"How I feel about becoming a Writing Tutor"

I have a number of different feelings and emotions about becoming a Writing Tutor.

I feel a little scared because I feel that I may not be able to help the student understand what I'm trying to say when explaining something to him or her.

I feel anxious because I have never tutored college students. I have always helped students who are a lot younger then I am.

I am feeling happy because I love being able to help someone especially in the area of English, and in particular, writing.

I feel somewhat nervous because I don't want to be giving students the wrong information or have them fail or get a bad grade because of me giving them information that isn't correct, or have them misunderstand something that I am trying to say.

At the end of it all, I want the experience to be worthwhile. I want it to be beneficial to both me and the student. I want to be able to have the student learn new things as well as have myself learn new things about writing and the students as well. I want the student to be happy with their final outcome of their writing assignment and I want them to thank me for helping them. I believe that the most rewarding thing is having someone appreciate you helping them do good.

"What I have learned about being a Writing Tutor"

After sitting with a tutor and a tutee in the writing center I have come to realize that it is a very hard and demanding job as being a tutor. From both the experience, and what I have learned in my ENG 220 Teaching Writing class, I can finally say I have a better understanding of that it is and what is expected for being a good tutor.

On Tuesday I was able to sit in a session with a tutor and a tutee. The student was having trouble understanding why she was getting such a low grade when she wrote her in-class diagnostics essay for her ENG 101 class. Some things that I had noticed the tutor doing right from the beginning was pretty much everything that my class and I have been discussing in ENG 220.

The tutor started the session with asking the student what the assignment was about. They both read the directions for who was expected to be written in the essay that was given to the student. After they read the directions, the tutor went on reading the student's paper out loud. After completing this, the tutor asked the student her ideas about what she wrote in the paper. I felt that this was a good approach because I felt that the tutor was a little confused with what the student had written in her assignment, and instead of saying it was badly written, or confusing, she asked the student what she was trying to write and what her ideas about what she was planning to write in the paper, this way the tutor can get a better understanding and idea what the student wants to write about, and if it is in fact a good approach to answering the question that was given by the professor for the assignment.

Another approach that the tutor went about doing was pointing out the the student the comments, suggestions, and corrections that the professor had wrote while grading the student's paper. The tutor explained the to student that reading these comments, suggestions, and corrections is very important because then the student would be more careful to not make the same mistake twice when writing another paper for this one particular, or any other class for that matter.

One problem that the student was having was not being able to properly structure her essay. She was having a big problem organizing her ideas. Instead of separating her points into three separate paragraphs, the student gave all her ideas and points in her first paragraph. The tutor praised the student because she did in fact have very good points in supporting her thesis statement, but the fact that she wasn't properly organizing and constructing her essay, giving each point a different paragraph followed by examples was where the student needed help.

After explaining this to the student, the tutor asking her to write the three points that she, the student, had originally stated in her introduction. The student wrote down the three points in three separate columns and then asked the student to give examples supporting the point she was trying to make in her thesis.

After the session was over, the student thanked the tutor and the tutor told her if she had any other problems, that she can come find her in the writing center, and they would be able to work more on the paper, or the tutor told her she would help the student in having a better understanding of properly structuring her essays.

"Why I said what I said to Vanessa and John"

Vanessa's piece was very good. I liked the way she was able to give full explanations about the poet and almost everything she wrote about. Her choice of words were good too. The one small problem, I wouldn't even call it that, was that the professor asked for the students to write a definition of tone in their own words, and she took her definition from the internet. Other then that, it was a very well written essay.

John's essay was good on a different level. Instead of choosing a poet and poem, he chose a song by Led Zeppelin. I thought this was a unique approach to writing his essay.. He went outside of the box, and he chose what he liked. In a way, songs are written as poems, so I think it was a good choice. He knew about the song very well, and explained the lyrics and how the symbolism and tone were incorporated in them. One thing that I believed shouldn't have been in the essay was the entire song lyrics. I explained to John that a few lyrics, just to show the reader what he was talking about would have been good.

This was a fun experience for me, and I think now I am more ready and in some ways more confident if I am chosen to tutor ENG 099 students.