"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.