I don't think I helped as much as I could have in Prof Hendrickson's class. I worked with two students and one of them I couldn't help at all. He was the first one who showed up. He didn't have anything written, didn't have a copy of the assignment, the course packet with the readings, or the outline that he told me he had started. I think we also had a communication barrier. He had an accent, but I didn't have trouble understanding him. And I thought he understood me, but he gave contradictory answers to the questions I asked him, and when I asked him again to make sure I understood, he'd answer them differently. We kind of went around in circles for a minute. I wanted to try to help him do something so I decided to see if we could discuss the readings or maybe work on a thesis. From his responses it seemed as if he hadn't done the reading at all, and since he didn't have the course packet, that kind of left us nowhere. I told him that we'd be back again to work with his class, and that if he brought the course packet and whatever work he'd done, I'd be able to help him out with it. But that basically, there was nothing I could do to help him. That's when the second student showed up.
He had the course packet and a good first draft of his paper. The students had been given a choice of two topics, he had chosen gentrification and worked primarily with an article about recent comments made by Spike Lee as his primary source. His draft was a good start on the paper and I felt like we had something to work with. I tried to focus on higher order concerns. We talked about strengthening his thesis and expanding his introduction. I made a few suggestions about strengthening some of his arguments, not changing them, just changing the words he used to present them to make them stronger. He had a very short introduction, one very long paragraph, then two short paragraphs. I talked to him about splitting the larger paragraph into two, and using more examples from the reading to beef up the other paragraphs.
I may have been thrown off my stride by the first student who I really just could not help. It was also very loud in there and I had a little trouble hearing either of them. There was a separation between our desks. It didn't feel like we were working together well. Toward the end I felt like there was a lot more he and I could have covered. But I tried to jot down everything we discussed so he'd have a plan for how to go forward with his essay.
We were told after class that all the feedback the students gave about us was good. So maybe I'm judging myself too harshly. I think I did everything I should have done, but I'm not sure it was all that helpful or productive. I know I've had better sessions with other students I've tutored.
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