Assignment 3

What is appropriation? Have you ever found yourself doing too much when it comes to working with other students’ papers? How does Severino suggest combating this impulse?

36 thoughts on “Assignment 3

  1. Appropriation is a term often used to refer to writing; and it happens when a tutor correct’s a tutee’s language to make it sound and read more like the target language; however, in this change, the tutor infuses some of his knowledge and voice, making the newly corrected writing lose part of the tutee’s voice. When friends would ask me to correct their papers freshmen year,
    I did a lot of appropriation, however, now I rarely do it. To avoid appropriation we can involve the tutee in the reformulation process, or we could also make sure that the reformulation does not involve a level of language that the tutee does not have yet.

  2. According to Severino, appropriation involves “the writer feeling a loss of voice, ownership, authorship, or emotional and intellectual connection to the writing and how it was composed.” When I read over the tutee’s paper, I sometimes find myself making an excessive amount of corrections. However, I realize that this act of appropriation is not a right way of helping students. Although they might learn from my comments and corrections made on their papers, the tutees would feel alienated from their work. Therefore, in order to prevent appropriation from occurring, the tutor needs to encourage the tutee to participate in the process of reformulation.

  3. As stated by Severino in his text “Avoiding Appropriation”, appropriation refers to an act of correction where the author’s voice is ultimately removed from the text in favor of more fluid or native speech. This term stands in contrast to reformulation, where the author’s voice is kept, but various phrases are changed in order to highlight a more native speech/formulation. As more and more German 1 students come in to the CSLC, I have definitely had to restrain myself from “appropriating” or even trying to direct the tutees towards a formulation that resonates better with me yet might be unfamiliar to them. According to Severino, appropriation can be avoided by directly participating in the reformulation process or trying to avoid “misrepresenting the student’s language level on the page”.

  4. Appropriation is when the writer feeling has been reformulated or taken away from the work. It involves a “loss of voice, ownership, authorship, or emotional and intellectual connection to the writing and how it was composed.” When it comes to my Spanish tutoring, I rarely appropriate since I usually work with simple sentences that don’t require much editing. If I’m editing a paper for a friend, and I know their aim is to sound accurate, then I make changes. However, this is with their knowledge and they understand why it sounds better with my new correction. Severino suggests combating the impulse by “responding to the writer’s expressed needs and feelings… ensuring [their] participation… and not misrepresenting [their] second language proficiency level.”

  5. Appropriation basically means that the original version has been taken away from the tutee by the tutor, or teacher. I have definitely found myself, in my long history of tutoring, doing to much for other students. This happens the worst when it is my own siblings. I have gotten a lot better at not using appropriation as much and I have used a lot of Severino’s advice without knowing it. In order to avoid usage, I now am better at getting the student more involved. This can be hard because sometimes they are stubborn and when one gets frustrated, it’s hard not to want to just fix the mistake. Furthermore, I now understand I cannot correct every error the student makes. I need to focus on specific issues in order to help them improve piece by piece on the things that matter.

  6. Appropriation occurs when the voice of a writer is lost as a result of correction by another writer to fix for more natural speech in a certain language. The example given involves a student’s essay fixed by the teacher of a foreign language class, and as a result the paper sounds better yet does not have the student’s voice and is perhaps too advanced for the student’s level. I personally have experienced this both as a tutor and as a student, and I have had to be careful that I do not try to have the student write beyond his/her level. Severino suggests numerous ways to combat this, such as by directly addressing needs, selecting specific passages to review, and explaining the reason for a change rather than simply making the change.

  7. According to Severino, appropriation occurs when a student’s voice and control are taken away in the process of editing and revising the paper even though the writing still conveys the general message from the original draft. I have found myself in both situations as a tutor and a student. I have had problems trying to change the overall tone and too much of the paper when I would revise a paper, especially when I don’t have the writer in front of me. When I tutor, I try to ask the students what they would like to say but I still had hard time not trying to impose too much of my own voice. And as a student, I have had experiences having my Spanish paper “appropriated” when I was in high school. In order to combat this impulse of appropriation, Severino suggests ten steps and among those are involving the student’s needs, instead of your own and their participation in reformulation decisions, selecting particular passages to work on, using speaking-into-writing strategies, explaining the changes that the tutor recommends and considering the type, purpose, genre of writing.

