Blog 6: Schendel, Bib and Peh

11/17/2022

Summary:

    The readings from Week 6 focus on the concept of proofreading for grammar in a writing centre, and more specifically, how you shouldn't be focusing on proofreading when tutoring a student.  The readings reinforce the idea that a writing centre is still not a fix-it-shop, and proofreading for grammar and punctuation shouldn't be the primary concern in a tutoring session.  The message from these articles is that you should ideally be helping the student to be more confident in their writing, though doing a bit of grammar correction isn't necessarily frowned upon.

Commentary:

    For Bibb and Schendel, the idea is that grammar should never be the main focus of a tutoring session.  Furthermore, you should avoid grammar drills when grammar does come into play, and instead, help the writers in a more encompassing sort of way.  Peh notes that before COVID, requests for proofreading were usually turned down.  However, since the amount of these requests had grown, she accepted them.  However, instead of proofreading an entire paper, she notes that she would go through the first couple paragraphs, make notes on what could be fixed, and then let the student go over the rest of the paper with those fixes in mind, so as to allow the student to not only fix that paper, but hopefully keep the corrections in mind when writing papers in the future.  I think this strategy is quite good, since it theoretically goes beyond fixing a single paper, as a student may have wanted originally, but instead can hopefully give students pointers on what appear to be the most glaring issues in their writing.  If the student pays attention and retains these tips, it should provide them with some idea of what to watch out for in their writing from there on.  

Question:   

    To what extent would it be acceptable to correct grammar, and are there situations where you should just let some mistakes slide?