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.

Tutoring Experiences So Far

My first experience tutoring was when I co-tutored, and I was overwhelmed with mixed emotions. The tutor that I co-tutored with had set me up with a person that he thought would be a good starter appointment. When the girl came in the other tutor explained that I was a first time tutor, so that put the pressure off, and then pretty much let me do the appointment on my own. We went through introductions and I asked what her paper was on to get the appointment started. She began to tell me that she was finished with the paper and it was due tomorrow and the only thing that she had changed since her last appointment was the title. Siren bells went off in my head, oh god please let me be able to help her in some way! I shake my fears off and put the knowledge I have learned thus far into my head. She explains that the paper is really a set of poems from personal journals they wrote in class. From the minute I looked at her paper, I could tell it was filled with a lot of very personal information, including deaths and accidents in her family, so I felt uncomfortable asking her to read it aloud. I made a judgment call and decided not to read it aloud, but keep her engaged in the appointment. From the get go I was completely amazed with her writing! I understood that she had had previous appointments and was pretty much done with it, but besides one minor mistake I couldn’t find anything wrong with it. So I just gave positive feedback about her writing and how she captured the imagery her teacher seemed to want. She had changed her title and I told her that it connected with her theme better, of never giving up and perseverance. She ended her last poem on a sad note so I suggested that she may want to think about putting the positive theme more at the very end. Then at the end of the appointment, which she booked for an hour, we sat and talked and she thanked me and then left. I was a bit disappointed, wondering if this was the way it was going to be every time! I felt like I was no help to her at all, but I knew that I had done the best I could and I suppose that every appointment is different and that I can’t be a fair judge until I have more experience.

Well today I had a completely different experience. A girl came in and was a walk-in so I offered to help her. She seemed frazzled and overwhelmed from the beginning, so I tried to remain calm. She pulled her paper up and I asked her what her topic was, which she then pulled up on her laptop. After reading through the topic I asked her if she could read her paper aloud and if there were any mistakes we could figure them out together. She immediately seemed to get annoyed and said the paper was really long, so I told her I would read it aloud and told her to stop me if she heard anything out of place. I find out her paper has to deal a lot with sexuality in Ancient Greece. I could barely pronounce any of the words and felt like a moron! But I continued on understanding the benefit of this. She asked me a lot of questions about in text citations, the only problem was that they were ancient books and a bit more confusing than normal. I pulled up Purdue Owl and used that as a source to help her and also told her that I am not too familiar with MLA having just started using it again, so she may want to double check with someone else. I realized she was having trouble developing her thesis, didn’t have one of the source requirements, and no conclusion. So I decided to tackle the thesis and introductory paragraph. Well this girl had thought that I should write her thesis for her, so I had to keep redirecting her to make her write it herself. This session lasted an hour and a half and it was exhausting, but I felt like I had helped her a lot and if she had come sooner, she would have benefited more.

For now I am going to remain positive and collect as many tutoring experiences as I can, as well as brushing up on my MLA formatting.

Reflections on my first tutoring sessions

So here I am--two shifts at the Johnston writing center completed and hopefully past the apprehension I had about tutoring when this class began. First let me say:

1. Johnston is a super eerie building, sort of like a museum. I'm afraid to touch things inside because they all seem so precious and the toilets flush like a gunshot. On the other hand it is the coolest work environment I've been in so far, a futuristic open space that is so silent-- the best place to write (other than the Williams courtyard).

In both shifts I had someone book a one hour appointment and freaked out a bit, I hadn't yet considered the fact that people actually could schedule that much time. Both guys had reached the final drafts of their papers and marked "revising & editing" as the focus of their booked appointment. Both times I figured I was screwed and was going to end up with a student that will hand me the paper and refuse to work with me but maybe two experiences in a row have proved me wrong. I assume that both students did expect me to line edit the paper for them and hand it back. Student #1 had to submit his paper on gender issues thirty minutes after the appointment. He pulled the essay up on his laptop and I started to ask him questions about the paper with the fear that he might try to hand the computer to me. Student #2 successfully did put the essay in front of me to read, it was a weird assignment for a Race & Ethnicity class-- a fiction story that should be written like a non-fictional memory-- in which the student had to pretend to be an African slave telling the four stages of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Second, let me say:

2. This job is so cool! During my "shifts" I got to learn about and discuss issues like the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, war in Bosnia, and why little boys should be allowed to play with dolls. At this point I feel like nothing I'll read here will actually bore me, especially since the writer will be sitting beside me, though I guess there is a point where a chemistry lab report might fall into my lap or I might have to help with a 15 page excerpt from someone's novel.

Needless to say I did take somewhat directive approaches with both students. Though we first discussed the focus and organization of their papers, both students were close to strict word limits and didn't have room for further development. I had them read their work out loud in hopes that they would notice places where the voice sounded choppy but few times just had to give them the answer-- like in spelling--because it seemed just plain mean to withhold. Student #2 was already over the word limit and really just wanted me to run through his paper and cancel out 167 words that I thought he didn't need. It took about 20 minutes of explaining how he could solve that problem himself by not talking in circles and going straight to the point. I hope our session did something for him. I'll have to go back to the MS textbook to read the articles about "Directive vs Indirective" tutoring, I'm still not confident about technique when I think of how directive I actually should be in some situations and another read will hopefully solve that.

Feeling a little dissapointment

I have been scheduled twice to tutor on Wednesdays and still no one has made an appointment. I had one appointment during co-tutoring that i ended up fully tutoring because she was a walk-in and all of the other tutors were busy. It was an awesome experience and it really had me psyched up to do this and tutor independantly! But now, I don't know, it feels like I'm pointlessly sitting there and it's a little frustrating. I really want someone to make an appointment with me. Though I have really loved getting to know the other tutors in the Writing Center. They are a very fun group of people and we talk about the craziest things, usually spurring off an appointment someone had. Not about the person being tutored but for example they were trying to figure out the terms for a Jew who became a Christian. The term is Messianic Jew but then we got off on a conversation that it would be really fun to call the Jews for Jesus and then the conversation bloomed from there. It was pretty entertaining. But I don't know maybe posting a short bio will help get people to sign up with me for an appointment. Any suggestions? Is anyone else feeling this frustration?
-Sarah Ann