Re: email-tutoring -a different twist

[bobbie silk <bsilk@keller.clarke.edu>]

Ahh, Dee, well said!!                --Bobbie

On Mon, 3 Mar 1997, Dee Baer wrote:

> 
> 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
> 
> 
>