Saurabh Anand
Assignments & Activities Archive
Activity Description
This activity sheet’s idea and its relevance in the writing center consultation mushroomed from my English composition teaching days to my (multilingual) students. In between drafts, I often invited my students to reflect on the writing they produced to intentionally let them self-access to intentionally let them self-access their writing growth over time during different stages in the semester. However, such reflections were often descriptive, where I would guide students’ thinking via response questions. This activity sheet does the same thing at the core but provides my students a visual interpretation of what they have changed in their writing between drafts by offering them a tool and process for analyzing their writing. I firmly believe a similar version of this activity could extend to writing center consultations. When a tutee comes in for the consultation seeking essay organizational-related mentorship, for example, I always request them to make a copy of the writing that they would use for the writing consultancy. I do so because usually, the tutee makes changes in their writing during the consultation. Then, after I help them, I could provide this activity sheet (Appendix). Performing the activity’s steps, the writer would be able to assess the visual of the changes they made in the drafts before and after writing consultation for future reference using Microsoft Word’s ‘compare feature.’ Facilitating this activity sheet further iterates the writing center’s core mission as a university resource: helping writers of various fluency levels to (formatively) develop their writing skills. Such activity provides agency to tutee/writer to take and retain the ownership of their own writing during and post writing consultation in collaboration with tutors. I would like to remind readers that this activity works in the classroom too.