Re: email-tutoring -a different twist

[Dee Baer <dbaer@UDel.Edu>]

I'd like to share my perspective on e-mail tutoring.  In recent years,
I've done tutoring through the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth
Writing Program.  Initially, I worked with twenty 8th and 9th grade
"gifted"  writer, exchanging letters and assignments through the U>S>
mail.  In subsequent years, I moved to an all e-mail format--parents and
kids really wanted such a service.

Ultimately I decided that I much preferred the "snail mail" version to the
e-mail version.  "Real" mail was slow, but as with most of the
"you-can-get-it-instantly" technologies, e-mail meant assignments were
sent to me more often at the last moment, frequently written hurriedly. 
Then there were the incredible problems reading the essays from my best
student who had some kind of file transfer program (or something) that I
did not. Her essays appeared as "gobbley-gook" on my screen and could take
hours for me to unscramble.  Then there were the times that e-mail was
down, or students away from their computers for a long weekend.

But many of those are solvable problems.  What I couldn't solve was the
very faceless quality of our interactions.  Yes, it was great that I could
instantly query a student about some aspect of her paper. But I missed
those twenty envelopes coming into my house every two weeks. Each envelope
tended to have a different face, a face I would smile at as I pulled it
from the mailbox, or opened it up, settling down in my comfy chair to read
and think about.  One student always used grey envelopes with blue
lettering from her parents' mussel company in Boston.  Another always used
a quirky sticker that gave me a clue to the writer's mood as he completed
his essay and sent it on its way.  Inside these very individual envelopes
were typed essays, but also handwritten notes in various styles that I
came to recognize instantly--the cramped, uneven style of Steve from
Portland, the sweeping roundness of Gloria from South Carolina.  In
return, I would send typed responses, but I would always add handwritten
notes to my letters, marginal scribblings of encouragement or query on
their essays, stickers of my own to help create my " face" for them.

I still have many of their letters and essays, and an instant's glance at
any of their special characteristics instantly evokes for me strong
impressions of our work together, of my sense of that individual and our
many written discussions.  For whatever reason, I can't claim the same for
my e-mail students and their essays which I printed out on my
ColorWriter II printer.  They've all disappeared into cyperspace (at the
push of a button).

How this may fit into the ongoing thread, I'm not certain.  I do know that
I learned something about myself and why I am drawn to working in a
Writing Center.  I like the faces I see.


 


Dee Baer
University of Delaware Writing Center