Letter to Future Students

Dear ENG 220 class of Spring 2015,

         My name is Tiffany Elcock and I am a former student of Dr. Justin Rogers-Cooper's Seminar in
 Teaching Writing class. This course was very interesting and challenging at the same time. In my
 opinion, it was interesting because I had the wonderful opportunity of having the chance to observe
 different tutoring styles and techniques in the Writing Center as well as having the "Tutoring in Writing" text by Donald A. McAndrew and Thomas J. Reigstad as a guide. I also had the chance of taking on these techniques and being able to implement them in my own tutoring sessions. I wouldn't define this class as easy because if it were easy, I wouldn't have learned so much a long the way.  I found that the most challenging part of this course was tutoring my own peers. It was easy for me to observe and critique other tutors but I have realized that when I had to actually submit the role of being a tutor, it isn't as easy as I thought. With the help of Dr. Cooper, the text and my observations, I will say that I was able to overcome my tutoring scare and I am proud to say that I can add this onto my resume and use those experiences to develop into a better teacher for the future. Just remember that no one is perfect, this class and Dr. Cooper are here to make you feel confident and to help you with your goals of becoming a tutor and/ or teacher. :) 

                                                                                                   Sincerely,


                                                                                               Tiffany S. Elcock

My Second Tutoring Session

         My second tutoring session was a success in my opinion. I was very pleased with the outcome of this session because I believe that the tutee and I were both prepared. Since the professor had already gave us an overview of the assignment, I already knew what to expect and what to work on as the tutor. Another reason I believe it went good was because the tutee I had was very prepared with her research/information and had a direction as to where she wanted to go with her paper which made the session go even smoother. I had a student who wanted her paper to focus on why homosexuality shouldn't be discriminated by others. She (the tutee) already had her thesis statement so therefore all we focused on was creating an outline for her paper and jotting down ideas on her topic. I think that this session went good because I used some of the techniques in the Tutoring Writing book. I made sure that I went in with positive energy, greeted her as well as talked to her about what her main focuses are in her future paper and what she wants her audience to understand about what she is saying.

My First Tutoring Session

 My very first tutoring session was interesting. I tutored two students and it was a bit challenging for me. Although, two weeks ago I was observing tutors in the Writing Center and they were tutoring two students at once, I made a lot of criticism in my blogs about the tutors not being able to attend both students in an adequate amount of time, I also stated that one tutor was rushing with one student just to attend to the other. As a tutor on Wednesday, it was challenging for me because I had to face the same situation where I had to tutor both students. One of the students were already on track with their work and their essay was good, so good that I didn't really see anything to critique. Consering that there were no HOCs (High Order Concerns) I focused more on the LOCs (Lower Order Concerns) for this paper and even then there weren't much mistakes. After I was done with my first student, I had to attend to the other. His paper on the other hand wasn't as organized and well-structured as the other student. His paper had a thesis but it didn't really stand out in his paper so I had to figure out would be able to make his thesis stand out. The first technique I went was I asked him tell me how exactly he feels on the topic and why he felt that way regarding his topic. I asked him if he could write down his thesis statement for me. After I created an outline for him just to give him more guidance and structure for his paper, I believe it helped him because since he was able to converse his information and ideas with me.

Fourth Day: Writing Center Observation

I was very pleased with my last day observing in the Writing Center, simply because this tutor's session was effective and I believed that I learned a lot from it. This tutor had to tutor two students at once and based off of how he handled the session, I can tell that he usually tutors many students at once. Based off of the last two sessions that I observed which was horrible, I was nervous for him to tutor two students in one session. As both students stepped into the cubicle, the tutor introduced himself as well as myself and had the students introduce themselves to him and to each other. I assumed he had them  introduce themselves to each other so that way it doesn't feel awkward that they don't know one another and to make the session comfortable for both. First, he asked one of the students what they their assignment was based on, he then read it and gave her feedback on her paper. After spending about ten minutes with her, he then switched over to the other tutee and did the same step with him for ten minutes as well. After he noticed that both students had almost the same errors with their grammar and spelling, he decided to give them both a brief lesson on MUGS (mechanics, usage, grammar, and spelling). Since both students went to the Writing Center to revise their graded work, the tutor didn't have to focus on any HOCs (high order concerns).  In my opinion, I thought that his session went really well. I liked how this tutor spent an equal amount of time with each student so that both students were able to receive a good amount of feed back and none of them felt like they were being rushed.

