Improvements Abound!

So I finally feel confident in saying that I had a really great tutoring session! Of course, I think most of my sessions have gone pretty well so far but there is always that sense of doubt as to whether I am really helping a student to improve. However, during one of my tutoring sessions a few weeks ago I could instantly tell that we were getting somewhere. The student I was tutoring was so invested in her paper and really wanted to do well since the last paper she had written for her class received a D. I'll admit that I felt a bit overwhelmed in the beginning when she was describing all her struggles with this class so far. I almost felt responsible for whether she was going to pass this class or not and I was rushed with anxious thoughts like "how on earth can I provide this girl with the ample amount of guidance she needed in just an hour's time?"

I remained calm though and tried to focus on the major issues she was having with this paper such as the structure, organization and coherence of ideas. Somehow we managed to accomplish a lot by the end of the session. I felt assured that this student would be able to take everything we talked about and create a well written and clearly developed paper. I could sense a slight lack of confidence in her and realized I wasn't the only one that needed some reassurance. I told her that she was a good writer and capable of getting this paper done, which wasn't just an attempt to boost her ego but something I really felt to be true.

Even though I had already thought our session went over amazingly well, I gained an even greater sense of confidence when this same student came into the William Johnston center this week to tell me she had received a B on her paper! I was floored by the vast improvement she had made from her last paper and felt glad that I was a part of her success. This experience really helped me gain a better sense of my skills as a tutor.

Tutoring Cycle

I was so excited when it was time for us to begin tutoring.  This was the reason I took the class in the first place, I wanted some hands on experience.  Although I had tutored in the past, it was always friends and people I knew so it really didn't count.  As an aspiring teacher I was looking forward to the hands on experience.  Well first few weeks were anything but that, unfortunately.  I had NO appointments, zero, and I became discouraged.
Here I was, stuck in Johnston ground just twiddling my fingers each week.  The problem was my location and time.  When I first came here there were over 10 tutors here, most of them experienced and who would sit right up front and take all of the appointments and walk-ins.  I began to get upset, not at them but at the fact that I felt I would never tutor.  Then Mid-Term week came.
That week before Thanksgiving break was so fun and hectic.  Everyone wanted to get tutored, there was mayhem here in Johnston.  We all had full schedules and there was a line of walk-ins.  I finally got the hands on tutoring that I wanted and I loved it!
But that was just one day, one week.  Here I am back and ready to tutor and with only one appointment scheduled.  The great thing is, I've learned from the past weeks and I'm no longer getting discouraged because I have no appointments.  I'll just sit here and wait anxiously twiddling my fingers until Finals week.

One-hour Sessions vs. Half-hour Sessions

     Does anyone dread one-hour sessions as much as I do?  I don't know if it's my previous experience with one-hour sessions, my fear of wasting an hour with a student because I don't know how to fill the time, or a combination of both, but I don't necessarily jump for joy when I see one scheduled on the Reading-and-Writing Center website.
      The first week I was tutoring, I felt like half-an-hour was way too short for a tutoring session.  I had three sessions back to back, and while the first one went well, in the second session my student wanted me to read over a rather long paper for her because she had had problems with her professor on grammar in previous papers.  I felt so rushed (mainly because she felt rushed, too, since the paper was due the next day), and even though I tried to help her with her writing by talking to her about how to develop a particular rhetoric for her paper (the tone was a little too colloquial, and it was affecting her grammar), by the time the thirty minutes were up I had only gotten to the second page.  She immediately ran off to sign up for another session with a different tutor and I sat there feeling so disappointed with myself because I hadn't accomplished as much as I wanted to in that session.
     As I got more comfortable with tutoring, however, I was able to calm down and focus quickly on what needed to be addressed within the time limit, even finishing a few sessions five minutes early.  I focused more on creating a discussion about the material or suggesting how to counter a problem like generalization rather than reading every sentence in a paper and suggesting how to improve the rhetoric for each one.  I got used to half-hour sessions, so when I received a few one-hour sessions, I wasn't sure how to deal with them.  In the first one, I appreciated the time limit because of the length of the student's paper, but I had a hard time talking to the student for that long because he was so flustered about the vague instructions and harsh criticisms his professor had about his paper.  I was able to make a few points about organizing a particular paragraph in chronological order to emphasize a point and I tried to interpret his professor's instructions for him, but there were moments where I felt like I was repeating myself or I wasn't sure what else to say.
     The second one (I hope) was an exceptional case, but it still rattled me.  Like a lot of my students, she was flustered by her professor's instructions, but the difference was her paper was due by 2:00, and she had scheduled an appointment with me from 12:30-1:30.  She had gotten little sleep and was running on Starbucks and her nerves, and she needed help organizing what she had written into an argument.  I helped her the best I could (and honestly it wasn't that bad of a paper, aside from the organization), but by the end I was watching her hastily type up her footnotes and rush out the door. 
     Thankfully, the last one-hour session was less painful.  The student had come in needing some help brainstorming her paper on The Seven-Year Itch, and we discussed potential scenes she could use to support her argument on gender roles, ending the session in half-an-hour.  Still, I think I prefer half-an-hour sessions because not every case is easy to tackle, and not every student is willing to be responsive and engage in discussion.  I want to know if anyone has advice for tackling these hour-long sessions, or if anyone has had any similar experiences.  Do you prefer half-an-hour or hour-long sessions, and why?

