The Tutoring Book - California State University, Sacramento
The Tutoring Book - California State University, Sacramento
The Tutoring Book - California State University, Sacramento
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22<br />
Julie Colombo<br />
Spring 2011<br />
<strong>The</strong> Grammar Conundrum: Effective Ways to Incorporate Grammar Into <strong>Tutoring</strong> Sessions by<br />
Building Connections Between LOCs & HOCs<br />
As new tutors, we are introduced to a variety of theories, strategies and techniques for effective<br />
tutoring. Beginning my first semester as a tutor, I strove to understand and incorporate much of what I<br />
was learning in the internship course into my tutoring sessions, desiring to provide the best possible<br />
tutoring to students coming into the CSUS Reading & Writing Center. Yet, when I attempted to apply<br />
specific strategies relating to grammar to my tutoring sessions, I noticed a gap between the theories and<br />
techniques presented and the difficulties faced by a number of students in their writing. In the St. Martin’s<br />
Sourcebook for Writing Tutors, authors Christina Murphy and Steve Sherwood introduce several theorists<br />
and their views on the ‘grammar’ conundrum in writing centers. In Stephen M. North’s essay titled “<strong>The</strong><br />
Idea of a Writing Center,” he voices his frustration over the beliefs expressed by other academic<br />
professors and theorists who view writing centers as nothing more than “some sort of skills center, a fix-it<br />
shop” for remedial writers with “special problems in composition” (33-34). To dispel these<br />
misconceptions, North is a strong proponent of a “student-centered” approach to tutoring that takes the<br />
emphasis off lower order concerns (LOCs) or ‘local’ writing issues and puts the primary focus on higher<br />
order concerns (HOCs) or ‘global’ issues in students’ writing. In the text <strong>Tutoring</strong> Writing by Donald A.<br />
McAndrew & Thomas J. Reigstad, HOCs are described as “features of a piece of writing that exist<br />
beyond the sentence level” including: clarity, development, structure, organization, voice and tone. In<br />
contrast, LOCs are described as “features within a sentence, at the level of individual words and<br />
punctuation” that include: sentence structure, punctuation, grammar, spelling, syntax, etc. (25). Placing<br />
the emphasis on HOCs rather than LOCs, students coming into the university writing center are informed<br />
that it is not the tutor’s responsibility to focus only on grammar concerns or to edit student papers.<br />
With all of the above in mind, I made a concerted effort when I first started tutoring to focus on<br />
HOCs. But what I soon realized was that some of my tutees, whether of not their primary language was<br />
English, were struggling at the LOC level in their writing. <strong>The</strong>se students had issues with ‘grammar.’ So<br />
much so, that the grammar issues were affecting HOC concerns, inhibiting their ability to achieve clarity<br />
and focus in their writing, to cohesively organize their ideas and supportive evidence, and to present<br />
persuasive arguments. <strong>The</strong> grammar issues also affected other LOCs as with the structure of sentences,<br />
often resulting in convoluted, fragmented and/or run-on sentences. I quickly surmised that neither HOCs<br />
nor LOCs could be addressed to the exclusion of the other. I’m sure some of you may have already or will<br />
soon run into similar disparities between HOC and LOC priorities in your tutoring sessions. Determined<br />
to bridge the gap between HOC and LOC priorities as they relate to grammar, I decided to address the<br />
needs of each individual tutee, focusing in on their specific writing issues. <strong>The</strong> following two examples<br />
are taken from my own tutoring experiences with the hope that, in sharing these experiences with you,<br />
you might find some idea or bit of information helpful and apply the idea(s) to your own tutoring<br />
sessions.<br />
One of my first tutees was an ESL student majoring in Biochemistry. She came in for her first<br />
session requesting assistance on a research paper. I began the session with an open-ended question,<br />
“What would you like to focus on today in your paper?” She responded emphatically,<br />
“Grammar. I have many problems with grammar. My professor not understand my paper.” I<br />
continued on with the session, attempting to focus in on HOCs. She continued on with the session, only<br />
interested in her primary goal, the correction of her grammar. I had her make notes throughout the session<br />
on her paper so she could refer to my wonderful insights into improving clarity, structure, paragraph<br />
cohesion, etc. later during her revision process. <strong>The</strong> tutee was enthusiastic and determined, just like I was.<br />
Our next session began the same way, the tutee even more anxious about her grammar. When I reviewed