Re: -Reply

[nlerner@MIT.EDU (Neal Lerner)]

Yesterday I had a conversation with one of my students that seems
appropriate for this discussion of what the focus of a session should be.
This student had met with a WC tutor to talk about his research paper.  I
happened to have talked with the tutor shortly after that session, and he
told me that the student was not particularly involved, only had a few
specific questions about citation form or something like that.  However,
yesterday, this same student, who had received a pretty poor grade on that
paper, told me that the tutor had assured him the paper was "very good."
Hmm.  Interesting the way representations can vary, huh?  I told the
student that I was quite sure that this hadn't been the tutor's message and
that it was up to the student to set a more ambitious agenda.

I think this question of the responsibilities of tutors and students to set
and agenda is an interesting one.  I like to think that I mainly leave that
agenda setting up to students, but they don't always have the experience in
and knowledge of the discourse conventions of tutoring to make wise or
informed choices.

Neal Lerner
nlerner@mit.edu