Another Day at the UWC

Hello again,

First of all, happy Easter weekend to everyone. This past week, I was thinking back to the days when I used to attend private Catholic school, and I found myself feeling envious when remembering how I used to be given the entire week off before Easter Sunday. If only life were still that good.

But that was then and this is now, and, today, I have a blog that I hope all of you will enjoy.

I'm not quite sure how to start this, so I'll just jump right in.

It was like any other Thursday at Cal Poly's writing center. I had just finished my 2:30 appointment when I heard my name being called from the opposite side of the writing center. As I turned I saw a student (I will use minimal description as to not give them away) who stated that he was my next appointment. With this being said, and after initial introductions were made, we made our way to a table to begin the tutoring session.

Upon sitting down at the table I began the appointment like any other and asked him what brought him into the writing center. He, after a moment of hesitation, revealed that he had been working on a few works of poetry and really wanted someone to critique/help him with his writing. I was, at first, taken aback by the request, but then I felt a wave of excitement come over me. I had never been asked to help a tutee with their poetry, and was uplifted that this young man was actually writing poetry at all. Immediately my mind drifted back to a few months prior to this incident when a fellow tutor of mine had told me about a similar tutoring appointment he had had. He revealed that he felt uncomfortable tutoring someone on their poetry, because he did not feel that it was right that he tell someone else what to write in their poetry. With this in mind I began looking over what this student had written.

Upon completion of the first two poems I realized that this student had very little experience with poetry. Most of his work was elementary, and, while a good start for any poet, needed a lot of work. Seeing that I did not want to stunt this student's desires to write poetry, I was very careful with how I responded to his poems, and I did my best to emphasize the strong aspects of his poetry, while still picking out sections that I felt could still use some work. After we had talked about his poetry for about twenty minutes and finished discussing his poetry, he asked me to help him with writing a particular part of the poem that I had said needed attention. This request left me with mixed feeling, and, again, my mind wandered back to what my fellow tutor had said about not feeling comfortable telling his student what he should write in his poetry. Because of this, I told the student that I did not feel that I should help him with the actual writing of his poetry, but would rather give him suggestions, and point out areas that he could focus on during his revisions. I stated that if I did any of the actual writing of the poetry, then it would be my voice in his work, not his own.

It has been almost three days since this incident and I still find myself thinking about my decision. And this is where you all come in. What do you think about this situation and my decision? When editing another writer's work, is it ever ok that the editor write anything more than his/her opinion on where they think the piece needs work? Should editors, especially of a literary magazine, send the rejected pieces of a magazine back with critiques or suggestions on what they feel should be added/removed, or is that going too far and speaking for the writer?

Let me know what you all think, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Until next time,

Nick