Tamar -- Questions 1/23

1)   There is a suggestion in the Bedford Guide (p. 3) that tutors use guiding questions to lead writers to discover the areas in which they need improvement.  This is offered as a way to ensure "professionalism toward teachers" in the sense that you can avoid over-revising/having too much of your own language/recasts present in a student's paper ,which I think they frame as a risk (giving the instructor something to assess that is not 100% the student's own work).

However, this creates a tension if we are viewing ourselves as collaborators.  In particular, I have found that in terms of word choice/vocabulary.   I very often work with students on diversifying the vocabulary in their writing, as well as making word choices more precise.  We will look at various synonyms for a word and discuss connotation and levels of meaning, and often we will come up with a few options---perhaps a word a student has never used before-- and I will ultimately tell them which choice I feel is best for a given context.

The issue here is not that I gave the student the word---I might say "I think this one best expresses your meaning if you are saying....".  Often students will say, "No...actually I mean....."  Through negotiation, we collaborate to find the best fit.  The issue is that the word isn't part of the student's present active vocabulary, and the individual could easily forget the meaning of that word two weeks later if an instructor were to ask about it.  So the question, I guess, is:  is "giving" students new words an example of offering too much? 

 I would defend the practice of  giving students words that (at least) might become part of their passive vocabulary.  Ultimately they came up with the sentence to express their meaning, so I think providing  new words is part of the collaboration.  However, I can also understand how more "advanced" word choices might be flagged by an instructor (familiar with the student's work) and cause suspicion that the writing is not the student's own work. 

2)  I am interested in the opportunities to do case studies and some creative non-fiction (essays) about working in a writing center.  What type of IRB approval must you obtain for this type of work? 

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