Ethnography

of a

Writing

Desk

INTRODUCTION

If you refer to my research plan you can see I intended

to explore issues of power, gender, and culture as well as

explore issues of identity and positionality in the peer writing

tutorial. I also had planned to explore the concept of

academic writing as it emerges during a peer tutorial and

the strategies /techniques used by the tutor to facilitate

“mastery” of academic writing. The scope of my project was

too broad, and the time I could reasonably allot to it was too

short. However, I did make some interesting observations

which were reinforced by the survey questions and

interviews I conducted. This data will be utilized to structure

tutor training sessions for the upcoming semester at the

Learning Center at Ball State University

www.bsu.edu/learningcenter .

MY FINDINGS

Through my observations of the writing tutorials I

noticed most encounters centered directly on the text and

what the instructor wanted, and isolating a means of

assuring that the finish product meets the expectations of

the assignment. Most tutorials focused on what we would

call “mechanics” --- comma placement, grammar rules,

citations, etc.; little of the tutorial time had to do with

content or idea generation. One tutorial with a foreign

female student was noticeably strained, as she wanted to

discuss content and invention strategies, which made the

tutor somewhat uncomfortable. She also did not want to

focus on the text; she wanted to talk about the assignment.

The uncomfortableness with idea generation and

content evaluation/ construction was a sentiment echoed by

the tutors in the survey questionnaire and interviews. All

tutors felt awkward in dealing with content as it appears to

require a specific knowledge in a content area. Many tutors

are extremely comfortable with grammar, punctuation, and

citations, and veteran tutors seem to be somewhat

comfortable with style and arrangement and even evaluating

the logic of an argument. Tutors who were hired for their

knowledge specific majors felt comfortable tutoring within

the jurisdiction of their content areas. Otherwise, no tutors

mentioned enjoying idea generation, topic generation, or

content oriented invention strategies.

Also noticeable from the observation and

triangulated by the survey questions and interviews was

uneasiness in dealing with non-traditional students and ESL

students. Fourteen out of the sixteen tutors expressed

feeling most comfortable tutoring someone “like

themselves.” Several expressed being more comfortable

tutoring members of the same sex as “you don’t have to

think about so many things, you know, when you tutor

another guy as you do when you tutor a girl” as one young

man wrote; several females tutors echoed the same gender

preference sentiments. Artifact analysis of tutor session logs

and client intake forms also confirmed a general sense of

uncomfortableness on behalf of tutors in dealing with ESL

clients in particular. Only two tutors mentioned a preference

for ESL students because they were “really dedicated” and

“really wanted to learn.” Another tutor who is minoring in

ESL mentioned wanting to get over her awkwardness in

dealing with ESL clients stating, “I know what am supposed

to do, but don’t know how to do it.”

Tutors were always polite and courteous to their clients

during the tutorials regardless of the appraised level of

difference that may or may not have existed between tutor

and client. The clients were all very pleased with the tutoring

encounter. A noticeable “novice- expert” dynamic existed in

all the observed tutorials; the tutor was perceived as the

knowledge holder in the tutoring encounter and the client

was the knowledge receiver. Many times the tutors engaged

in physically assisting the clients in finding answers to

questions regarding grammar, punctuation, citations, etc.

Unwittingly the client was often put in a passive positioning.

Many tutors are self aware of this phenomenon and

commented on this in their survey questionnaires. Many said

their major fault as a tutor was being “too helpful” and ”too

talkative,” and not letting the clients have the necessary

“uncomfortable silence” to respond or the formulate

questions or ideas. Allowing silence in the tutorial is

especially relevant for ESL learners who may require a

longer time to process information or may have cultural

values on silence in conversation.

Also interesting were the long silences between turn

taking in the male-male tutor dyad. Both males were

approximately the same age. Both were American

Caucasians. The tutorial was structured by the silences

rather than by speaking. As an observer I was

uncomfortable with the long breaks between dialogues, but

the tutor and client were perfectly at ease. They had not

met before in a tutorial encounter, nor did they know one

another outside the context. Also unique about this pair was

their physical exchange of greeting and leave taking. They

shook hands prior to the tutorial in a friendly and outgoing

manner and during leave taking the tutor extended his left

hand to the clients left shoulder as he shook hands and ask

him if he’d like to make another appointment. This behavior

was not repeated by the tutor when engaging a female

client. Nor did any of the female tutors engage in hand

shaking as a form of greeting or leave taking. I don’t know if

this was particular to the tutor-client pair, or if the behavior

could be generalized to a larger group. More observations

are needed.

Another compelling finding regarding what constitutes

academic writing was discovered by an analysis of the

survey questions results. All tutors felt that if a writing

project was required for a class it constituted academic

writing, even if it did not fit the model of a research paper. I

was pleasantly surprised by the liberality of their attitudes to

place reflective works and reaction papers in the domain of

academic writing.

In general, what I gained from my mini-ethnographic

experience was some very relevant and useful ideas for

tutor training workshops next semester. Carl Jung once said

that human beings basically have two emotions: love and

fear. Often I tend to see the world on this continuum. The

tutors in general felt awkward dealing with clients and topics

that make them uncomfortable because they fear they lack

the necessary skills to handle the encounters well. This

study taught me that our Learning Center Writing Desk

tutors need to develop strategies and skills for dealing with

clients who are seen as non-traditional because of age,

language/cultural background, or ableness. Developing

awareness and a repertoire of successful strategies will

increase our tutors’ confidence and reduce their fear of such

encounters.

Secondly, our tutors should receive more training time

focusing on idea generation, topic construction, and

invention heuristics to become less fearful of tutorial

encounters which deal with content rather than only

grammar, punctuation, and citation. Additionally, tutors

would benefit from some training in applying rhetorical

analysis to student works in order to approach the text

holistically in terms of its ethos, pathos, and logos; this may

help each tutor to go beyond the actual physicality of the

text and to deal with the meaning inherent in the encounter

with the text’s creators.