I HAVE A REGULAR!!

I know we heard that it is rare, and that if you do get a regular it is because you are doing too much "fixing" or whatever. But I now have a girl who has come to me 3 times and is planning on a fourth and fifth time. Being aware of the reading and people who have said that regulars are usually so because you do too much "fixing" and not enough tutoring, I have had a few other more experienced tutors in the writing center sort of eavesdrop and evaluate my sessions with her to see how they match up with their style. They say I'm doing great, so I take that as a good sign. And every time she comes to me she has a different writing "issue" and the stuff we have gone over in previous meetings is not eradicated but definitely improved.
I love having a regular because that is the kind of person I am. I regularly go to one girl in the tutoring center (I have tried a few other tutors due to timing issues but I still love this girl the most for the projects I have been working on). I think being and having a regular is great because you really do build a relationship with that tutor and you come to value and trust their opinion as a "practiced audience." 
It's also nice to hear back from the student about how their paper ended up, not grade-wise but their satisfaction with the piece they turned in and if their teacher liked the changes and modifications that were made when the teacher had seen the draft previous to the writing center visit.
I've also found that the other tutors I have come to know and respect their style in the writing centers do have those regulars. I don't know if they have been mandated that they have to work like that or if they do it because they love the experience and the help. I know I am the later.
Truly the writing center has enriched my life both as a tutee and as a tutor.
Do any of y'all have regulars or have the people you seen been one timers?
Do you think that regulars are a result of too much "fixing" like we read and heard from others?

Focused on Writing

I've been putting off this blog post for a while because initially, I was feeling like I didn't have anything to write about in regards to my writing center experiences. I kept thinking that something really memorable would happen and that I would have an interesting story to share. As the weeks have gone by though, and I've attended more shifts in the writing center, I realize that as I tutor more students, I find myself becoming a better reader/writer and that was something I hadn't really seen coming.

Reading comprehension was never my strong suit. It wasn't that I didn't understand what I was reading, or that the material was too difficult to understand, it's just that my mind seems to always travel elsewhere if not properly engaged. It doesn't matter what the subject matter; I can be really interested in something, but still find myself wandering off mentally. I thought this would be an issue when I started tutoring. Sometimes it takes me a while to read through something and stay focused enough to see how it flows; this was a flaw in my own drafting/revision process. However, as my sessions have progressed, I've realized that I'm improving. I suppose previous to tutoring in the writing center, I hadn't had much exposure to student work. But now that I am on a frequent basis, I pay attention to the various tones and voices the students chose to implement; I focus on the thesis statement and am mindful of how it is carried out in the paper. Each of these techniques allows me to stay tuned in on what I'm doing, and simultaneously allows for critical thinking skills I can apply back to my own writing. Through these tutoring sessions, I've become more familiar with the way the essay works and that has not only allowed me to focus throughout a session, but also to better analyze my own writing.

