This is a comparison between tutoring for Prof Hendrickson's ENG 101 and tutoring for API. I started writing this as part of my post about Prof Hendrickson's class. But it ran long so I decided to make it into it's own post.
When I got hired to tutor for API, the only experience I had teaching was doing corporate training. I just figured I'd apply what I had learned doing that, and kind of wing it. I'm good at talking to people. I'm good at asking helpful questions. I know the people I worked with as a trainer learned a lot. So I figured all that would work for me. And to an extent, it has.
Luckily for me, students didn't start coming to my API tutoring sessions until after the first week of ENG 220. So I was able to apply the things we discussed in class with the students who attended my tutoring sessions, and it seems to have worked pretty well. The professor in the ENG 101 class I tutor for says she can tell when I've worked with someone and that it's definitely helping. So that's good.
But, after watching the tutors in the Writing Center and after having had both some good and some not-so-good sessions with students, I know I have a lot of room for improvement. Which is cool, I knew I had a lot to learn, that's why I came here. And in my experience, the more I do something the better I get at it. My immediate goal right now, the thing I'm thinking about most anyway, is figuring out the difference between a good session and a bad session.
So for example, I worked with one student from ENG 101. Last week we worked one-on-one in the atrium in front of the library. We discussed the assignment and the readings. I helped her come up with a thesis. I felt really good about that. I think she came up with a good narrow thesis that she could back up both with personal experience and examples from the readings. We discussed research strategies and ideas for how to structure the essay. When she left it seemed like I had helped her a lot. She thanked me, which was nice. But more importantly, it seemed from her enthusiasm when we were talking and her body language that she felt confident about what we were working on. I was happy with all that.
Then the next week in a session with the same student, things did not go as well. We met as we had last time. But another student showed up. API sessions are for anyone in the class who wants help. I had scheduled this additional session (which was why we met in the atrium instead of my assigned classroom) for the first student, but I emailed the class to let them know I was holding the session in case they wanted to come. So the second student said she had not had time for breakfast and asked if we could go to the cafeteria instead. I said that was fine with me, and the first student did too, but I don't think it was fine with her.
As I write this I'm beginning to see why the session didn't go so well.
So we got to the cafeteria which was packed and loud. The only table we could get was dirty and so wobbly I'm surprised it hadn't been thrown away. I got to work with the first student who hadn't made any progress since the last time we met. She hadn't done any writing since our last session. The last time we met she had narrowed the focus of the assignment from "Traditional culture vs Modern Culture" to "Traditional Ideas about marriage (including arranged marriages and honor killing) vs modern western ideas about marriage." The thesis she had written was something like, "In traditional marriage, such as in an arranged marriage, many women are treated as slaves. In modern marriages, women have much more freedom." I told her that was a good start but that it didn't really express an opinion. She didn't seem to get it. From previous discussion I knew her family was in favor of traditional marriage so I told her, "Well, your uncle who is in favor of arranged marriages might say those two sentences, then follow it up with, 'which is why traditional marriage is better.' So it's unclear where you actually stand. You want to try to follow it up with a clear statement of your opinion." But she didn't really go for it. I knew what her opinion was. Even just following those two sentences up with "This is why modern marriage is better" would have made it a stronger thesis. But she seemed reticent to even say that much. I didn't want to put words into her mouth by telling her what to write so I felt like we were at an impasse.
The thing is, it was very loud, the table was awful, neither of us really liked the environment, and she seemed unwilling to discuss the topic with the other student there. We discussed the other source she had found, an article on the subscription database. I gave her ideas for possible ways to present the ideas she wanted to. But she didn't really want to talk about the structure of the paragraphs or the ideas themselves. She had to go to work so she left. She's going to email me a draft during spring break and I told her I would take a look at it. But I feel this ended up being an example of "responding too late" as discussed in our text.
The other student had barely started. We talked about her thesis, and reviewed the sources. Her angle on her thesis is traditional family values compared to modern family values, and how the best way to go about it is to combine both. It was a productive session and she's going to email me a draft as well. But she hadn't read all of the sources and was still doing research so we didn't have as much to work on.
I spent the time going back and forth with the two students, talking to them about the assignment and the sources from the readings in class. At times I gave one or the other something to work on while I helped the other, brainstorming topics for a thesis, looking for supportive quotes from the sources, etc.
I guess it was an okay session. My main concern about it was that the previous session with the first student went much better than this one had. I could tell she didn't have a good feeling about this one.
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