  8. Appropriation in the language setting is when a tutor, professor or person with greater knowledge of a language takes the work of a student with lesser knowledge and changes it to sound “better” or more like a native speaker’s work. When correcting a friend’s Portuguese essay it was sometimes difficult to overlook some stylistic aspects because it sounded very foreign. However, as Severino suggests, choosing to focus on one aspect of a paper and asking for the student’s input helps to combat this eagerness to appropriate. It is also important to prioritize your advise to the learner. Changing every single beginner word to an advanced one will not help the student write what they mean to write. However, pointing out words that are being used incorrectly and asking the student what he meant to say is of greater help. Severino’s main point is that when a tutor appropriates a learner’s work he eliminates the learner’s voice and his ideas. The tutor’s role should be to help in the process of getting the student to say what they want to say, however they want to say it.

  9. What is appropriation? Have you ever found yourself doing too much when it comes to working with other students’ papers? How does Severino suggest combating this impulse?

    Appropriation, as defined in Severino’s article, is the act of revising a foreign-language learner’s paper to the point that the author feels as if he has lost authority over his piece. This occurs when the editor tries to insert “more natural sounding” phrases, or replaces words in favor of higher-level words. Last summer, 7 Japanese students participated in a program at ND where they had to write daily journal entries. They would ask me to look them over, and at first I would appropriate them by exchanging awkward sounding sentences for a sentence English speakers would actually say. However, I saw that doing it this way wasn’t helping the students so I stopped. Severino suggests that a way of combatting this impulse is to first read the paper in its entirety, ask the student to explain what they wrote, and then read the assignment prompt to check that the student fully understood what s/he was supposed to do. After that, work with the student to fix the errors rather than attacking the paper with a red pen without the student’s involvement.

  10. Appropriation is when the tutor or teacher overcorrects the student’s work to the point that it could not have been done by the student and exceeds the student’s level of language. This is tempting to do at times when we simply want to improve the student’s work, help them get a good grade, etc. However, it is not helpful to the student and does not promote their language learning. We can avoid appropriation by addressing the expressed needs of the student, having the student participate in the reformulation of their work, maintain the student’s language level in the work, give students authority over their work, address the highest-order concerns in the work first, choose particular sections of the work to correct, use the speaking into writing technique, explain the corrections to the work, consider if the students is learning language in the correction, and consider the genre or style of the work. These are many techniques to help us help students correct their writing without appropriation in a negative sense.

  11. According to Severino, appropriation consists of the teacher, tutor, or editor taking the piece of writing and reformulating it in such a way that makes the writing feel “a loss of voice, ownership, authorship, or emotional and intellectual connection” to the work and how the final product is composed. Although I have made an effort not to do this while tutoring, when I have exchanged foreign language papers with a peer for proofreading purposes in the past, I find myself tempted to change stylistic aspects in addition to strictly grammatical errors. Severino suggests that appropriation can be avoided when a tutor addresses the expressed needs of the student, asks the writer to participate in reformulation decisions, and avoids misrepresenting the tutee’s language level, for instance.

  12. Appropration is the act where a teacher, tutor or editor changes a written work from an L2 student to the point where it is no longer in the students voice. There is a loss of ownership, of student voice, or authorship, or of emotional and intellectual connection to the writing and how it was composed (53). On the other hand the changes are elevated to a higher register and it becomes the work of the tutor and editor rather than of the student. I will admit that there have been times where I am attempted to reword the students’ papers just to clarify the idea or because the syntax is a bit choppy. However, I am aware that by doing that not only do I make my paper my ‘own work’ but the student loses motivation in trying to formulate sentences knowing that they are wrong or that his/her idea are not coming across well. Severino offers some suggestions to combat the impulse of appropriation by: address expressed needs, ask the student to participate in reformulation decisions, avoid misrepresenting the student’s language level on the page, select certain passages to work on rather than the whole essay, use speaking-into-writing strategies and explain the changes to the student in order for them to understand the concept and not repeat the same mistake.

  13. Appropriation is when a tutor or teacher changes a tutee or students piece of writing in such a way that the student’s voice is then lost within the work. In an effort to make it more like the language being learned, the tutor will sometimes put too much of their own voice or knowledge within the work. I have not had much work in editing written work, but I do think that I might have a tendency to do this. In order to avoid this I could attempt to involved the tutee more, by perhaps asking them how they think it should be changed. That way they can learn syntax better and I will not make the mistake of incorporating language skills in their work they have not acquired yet.

