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Continued Training 1 - Vangeli Hadjimichael

There are different types of resume styles, chronological and functional. The first is self explanatory , but the second is about organizing things in terms of how they function in relation to a certain job. Physical resumes should be no longer than a page, but digital ones don't have that restriction. Resumes should be organized in a way such that it includes these categories: contact info, career objective, summary of qualifications, education, work experience, and capabilities. Add a headline to summarize your information, and definitely include a photo. References are also important to have. Also using nouns instead of verbs when describing your positions is useful. I think the this reading has a lot of good tips to making a resume easier to write, and it's hard to not just recommend the entire thing. If I had to choose one thing as the most important takeaway from it all, I would have to say the visual examples that can probably be used as templates for writing my own ...
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Blog 9: Hitt, O’Leary and Nan articles

Hitt talks about how to make accessibility better in writing centers. A few methods proposed are working to make the design layout work for universal accessibility, in terms of physical disability, and also making it work in terms of mental disability. O'Leary talks about gender in the writing center. It focused on knowing which interactions worked where, and how gender can come into play when trying to tutor in the writing center. Nan focusses on how to tutor better with the English learners. Being direct, noticing body language, and other non verbal cues, and being transparent are all suggestions about how to improve tutoring with ELL students. I think it's fascinating to think about how different cultures use non verbal cues, like hand gestures, to communicate, and seeing that implemented in the writing center would be cool. Would it require extra training on the consultants' behalf to learn these new skills? Or is it something they just pick up over time working?

Blog 8: BF. chapter 5 Bishop and Johnson et al

 BF talks about the different curriculums and how to help with them. it mentions lab reports, research papers, scientific papers, argument and position papers, literature papers, and more. Johnson et al was a study done to see how cross discipline writers tutored. This was done by using engineering majors and English majors and having the English majors tutor the engineering majors and compare that to English majors tutoring English majors. Bishops paper was about creativity, and different ways to foster it by engaging the writer and making them more interested in the work. I'm like the idea of tutoring cross discipline because I want to be able to broaden my horizons outside of the specific major and minor I'm working on. How do you guide conversations without imposing your ideas too much onto the writer?

Blog 7: OG and BF ch. 4

 The Oxford book talks about two main things, motivation and scaffolding. Motivation has two main types- intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic is the best one because it is self motivating, and makes you strive to do better, while extrinsic is weaker because it relies on external factors. Scaffolding is important because it allows for weaker writers to slowly learn and gain confidence in their abilities, which leads to more intrinsic motivation.  Chapter 4 of BF talks about the writers we tutor. There's no universally good or bad writer, and when looking at drafts, no matter how messy, it's important to regard them as works in progress. Point out the good parts of the paper, and frame the bad parts as points that need improvement. Everyone has different learning styles and it's important to recognize and adapt to that.  The next section of the Oxford book talks about identity, which ties with Chapter 4 of BF. Everyone is unique in some way, and it's important to tailor you...

Blog 6: Schendel, Bib and Peh

 The Schendel essay talks about why we focusing on sentence level errors in papers is actually not the best idea. She surveys a whole bunch of writing center tutors and asks them how much time is actually spent working on grammar and mechanics and the numbers were generally relatively high. She then asked how the tutors would go about teaching said mechanics and grammar.  The Bib article begins with a history of grammar tutoring, and then goes on to talk about the more modern ways. Like the Schendel essay, Bib also surveys different writing tutors to see what they focus on in their writing.  Peh's piece talks about proofreading during the pandemic. When everything moved online, and actual meetings were difficult, a lot of people with sentence level concerns simply asked for proofreading. Peh says that the the way to go about it is to go over the first few paragraphs of the paper, to help the writer learn how to recognize on their own. I really appreciated the way Peh goes...

Blog 5: BF chapters 2,3

 Chapter 2 talks about what actually happens during a session, and how to go about doing it well. Important points to remember are to introduce yourself (duh), and give the writer control over their paper. Ask them questions about it, the writing is theirs, now yours. instead of correcting individual grammatical issues, point out trends, and have them learn to recognize and fix them on their own. Keep tools and resources nearby.  It's good to have structure in your sessions, Manage the writer's expectations by having them list their goals for the session. Always be an active listener and respond to what the writer is saying. Wrap up sessions a bit early to provide for time for feedback and reflection. Chapter 3 talks about tutoring through the writing process. It's stated that the linear form of prewriting, writing, and revising is inadequate for tutors. "writing is recursive," so people go back to earlier parts of their paper to rewrite them. The process of disco...

Blog 4: BF chapters 1,6,8

 Chapter one focused on professionalism in the writing center, and the different hats that workers at the writing center wear. Formality is a must. Avoid negativity towards professors, grades and writers. Dress professionally and arrive on time. There are 7 different hats. Ally, Coach, Commentator, Collaborator,  Writing Expert, Learner, and Councilor. They will all be worn in different situations that arise. Chapter 6 focused on Writing Centers in the information age. Now that we're in the digital age, writers can have both synchronous and asynchronous forms of help in the Writing Center. Examples of synchronous online tutoring are: via text, phone call, web conferences (like Zoom and Skype), and social media. For asynchronous, you can: email, provide databases, and have an online classroom. There are many advantages to asynchronous tutoring: it's easier to schedule, collaboration, anonymity, and having written records.  Chapter 8 is all about research. It's important to...