Third Day: Writing Center Observation

My third time observing the writing lab wasn't what I expected at all. I observed another tutor and she wasn't very interesting to observe and needed more direction as a tutor. There were a lot of reasons why I didn't really enjoy observing this session. For one, the tutor had two students that she had to tutor and I believed that she couldn't handle tutoring both students at once. Another thing that I didn't like about this tutor's session was that she wasn't asking the students questions about their work.

One student handed her their paper and she read it silently, After the tutor read her paper silently three times. She had already went wrong from there. As I said before, I believe that a tutor should introduce herself, this will make the tutee feel more comfortable about you as their tutor. Also, as a tutor, you should ask the tutee questions about what their work is about just to have a sense of direction as to where the paper is going, which this tutor did none of the above. I believe if she had asked the tutee questions about her paper, she wouldn't have had to read it three times to herself. After this the tutor failed to focus on the HOC (high order concerns) of the paper which consist of what the main idea, topic and thesis. She (the tutor) went straight into correcting the grammar in the paper. After doing so, the tutee asked if she could focus more on their thesis because she (the tutee) wasn't confident with their own thesis. The fact that the tutee had to point that out to the tutor without the tutor even considering that the first time around was surprising to me. Considering the fact that I read the text "Tutoring Writing" I discovered that a session won't be successful if you only focus on the LOCs (low order concerns). I believed that since she spent so much time with one student, she only had 15 minutes left for the other student and was rushing that session with him.

Overall, If I were a student who needed to be a tutored in the writing center, I wouldn't go to her. I didn't agree with her techniques as a tutor. I felt that she needed more guidance on tutoring two people at once. She could not handle two students at once therefore I will assume that one of the tutees didn't receive much feedback on their work like they should have. And if I could, I would advise that this tutor should read "Tutoring Writing" to gain more ideas and ways on how to tutor!

   

Keys to having a Successful Tutoring Session

My ideal tutoring session would be to have a collaborative relationship. There should be a line of communication where both the tutor and the tutee are asking questions regarding the writing piece. I feel that the ideal tutoring session should consist of not only the student learning but the tutor learning from the session as well. As Cindi stated in her second observation blog, "What was great about this session was that despite the lack of actual work, there was a lot of conversation going on about the potential of this research paper." Conversation is the key to a successful session, it's always best to understand and know the idea that your student has about their work. Although having physical work will make the session go smoothly, as a tutor it is important to help the writer brainstorm their thoughts and ideas so they can have a sense of direction of where to go with their paper. Conversing with one another is what will create this brainstorm process because therefore the writer will receive feedback that can be valuable for their paper in the long run. As I stated before the tutor will also be learning from this session because now that they have an idea of what their student is writing about, they will know to approach the tutoring session accordingly.

 Making your student feel comfortable is another important key. When you are starting off your session, it is always important to give off a good vibe to the tutee. Good vibes consist of having good body language, being friendly and overall making your tutee feel comfortable enough around you. Going back to Cindi's blog, Cindi had mentioned that, "the student was nervous. I believe her attentiveness however made him feel a lot more comfortable because he opened up rather quickly" Due to the tutor being pleasant to the student, it made him open up more which made the session turn into a very effective one. Another key that's important is to always involve the student in their work. You must constantly ask them questions about their writing piece, ask a lot of open ended questions and most importantly make sure that you as the tutor understand what they are trying to prove in their writing piece. Michelle's third observation blog is a perfect example of the tutor keeping his tutee involved, As Michelle states, "The tutor consistently asked the student to voice their opinion for the brief reaction response that the task is asking for, but the student is not a native English speaker, so they struggled a bit. Still, the the tutor worked diligently to understand the student and make sure that they were writing exactly what they meant. The conversation was very fluid and I saw a lot of effort from both parties." This is very important because sometimes students may have their thoughts together in their mind but aren't able to express this clearly through their writing so it is the tutor's job to ask them what point are they trying to get across in their paper and it again, this all goes back to the communication aspect of tutoring.