  14. According to Severino’s article, appropriation occurs when a tutor corrects and edits a tutee’s writing sample so thoroughly that the sample takes on the voice of the tutor, rather than the tutee. I have not experienced this yet, as I have not yet had to look over any writing samples from my tutees. If I were to encounter this issue, however, I would be sure to take Severino’s advice and combat this impulse by establishing beforehand the tutee’s language level so that I don’t correct the paper above that level, and by asking the tutee to take an active part in identifying errors in the writing.

  15. Severino writes in “Avoiding Appropriation” that appropriation is taking a text written by a student and changing it until the student’s voice is lost. Severino tells us that we should, “ask writers to participate in reformulation decisions.” To do this with Russian compositions, I have a student read over what he or she has written and find a new way to convey his or her meaning in English. This way they can better relate to the text they have composed and at the same time search for a new way to rephrase. Fortunately, Russian is not my native language, so I still struggle writing papers on my own. I let my students know that I am not perfect and that I also make mistakes.

  16. Appropriation is revising the writing so that it no longer reflects or sounds like the student. This is something I struggled with a lot! I can see the point they are trying to make and I want to help them make that strong point, so I tweak the language. Often times the student will ask me what a word means or why I chose a different verb tense. I then try to backtrack and say Oh no yours is fine but that does more harm than good. Now I am more hesitant to make huge structural changes and look more for recurring errors that indicate a gap in their knowledge. Severino suggests many ways to combat this impulse; I most commonly try explaining changes rather than just making it, reading the paper entirely picking out pattern errors and then working with the student to fix them

  17. I agree with authors Jennifer Staben and Kathryn Nordhaus that focusing on grammar, even when specifically asked by the tutee, can be distracting from true language acquisition. Though it is often easy to focus on, especially in writing, because students have a desire to perform well in a class, there is no true advantage to being given rapid corrections that do not lead to learning. The deflection methods given by the author to address how to respond in situations when a tutee is strictly requesting help with grammar also seem very helpful. Focusing on the assignment as a whole and talking with students about what is expected in this assignment is a good way to help give the tutor better context of what to look for, opens up a conversation between tutee and tutor, and can help give the tutor time to focus on more that grammar- ie. understanding, general knowledge, and “red flag” errors of language use. After this has been done, paying attention to grammar is not bad since language is comprised of both substance and grammar.

  18. For me, the most interesting topic discussed in Jennifer Staben and Kathryn Nordhaus’ work is the difference between correct writing and well-done writing.The authors talk about how a person, when they don’t understand the culture of a different country have trouble structuring papers correctly, even if their grammar is perfect. Then they gave the example of a thesis statement and how in the United States this needs to be placed close to the beginning because that connects with the culture of the United States and what people expect. I know that this has definitely been present in my own experience with Spanish. While the structure of thoughts and organization of essays are not dramatically different, there are specific things that Spanish professors look for that differ from Americans. Having someone explain the best way to structure your essay allowed me to not only do better on my exam, but also understand the Latin American culture better. In regards to this, I appreciate Staben and Norhaus’ suggestion of providing a visual during tutoring. I personally utilize outlines just to organize my own thoughts so it would make sense that it would remain helpful in another language. I hope to use some of the strategies they included in their article this summer.

  19. The readings for this class from Staben & Nordhaus along with Linville provide many useful techniques in becoming an effective tutor in regards to writing. The readings pushed for a greater focus on establishing higher order goals (focus, organization, and communication) more so than second order goals (grammar). This is an interesting piece of advice because in many of the language classes I have taken, the instructor promoted that idea in conversation, but not so much in writing. The teacher usually conveyed the process of writing as a slow and pensive process designed to acquire second order skills such as grammar. I see the merit in both uses of writing. Staben and Nordhaus view writing as a language acquisition tool; where as, many of my teachers viewed it as a complexity enhancer in language learning. Staben and Nordhaus also bring about a very interesting idea that is often neglected–cultural differences. Many tutees do not do well in the University setting not because they do not understand the language, but because they do not write in the “forward” and “blunt” American style. It is important as a tutor to understand what the tutee wants to say, and help him/her formulate those ideas into a culturally coherent thought in English. Another reading that examines the writing aspect of tutoring is Cynthia Linville’s “Editing Line by Line.” Linville focuses on the idea that the goal of tutoring in regards to writing is to teach the tutee how to self-edit. The idea is not to edit line by line, but to help the student focus on what s/he is doing incorrectly, so s/he can change his/her mistakes without help. All of the ideas presented in both of these chapters offer many techniques to increase the efficiency of writing for tutees in the long-term.

