Chapter 2 connects the work tutors perform with L2 writers to higher education’s larger responsibilities for promoting tolerance and justice. It is sometimes easy to forget that education is about the future and the kind of world we want for ourselves and the generations that will follow. However, if tutors and teachers of literacy look forward to a time when the way people speak and write is not held against them, then there must be ways for all educators, tutors included, to help make this future. Frankie Condon and Bobbi Olson write, We believe that by giving space for tutors to engage in a deeper and more theoretical understanding of their work—particularly their work with multi- and translingual writers—writing centers can be a locus of participatory agency for change. We can help our institutions to transform the conditions in which Othered students write and learn. The coauthors describe how they helped transform conditions as the tutors in their writing center conducted research, discussed, wrote, and produced a book for future generations of tutors at their university. Drawing inspiration from the praxis-based theories of Paulo Freire, they enacted a type of reflection more political than Dewey’s but equally committed to the power of teaching, learning, and knowledge making for bringing about change and justice.

Or take a question that often arises in tutoring sessions with L2 writers: what do we do when a second language writer asks for help with a draft that contains many instances of her written accent?

One quality of reflection asks tutors to think of a tutoring session as one step along a path toward greater understanding and social progress. In other words, the question of how to handle written accents requires a level of understanding that goes deeper than the knowledge required to fix or proofread a paper. It requires knowledge of the writer and his goals and of the relationship between a person’s accent and his or her identity. A second quality of reflection requires systematic, disciplined, and critical thinking about the writer and his writing. For example, what are the features that manifest as accented writing, and how are they different from those considered to be unaccented writing? What is the writer’s field of study and what does the instructor expect in this piece of writing? What does the student want to achieve with his writing and how does this goal relate to preserving or losing the written accent? Questions like these speak to the need for tutors to be inquisitive and to pursue their curiosity by creating new knowledge. The chapters in this book address various ways to do that: developing and testing theories, conducting observations, examining practices, writing narratives, making interpretations, counting, and qualifying. They also illustrate different types and uses of evidence to support claims, and they show how intimately connected the links are between research, practices, and persons.

Third and fourth, reflective thinking requires interaction with others and a favorable attitude toward personal and intellectual growth. Tutoring is, by definition, collaborative, but written accents are linguistically complex and tutors need to interact with one another and the wider community of multilingual students and disciplinary experts in order to expand, personally and intellectually, their understanding of written accents.

When educators practice reflective thinking in the way Dewey intended (instead of treating reflection as merely thinking about it), they strive for the kinds of deeper understanding that connect the decisions and actions involved in teaching or tutoring one person with the larger effort to create a better world. They think systematically and critically about learning, they work with other educators and experts in the field, and they remain open to new ideas. When tutors practice reflective thinking, they expand the possibilities for helping students, addressing not only students’ short-term needs but also who they wish to become. Thinking reflectively in this way also helps tutors understand some of the conflicts they may feel about their work, such as the tendency to identify with students who are striving to meet their instructors’ expectations while at the same time wanting to maintain and even celebrate the students’ accents. In this case, tutors must understand that helping writers recognize and use their accents is not simply part of the writing process; it is a step toward changing our monolingual culture and helping L2 students participate in the culture. (In the 1980s, many tutors and other academics were involved in efforts to eliminate gender bias in writing, and today the use of inclusive forms has been widely adopted, conservative outposts notwithstanding.) These aspects of working with multilingual writers—reflection, inquiry, identity, and social justice—are examined throughout the book.

In chapter 3, for example, Michelle Cox observes that some teachers penalize students for any writing that appears to lie outside the narrow boundaries of Standard Written American English. Editing this accent out of a client’s text will, in effect, render their identity as an L2 writer invisible. And yet leaving these markers in the text may leave the student vulnerable to criticism or a lower grade. What should the tutor do in this case? Cox’s nuanced perspective helps tutors better understand the tradeoffs involved when working with students whose writing is accented.

While chapters 2 and 3 help orient tutors around questions of identity and the writer’s purpose, chapter 4 looks into a Spanish-dominant context in which avoiding English is part of the writing center’s reality. Ambivalence toward English is the focus of this chapter, in which Shanti Bruce takes readers on a visit to the Centro de Competencias de la Comunicación (CCC) at the Universidad de Puerto Rico en Humacao (UPRH). Bruce delves into the complicated status of English teaching and learning in Puerto Rico, an island territory of the United States in the eastern Caribbean, where Bruce recognized a prime place for multilingual writing center research. Her chapter shows that language policies in places like Puerto Rico, Quebec, California, and elsewhere can be studied on location or from a distance. Recent debates on the US mainland about English-only policies and some politicians’ insistence that English be required for citizenship or legal status often fail to recognize the close relationship between language, identity, and the natural resistance people feel toward having an identity imposed on them by others, even if that identity leads to greater economic opportunity. As Bruce discusses what she heard while listening to the tutors at CCC talk about English (one tutor said, My dad wants me to sound Merengue, and my mom wants me to be totally American like Frank Sinatra), readers can gain a deeper understanding of the complicated nature of being a language gatekeeper. By traveling to Puerto Rico, asking questions, and listening to tutors at CCC, Bruce is able to collect important data.

Ambivalence toward English is shared by many multilingual writers, including those who live in diverse places like Miami-Dade County, located in south Florida, where almost three-fourths of all residents speak a language other than English at home. This fact is reflected in students who visited the university writing center where Kevin Dvorak (chapter 5) and his tutors worked and to a lesser extent in the backgrounds of the tutors themselves. They spoke freely about their linguistic differences, but when it came to tutoring, these tutors tended to use English only when working with student-writers. This tendency changed when Dvorak and his tutors decided to examine the assumptions underlying this practice. Eventually they settled on two questions to investigate: When and how might code-switching be used during a tutoring session? What are students’ and tutors’ attitudes toward code-switching in the writing center? Underlying these two questions were even more basic ones: do tutors and clients prefer using both languages since that reflects the surrounding linguistic environment, or do they prefer to stick to English since that is the target language they are usually trying to learn and master?

Questions like these lead to the rich data that lives within each writing center. Many ideas can be inferred from the data tutors themselves create in the form of video recordings of their own sessions and of their responses as they watch them replayed. In chapter 6, Glenn Hutchinson and Paula Gillespie tell how they have done this kind of recording in their own center and what tutors who try it can expect. One outcome of their research for the Digital Video Project was the beginning of conversation circles, one in English for international students in the United States for their first semester who want to practice their English informally and in a low-risk environment. They also started a Spanish conversation circle so students, many of whom are children of immigrants to the Miami, Florida, area, can practice their Spanish. In other words, by examining their conferences in a systematic way, the tutors in Hutchinson and Gillespie’s center discovered a way to serve the needs of those who want to improve their L1 (because most of their schooling has been in English). Audio-only recording yields interesting data too, and it has a long history as a research tool in writing centers. For tutors who are interested, a search of dissertation abstracts using the keywords writing center, tutor, and audio recording yields many hits.

A better understanding of many concepts used in writing center research, like conversation analysis, semistructured interview, action research, and grounded theory is the focus of chapter 7. Rebecca Day Babcock, whose own research has won awards and grant funding, takes the reader on