Second Day: Writing Center Observation

So I went to the tutoring lab for the second time this week and it was very different from the last observation. It was different because I observed another tutor and this time the tutor was tutoring two students at the same time. I found it to be a bit hectic for him because it was as if he was trying to rush one student just to attend the other. One student had just came to this country so he needed more help with his putting his thoughts together and with his spelling/grammar. The other student didn't need much help and already knew what she wanted to write about. The student who had just came to this country needed more guidance with his criminal justice paper which took up majority of the session. This student had to discuss why he feels guns should be prohibited and how people would benefit from this. Although the student had at least three pages of work, the student didn't really seem to have a sense of direction for his paper. His paper did not have a main idea/thesis and his paper was contradicting his personal views. The tutor had to break down his paper and speak to him just to have an idea of what kind of point he was trying to get across to his readers.

On the other hand, the girl was only there to revise a paper that her professor gave back to her with comments. She had to revise her photo essay and with her essay she had to provide an interview about a student who is attending LaGuardia. The only problem is that she didn't provide an interview along with the pictures that she had provided with the photos so therefore it was hard for the tutor to help her complete her revision. However, he did help her with her grammar mistakes in the paper. The only issue that I had with this tutoring session was that he seemed to be rushing the student with the photo essay out of the session. Every question she had, he would vaguely answer the question then get back to the other student. I thought it was a bit rude of him to do that. I felt like she should've been more considerate that he was also tutoring her and should've thoroughly answered all of her questions and concerns. 

First Day: Writing Center Observation

I went to the tutoring lab earlier this week and it was definitely an interesting experience for me. I noticed that the tutor must've read the book that we are currently reading in class because I believe that she used some of the techniques that are listed in there. However, there were some methods that the text mentioned not to use when tutoring someone and during my observation I saw otherwise.
   
A student came into the writing center to receive help for his Psychology paper. At the beginning of the session, I noticed that the tutor failed to ask the student what exactly was the paper on and what point was he trying to get across when writing it. As soon as the student walked in, the tutor took the student's paper and immediately began reading his work. I think she (the tutor) messed up on that part because when I read the text, it explains how important it is to always ask your writer questions about their paper such as why they are writing it, who are they writing it for and what have they learned while writing their paper before you as the tutor can began reading, making corrections and comments. After the tutor finished reading his work, she then started to make grammar corrections. After the tutor had basically rearranged his whole paper for him, the writer told her that the reason why his paper was structured in that way was because the professor had requested it to be in that order. I believe that had the tutor asked about his paper beforehand, she would've been able to approach making his corrections differently. When I saw that, I realized why the text mentions how important it is to ask the writer questions about the main idea of their work before reading it and changing the whole paper around. At the end, I am assuming that the tutor realized that it was a poor approach to the situation so she started to involve the student more in his work such as asking him questions, finding out why he used certain words and terms in his paper and if he thought it was appropriate to have them in his paper.

Throughout the whole session, I feel that it was more of a talking and writing/collaborative approach. The tutor allowed her student to learn by asking him effective questions that increased his word knowledge and understanding of what he wrote. Watching this session made me learn a lot about being a tutor and understand what works during a session. I would probably like to go back to her to observe her with another student just to see how she would approach them however I would like to experience other sessions with a different tutor because every tutor has different techniques when tutoring.