  20. (1)I totally agree with what the author says in the “Be Direct, Not Directive” section. I look back and find myself “directing” my tutees in a lot of situations. “We usually say this.” “You don’t use this word in this way.” Sometimes I am simply too focused on the differences, or to say the “mistakes” that my tutees make, that I can’t wait to just correct them, although they are in the middle of forming a sentence. Now that this paragraph points it out that directing the tutees can be inefficient, I think I will try to be more “direct” rather than “directing” in the future.
    (2)Although we don’t get to help our tutees in writing, I think the points that the author made in the “Respond as a Reader” part makes sense a lot. I always feel that by showing your sincere interests in what other people do, or in this case, write, can bring them closer to you and make it easier for them to accept your suggestions. And that’s also a perfect way of actually knowing the process of writing behind the words, and thus help the tutors to figure out the best way to help the tutees to express if there’s any mistakes made in the writing. So, definitely going to be sincerely interested in the writing of my tutees if they bring any of them in the future.
    (3)In the past few weeks, I have been trying to use reformulation when communicating with my tutees using the phrase they’ve learned in the class. So instead of correcting them right after they make sentences, I will reformulate the sentence in my way, probably the more correct or advanced way, and I will try to notice their reactions to my version. Normally my tutees will notice what’s different between my version and theirs, and they will try to correct their mistakes and get closer to mine version the next time. I think that this is a great way of correcting, that it makes the process more interactive and gives my tutees an impression that I am on the same “page” with them: trying to make right use of those phrases. So instead of sitting there, listening silently, and pointing out their mistakes whenever they pop out, I will become a person who’s “trying” to practice those phrases, just like they do. And that’s certainly efficient in making them realize what they do right or wrong.

  21. The readings for Week 3 confront how to aid in a tutee’s writing skills. I particularly like the idea of the tutor serving as a “cultural informant” and discussing ideas prior to the task of writing. As a French student, my writing skills greatly improved after studying abroad. Without having any formal written comprehension classes, I became a better writer simply by listening to French-speakers, engaging in the culture, and reading other French texts. In English, I have been told that the best way to become a better writer is to read more. The texts for Week 3 are an important reminder of the need to not direct a tutee’s attention toward minute details, but the text as a whole. This allows them to learn and improve, rather than get caught up in the grammatical details.

  22. Appropriation occurs when a language tutor changes their student’s work so drastically that it no longer has the student’s voice, represents their language level, or really belong to the student at all. I don’t really work with Chinese tutees on long writing samples, but I can still endeavor not to be too directive when bringing speaking errors to the attention of a student. Being in the CLSC I often overhear many of Severino’s suggests being put into action such as asking for the tutee to describe the purpose of their paper, asking for clarification, and asking writers to participate in the corrections. By having a student read their paper aloud and put checkmarks by passages they think sound unnatural or grammatically unsound, they are participating in the corrections and more about to locate and correct problem areas on their own in the future. Appropriation is discouraging to the tutee and doesn’t provide him or her with practice remembering the errors and self-correcting.

  23. Appropriation refers to a tutor or teacher, often with good intentions, either directly changes the writing of the student or offers leading advice which raises the level of composition above his or her level, redirects what they were trying to say, or ceases to be the student’s work. As I have yet to tutor any individual in a foreign language, I have not been tempted to appropriate while teaching, though I will keep this impulse in mind upon beginning instruction. Severino suggest several ways to combat this impulse so that the student may truly learn the target language. The primary method is to include the writer in the editing of the paper; this makes communication absolutely essential. Through addressing their expressed needs, having the student participate in the reformulation decisions, keeping their level in mind, working on high-order concepts, and focusing on specific areas allow the tutee to authentically learn. While assisting, techniques include having the tutee speak-into-writing and the tutor explaining the recommended changes. Allowing the tutee to produce their own work allows for an organic learning experiencing as well as a development in confidence.

  24. This week’s reading mainly talks about how to help tutee to improve their writing skills. For me, grammar is not the most important thing on writing, though it is the best rule that can tells us whether your sentences make sense or not. In my opinion, the most effective way to develop their writing skills is reading. Through reading a number of native articles, tutee can learn a lot of new sentences and words , which will develop their variety of their sentence patterns. Furthermore, talking with the native people would also improve tutee’s writing skills. To write a perfect paper, tutee should not focus too much on grammatical details, yet on the whole text. Although grammar is pretty significant, organization and transformation are much more important. Therefore, talking to native speakers will not only improve tutee’s speaking skills, but also their writing skills.

