To Professor Gleason

ENGL B5600 has provided me invaluable insight into the various teaching pedagogies that exists in the field of Basic Writing, College Composition, and Writing Centers.  Coming in, I was a bit apprehensive about my ability to fit into the program, and handle the workload.  I must say that I worried in vain.  The structure of the course allows for any student who is genuinely interested in learning, to succeed.  I enjoyed the camaraderie developed with my peers, the class discussions, the group assignments, and the opportunity to learn more about teaching adult learners.

The readings allowed for reflective and analytical responses through our course blog and class discussions.  Prior to taking this course I had not given much thought to the fact that adult learners faced many of the same problems that child learners face. I learned much about early movement to improve the teaching of college composition from reading and discussing Mina Shaughnessy.  While most of the theorists we read brought to the fore several topics beneficial to my teaching philosophy, the readings about ESL students had the greatest impact.  Tutoring at the Samuel Rudin Writing Center here at City College, I see over 15 ESL students each week and the "errors" in their writing are aligned to the errors discussed by Matsuda and Cox, Severino, Linville, and others.  Learning to recognize, and in a way "accept" or perhaps "work around" these problems to find meaning in ESL students' texts is perhaps the most significant advice that I will take from this course.

In terms of assignments and applying the knowledge of theory into practice, the ethnographic research that I conducted at Baruch College remains a high point of this course.  Taking the knowledge learned about early Writing Center pioneers such as Kenneth Bruffee, Andrea Lunsford, and Steven North, as well as theories about working with students by Jeff Brooks, Kristin Walker, Muriel Harris and others, and then translating this knowledge into a real writing center operation was a major undertaking.  This final assignment, though time consuming, gave me the unique opportunity to observe how a writing center is designed to meet the specific needs of the college in which it is located.

The knowledge gained through participation in this course will serve me (not only as a tutor but teacher of English) long after I graduate this program.  The new peer relationships developed will also assist me in my journey through this program as we continue to collaborate and interact as a community of learners. 

Finally, Professor Gleason, learning from you and working under your tutelage has been a very rewarding experience.  Your expectations are high, as they should be, but this only made me strive to produce a better quality of work and develop even greater confidence in myself as a writer, speaker, and teacher of the English language.