Having fun in the lab

     Continuing the thread of positive and cool experiences within the Tutoring Lab, I will talk about some of the good experiences I have had in the small amount of times I have tutored thus far in the semester. I say: "small amount of times" because two of the Mondays which I was supposed to be tutoring in were cancelled. One for National Tutoring day and the other for Veteran's day. Oh well.
    These fulfilling and rewarding sessions are a stark contrast to my very first time tutoring someone, which I felt really uncomfortable and useless in. I've mentioned this in class already so it should ring a bell. The uncomfortable session was so because I was not familiar with what the tuttee needed of me; I've never had to write a statement of purpose for grad school and so felt utterly unsure of whether I was actually helping her or just giving her a false sense of security through my positive and encouraging attitude toward the her letter.
     So far I've had two experiences that really were great and which greatly motivated me to continue this whole tutoring thing. One of those times dealt with a student's near finished product and the second was brainstorming. In the brainstorming session we spoke for a long time about the whole theme she was tackling and somehow I was able to provide her with some really neat ideas on how to create something narrow but deep, as well as very engaging.
     This could have never happened unless it was an hour long session. At the risk of digressing I must mention that I really hate 30 minute sessions. Does anyone actually feel like they really help in 30 minutes? Maybe I'm just slow, yeah that sounds right.
     Anyways, the other one went as follows. The student came in with this really great paper on hip hop and some of its modern social and cultural underpinnings. I corrected very minor details as we read the paper but by the time I finished it felt that there was really nothing I could do for this students, because I felt the paper was excellent already..    Then he asks me to help him with his conclusion, which at first I was at a total loss as how to approach. I began to tell him my thoughts on what an effective conclusion looks like and detailed how they tend to be. This was a non directive approach that I've been utilizing so far. However it didn't do much for him; he was still at a loss. This was kind of weird because the paper was so good that I really didn't understand why he was having trouble capping the whole thing. Then, in a directive manner, I realized what was missing. I told him that something he had mentioned in all three of his mini theses was that of power roles and the structure of power. Basically the hidden thesis to his essay. We addressed this and he had no problem writing his conclusion. The paper was DEFINITELY an A+. :)
      So I'm not sure how to conclude this, on a comical note. I think the best thing to do is to say that we cannot allow ourselves to become discouraged. For every session in which you feel incompetent in there are two or three sessions in which you will definitely make a big difference in a student's paper. And man, that is a good feeling. Even if you feel like a fish out of water, stick to it. After all, two brains are better than one. This is especially true when one of those brains has been trained (peer tutoring class) to tap into and promote the intelligence and creativity of the other. Don't you think so?
     

Feeling Needed & Getting Comfortable

After not having many appointments in the past couple of weeks, twiddling my thumbs in Johnston was getting pretty boring. But today, I felt so busy; we were borderline overwhelmed in there, but it was awesome. It felt really good to be needed during my time slot. I had three back-to-back appointments and they all went really well. Some people have been mentioning on the blog how good it feels when you've had a really successful tutoring appointment. I can definitely attest to that after my experiences today.

First, I had an hour long appointment. This one was the hardest because the tutee was so quiet and it was really hard to get her to communicate with me. Thirty minutes into the session, I finally felt like I was getting somewhere with her because we were talking about different ways she could words some sentences and where she could add more examples from the film into her paper (She was analyzing a movie in terms of race or gender for a multicultural film class). Before she started to really engage with me, I felt like I was just line editing. But then she started asking me a lot about how to cite her sources and she began coming up with the corrections as I read aloud instead of me doing by myself. At that point I felt like the non directive facilitator as she improved her own paper.

My second appointment was my best one yet because those thirty minutes were so much fun. This tutee was writing a personal essay/narrative about a trip to Paris. He had a very short rough draft, so I made the decision to only focus on higher level concerns (no sentence level stuff). I read through the two pages he had so far out loud. Then we just talked about where he could go next with it in order to expand and lengthen the piece. We had a really relaxed, fun conversation about his trip. He told me what he did, what he saw, his experiences, why this trip was important to him, etc. A lot of his writing was "telling" instead of "showing," so our conversation helped him realize all the details he could include in his essay. I felt really comfortable and confident during this session because I had a lot of ideas to help him with his paper. When he left, he was really appreciative and said that I had helped him  a lot, so of course that made me feel pretty good. Tutoring is really rewarding in that way. I realize not all appointments may go this smoothly, but I'll hold on to this feeling and use it as motivation to keep improving as a tutor.