  25. The most fundamental quality of an effective tutor is patience; his or her ability to engage the student in learning, without personally taking over the acquisition process. Appropriation refers to the act of a tutor taking over a work as his or her own, removing the original essence or voice of the student. This occurs when a teacher overzealously edits a written text, rearranging the words or phrases, introducing his superior knowledge, and imposing his own language understanding upon the more amateur level of writing of the tutee. I have not yet had experience in working with students’ papers, but I have had experience tutoring elementary school children with their homework. I recognize many moments when I just want to give them the answer and enforce my impatient knowledge upon these individuals instead of offering them a deserved opportunity at learning their grammar or vocabulary. To combat this impulse, I must avoid editing and focus on collaboration. I must learn how to point out the more recurring errors and understand the rules well enough to explain these corrections – the experience must become a teaching process. Also I hope to involve them for the end of them becoming self-sufficient; I want them to genuinely learn. And in the end, I hope to maintain their personal voice in their work as I merely serve as a guidepost along their language-acquisition process.

  26. This weeks readings centered around how to to correctly tutor and correct students when they are writing papers etc. Appropriation is when a tutor takes control of the work of a student and takes it as his or her own. When it comes to correcting others works I would like to think I don’t usually take over other students works. However given the complexity of the Arabic language from the perspective of an English speaker, I do find myself correcting students for things they haven’t taught yet. For example to say “the snowy weather” in Arabic “snowy” is not an adjective but rather a passive verb that has the abstract idea of “weather” as it’s subject. This grammatical situation isn’t explained until second year, but there are still several first year students that have come in recently wishing to write about the snowy weather in there lives. The authors say that the best way to combat this impulse is to focus more on the big ideas rather than nit-picky grammar.

  27. This week’s readings discuss how as a tutor we can best help a tutee in their writing skills. One of the biggest overarching themes is to not focus too much on the smaller semantics of writing- like grammar and spelling. What is key to language acquisition is experimentation and practice in expressing ideas in writing. It is more important to convey ideas accurately and communicate in a way appropriate to the culture than it is to have a paper that is grammatically perfect. I haven’t had the chance to help students with papers yet, however, I will be sure that I will employ the “be direct, not directive” tactic in aiding in their writing process.

  28. Appropriation happens when a tutor alters his or her tutee’s work to the point where it is no longer representative of the tutee’s unique voice. Additionally, the language proficiency level is no longer representative of the tutee’s skill level. In my experience, I encountered this problem of appropriation as the editor of my high school newspaper, (although all of the article’s were written in English and not a foreign language). It was my job to alter the writers’ articles to a certain degree, while still maintaining their unique voices in their writing. The readings for week 3 offer the advice of avoiding hyper-attention to detail when working with tutees on writing assignments. Rather, the tutor should focus more on the big picture. The tutee will improve not by being constantly corrected on minute details, but rather by gaining confidence in their own skills and learning more without becoming mired in the process of perfecting all errors.

  29. Appropriation would happen if a student came in for help and I made their work no longer theirs by applying my own changes to it. Students for Japanese haven’t come in to get help with writing yet so I haven’t experienced this problem yet. However when we record conversations I have the students listen to their conversation back so they can hear where they were unnatural or where there errors occurred and I think this helps a lot. Also when students ask for help with sentences I explain the grammar pattern and have them make their own sentences rather than make one for them. I do agree that grammatical works are not the same well written ones. I taught English in the summer and sometimes students would get so caught up in being correct on their grammar that their sentences would become non natural. I also found this to be true when I was in Japan. Conversations were not always what we learned to be correct grammar in class. It’s hard since in class, teachers focus on being proper rather than natural so I try to let students know that there is a difference when I’m talking to them. However there are also grammar patterns used in Japanese conversation that are not allowed to be used in writing so it is important for me to distinguish between those as well when giving advice.

  30. Appropriation is when an editor makes so many changes to a piece of writing beyond simple grammatical corrections that the voice of the piece is no longer the original writer’s. I have definitely found myself appropriating work especially when helping a younger student or one of my siblings. To combat this impulse, it is important to keep in mind that true writing skills are about more than mere grammar. Writing is about clearly expressing oneself. Though incorrect grammar can be distracting, it is ultimately a secondary learning goal. The primary goal of clearly expressing oneself must be built instead. Only then should grammar be heavily focused on. Corrections are not the same thing as learning. It is important that a student learns and does not just have this or her work appropriated. I will keep this in mind over the summer.

