1. Guarding the Tower
2. Converting the Natives
3. Sounding the Depths
4. Diving In
I read Diving In for the first time about a year ago. While I certainly enjoyed the piece and could recognize the gravity of her words, it wasn't until I reread it when the gravity actually sunk in with me. As a tutor in the Writing Center and an instructor of writing at City College, I too, have experienced the very stages she outlines in her essay. It's amazing (or scary) how accurate her depiction of each stage.
Admittedly, when I began at the writing center, I was rather taken aback by the quality of writing. I had come from a very different institution, so I suppose my expectations were higher than they ought to be. I was, in essence, guarding the tower. Still, I can remember vividly one student in particular who truly pushed me to dive in. She was a Russian student struggling with article usage. In her native language, there are no articles, so naturally this was a great difficulty. I could see, however, that she was a diligent student who could "catch up" with my help. Here, I was attempting to convert the natives. From here, I tried to simplify the rule of article usage to something as simple as: whenever you have a noun, you need an article. As our sessions continued over the semester, we reached a roadblock: uncountable nouns. I had completely ignored such an obvious obstacle. I realized that perhaps article usage was only simple to me because, as a native, I inherently understood how to use them. Now, I was sounding the depths. I began to closely study the intricacies of the English language on to realize that there is really no logical to it. I now understand the difficulty of learning it. So, I had but one choice: to dive in. If I truly wanted to help her to succeed I had to dive in as an educator to remediate myself and become a better instructor.
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