Positively Positive

After reading Jared's post, I became inspired to share my first, "yay!" moment as a tutor. I stumbled upon one of the best tutoring experiences I could have hoped for during my very first appointment as a tutor. The tutee, "Amy", shall be her name, came in wanting to brainstorm on an essay she had to write on the ABCFamily show "Pretty Little Liars". We first discussed the essay's requirements and then, since I had never seen "Pretty Little Liars" Amy filled me in on the need to know information. Amy already had some ideas and she seemed focus in on the the prevalent issue of bullying within the show and today's society. Amy then told me that she was having trouble starting her essay; she was having trouble finding direction.  After these discussions, it was pretty clear that if Amy came up with a thesis she would be able to write out her essay pretty quickly (she basically had the essay written in her head and had unknowingly already shared it with me, which I told her). I discussed with Amy what a good thesis usually maintains: it is interesting, concrete and specific, and focused. I asked her if she could think of a way to frame the issues she wanted to discuss in a sentence or two, that encompassed what she wanted to say, and that also tried to follow these guidelines. She threw out a few ideas, but didn't seem to confident in them, second guessing herself. I then tried to illustrate for her how good her ideas already were and that she just had to fit them in an order that explained their purpose. Discussing how a thesis should make an argument or a case and giving examples like: [ "This" reveals "this" and "that"] or [Although it seems like " this", "that" actually proves "this"]. While discussing these points, something clicked with Amy, she wrote down a thesis really quickly and asked me what I thought? After reading it I told her I thought it looked great and conveyed basically the whole message she had been explaining to me at the beginning of our session. I addressed an issue of the use of "I" in a thesis and asked her if she could rework it to say the same thing without using "I". After she thought about it for about 10 seconds she rewrote it and was extremely pleased. Our session was about two minutes from it's limit and I asked her if she felt better about the direction of her paper and if she felt like she could start writing it now. Amy said she was very excited about it now and when she left the RWC she was going to start writing it. I wished her luck, told her I thought her paper was going to work out pretty well, and that she was welcome to make another appointment after she had written some of it. Amy then thanked me and left. This is what I thought the tutoring would be like and I loved it. I learned and shared my knowledge too! It was fabulous! Obviously, there were a few things afterwords I thought I would have said differently or thought of later and wished I could have shared with her, but don't you feel that way with everything sometimes? Since this session, I have experienced quite a few sessions not as smooth flowing as this one. On a couple of occasions I  felt out of my league and wondered if I actually helped a tutee. But each time, I seem to learn something and I end with a smile on my face looking for a smile on their's (at the same time hoping that doesn't come off weird....lol), and each time I find it. :) Although, I am sure one day I won't  find a smile on their face and I might not have helped every tutee with exactly what they are looking for, that is my goal and I will keep working towards it as best as I can manage.

Staying Positive.

Taste of Success

On Tuesday, I had my first "successful" tutoring session. This was only my second session and my first one wasn't bad, but Tuesday was the first time that I really felt helpful and like I had everything under control. A freshman student came in because she needed help on a religion paper. She had already written an outline but needed help forming a thesis sentence. I had her read parts of her outline aloud and we talked about the assignment and about what points she wanted to make in her paper. We then focused the discussion on the main point she wanted to write about, and I shared with her some tips for creating a thesis sentence. She wrote a thesis during the session, and we worked on it until she had rewritten it twice, and we were both satisfied with it. She left the session confident and ready to begin work on her rough draft. As I said, this was my first successful session, and it was also the first time I experienced the rush of good feelings that comes from knowing you've genuinely helped somebody else. It's an awesome feeling and it makes all of the hard work invested in this class feel worth it. I look forward to honing my tutoring practice so that I can help many others in future sessions.

Actually Feel Like I Helped

I had a tutoring session the other day and he was prepared for the session! He had a paper on a burger king advertisement for his ENC1101 class, so I felt confident having already taking this class. He had already turned in three drafts and was going to turn in his final draft that week. We discussed his teachers comment then read his paper aloud, making corrections as we went. There were some suggestions I had made for him to change and he told me that his teacher didn't comment on that so he didn't want to change it. This is a moment where I felt conflicted and didn't know what to do, so I moved on to help him expand his paper knowing that he needed to add at least two more pages. In my mind I wanted to press for him to change these grammatical mistakes, but at the same time I know that the writing centers focus is not on direct tutoring (although that may be changing), any suggestions on what I should have done?  

Another thing that I have noticed, in multiple sessions, is that a lot of tutees don't understand how to create citations. I'm not an expert but I have used Purdue Owl to help in these sessions. Maybe the writing center could carry guides to MLA and APA formatting?

In the session I helped him come up with ideas to expand his papers. Who is the audience of the paper, who is the audience of the advertisement? He left with enough ideas to finish his paper and thanked me for my help. In this session I actually felt as though I helped. I felt more prepared for the session, having already taken the class and this has been my best tutoring experience so far.