  31. Appropriation is when a tutor changes the student’s work to such a degree that the student’s “voice” is no longer in the paper. This is not often done intentionally and is just a part of overcorrecting subconsciously. I think it can be difficult to maintain a balance of correcting and making sure learning is taking place. I have found myself appropriating when my younger sister wants me to help with her writing, and I definitely should work on trying to do so less with her because that’s good practice for when I teach over the summer. I can keep in mind what some of the author’s were saying about grammar as a learning goal, but not always the primary one. I wonder how to appropriately keep this balance in mind when teaching students of different ages, because I will be teaching elementary students all the way through university students over the summer.

  32. Appropriation occurs when a tutor or an instructor substitutes their own voice and style for the student’s. Severino gives the example of a brief essay he wrote in basic Italian, which his instructor then elevated to a higher, more native, Italian. I have never found myself excessively substituting my own rhetorical styles into others’ papers, but it is certainly a temptation for those with greater mastery of a language than the original author of the paper. Severino suggests working with students in order to reformulate their language, rather than merely substituting one’s own language. He also stresses the importance of not elevating the language to a level inconsistent with the student’s ability.

  33. The term “appropriation” describes when a tutor or teacher, most times with good intentions, edits or corrects a students work so much that it fails to be at the same level as the student. It only seems to diminish the confidence the student has already achieved. I have come into this problem when I peer reviewed a friend’s Spanish writing, who was a few semesters behind where I was–I found myself wanting to correct every little error, or even rearranging a sentence here or there just to make it seem more fluid. Severino suggests to make sure the student looks at the big picture, and not worry quite as much with completely correct grammar or wording, which will be developed over time. Although grammar is important obviously, it helps the students’ progress if you ask them probing questions (what is the purpose of this passage? what are you trying to get across in this sentence), instead of just blatantly telling them what should or should not be used or corrected.

  34. Appropriation occurs when a teacher “appropriates” or takes over a student’s text often by reformulating so much in a way that it diminishes the voice of the student in his or her writing. I can remember having a friend in Chile ask me to look over a paper. Especially for students who are at an intermediate level the main challenge is picking up the appropriate way of saying things in a particular culture. I tried my best to correct his paper in a way that didn’t take away from his creativity but also was appropriate for a native English-speaker. When it comes to academic settings reformulation is especially important. Understanding the different manners in which different cultures express a point is important. This can take one from an intermediate to advanced level is mastered well and teacher can be cautious to correct papers in a way that helps them better their writing and keep their voice.

  35. This week’s readings taught me a very valuable lesson when editing a tutee’s work. Appropriation is the act in which a teacher or tutor edits or corrects a tutee’s paper beyond grammatical corrections and indirectly changes the “voice” of the student’s paper. As a result, it is important not to do this because by changing the voice of the paper you are taking away the message the student intended to tell his reader. Plus, it really is demoralizing to the student and their confidence will go down as well. Now that I think about it, I have seen myself doing this to tutee’s papers indirectly. When looking at student’s papers from intermediate levels of the language, it is easy to diagnose the grammatical issues but at the same time with such a limited knowledge of the language, I feel inclined to add better transitions or spice up the paper as to make it flow better. Realizing it now, this is not helpful because it takes away the intended voice of the student. Severino suggests in order to overcome this impulse it is better to reformulate language and when making changes it is better to have the student talk about what they meant to say and restructure sentences according to how they want to portray their ideas. It is also important to keep the language and ideas consistent as if the student was writing it. Lastly, it is better to see some kind of visual like outline when discussing the overall paper so you have a basis to go off for organization.

  36. Severino says that appropriation is when the tutor reformulates the tutees writing but does so in such a way that the tutee’s voice, ownership, authorship, and emotional and intellectual connection to the writing is lost. Although reformulation of the tutees writing can be an effective ESL teaching strategy, appropriation is bad. This shows that you don’t want to do too much as a tutor with revising a students writing; however, it is a fine line to draw because reformulation can allow the tutee to get a better feel for how words are actually used in the language (it helps “native-ize” their usage). I found this particularly interesting because it raises questions of whether or not the English language is used slightly differently in Bangladesh versus in America. The authors suggest that to avoid appropriation you should focus the tutees attention to writing as a whole rather than the minute grammatical details because that’s a more effective way of helping them learn the new language.