North's Article Relating to Today's Class

North’s piece on writing centers paired well with the activities of today’s class. As we had discussed in class, grammar and syntax are very important, especially when grammatical errors take away from the message of a paper. However, as the entire class collectively peer reviewed the example paper, syntax and grammar took a back seat to the actual content, which required much more attention. I feel like when I start peer tutoring, I may share some of North’s frustrations, but I feel like students who come into a peer tutoring session, whether they are required to or not, will not have the mentality that the context of their paper is perfect and they only need help with grammar. In most cases, if a student came in with questions it would be about formulating ideas, not how to use a comma.
Collaborative peer tutoring really helped me take note of some suggestions that I might not have thought of. When writers come to a peer tutoring session, they go to bounce off ideas, but peer tutoring with someone else was just as beneficial. North had said that a peer tutors job was to interrupt the writer’s routine. Whether or not this is truly beneficial, when a peer tutor collaborates with another tutor, that tutor has to change up his or her reviewing routine because another person is involved in giving feedback. Writing is a process that never really ends because there is always room for improvement and collaboration allows peer tutors to continue to improve just like writers.