For the future students

My name is Anayeli Guzman, I am a Childhood Education major and I was required to take Seminar in Teaching Writing as part of the English co-major program. Throughout my school years I have always struggled when it comes to writing an essay, sometimes I ask myself why I chose English as a co-major if I have issues with this subject. ENG220 has helped me a lot to overcome some of the issues I had when it came to writing. When I read the description of this course it gave me a whole different idea, I thought that we would learn how to teach English as in literature or something similar to that and that was what we were going to put into practice. On my first day of class I arrived late (wouldn’t recommend anyone to do that because Professor Rogers- Cooper starts class on time, “on the dot”!!!!) the Professor had already went over the syllabus and the first task he assign to us is to answer “What makes a good teacher?”, for me it was an interesting exercise because as a Childhood Education major I had never been asked this question before. ENG 220 gives you, the student the opportunity to see if teaching is the right path to go and if this is the career you want to pursue. In ENG 220, you also get the opportunity to observe tutors and learn from them to later put that knowledge into practice. By doing this, you will then get the opportunity to have a one to one interaction with an ENG099 and ENG101 student. In this college or even in many High Schools where we come from we are not given that attention ourselves. Many of us come from a background where the privilege of having a tutor was not possible. That extra help everyone needs sometimes was not given to us. This is where this class takes one step further. Even though you will not be able to go to all the English classes and help each and every student, you will still end up with the satisfaction of aiding someone when they were struggling, whether it was to start off their essay or to continue from where they stopped or to just polish it. In this class you will also speak about major issues that till this day affect society, which are discrimination, social classes, cultures, slavery, and the most important education itself. This class will allow you to expand your knowledge to the issues mentioned above and see them from a different perspective. By helping others with their writing it will also help you as well. As I mentioned before, this class helped me with my own writing issues. The reading texts that are assigned will be a guide to not only tutor properly but to help you with your writing as well.

Professor Justin Rogers-Cooper can be a tough grader, and sometimes students take that for granted because some may think he does it for his own sake or to be mean. What I was able to notice is that the reason Professor Rogers-Cooper is a tough grader is because he cares, he sees potential in each and every student. He knows that we are not simply Community College students but he sees us as if we were from any other four year college or private university. Professor Rogers-Cooper knows that our intelligence is just as good as of those from other big colleges. In this class I was able to test my writing skills and know that I was able to meet the required standards when I put effort and work into an assignment. It is important to attend class every day and BE ON TIME. You will learn a lot from this course of tutoring and Professor Rogers-Cooper will expand your knowledge. ENJOY and HAVE FUN!!!

3rd Tutoring Observation

In my third tutoring observation I had the opportunity to observe a tutor with two tutees. My first and second observation I was only able to observe one tutor and one tutee. The tutor started of with the girl and as he read her paper he said "One of the biggest issue here is that we have to work with your thesis and the structure of responses", the girl was working on a paper based on Martin Luther King. He asked to say her ideas in a different way and to write down on her notebook while he read the other guy's paper. As he was reading the guy's paper he recall that the guy had done lab with him. As he kept reading the guy's paper he said to him that his paper was more like a CATW format and  told the guy that from now on that had to change because he was in an ENG101 class. Throughout the whole session he kept going back anf forth from one student to another and he was able to manage his time correctly between both students. He will give one of the tutees an assignment while he worked with the other. During the session he noticed that both tutees were having the same issue in structuring their essays so he stood up and went to get a worksheet for them. He gave each one an Essay Map to better help them structure their essay. He asked them to write down their sentences on the worksheet. At the end both students had their worksheets full and he said to them, "You see how you wrote down a topic sentence and then you wrote down details to support that main point that's how you're both going to write you essay", and they did. The tutor praised the students for having a draft even though they had it wrong. The session was almost done and the tutor told the tutees type their essays and to come back tomorrow to see if they needed anymore revision. The tutor actually stayed with them for an extra 5-8 minutes to answer questions they had. 

3rd Tutoring

On my third tutoring session I was finally able to work with two students at once, and I must say that it's not as easy as it might seem. At first I was only given one student which I was used to because in the first two sessions I only worked with one student but then the second was assigned to me. I first started to work with the first student, so i told the second student to reread his essay and take note of any weaknesses his paper might have. The first student didn't have an actual draft but had created an outline in his notebook of how he wanted his essay to look, which I thought was great. He also had his introduction and his first body paragraph written down in his notebook. I saw his introduction was good, he had a clear thesis and presented the arguments well. His first body paragraph was the one that needed to be expanded a little bit more so I told him to do that while I worked with the second student. When I started to work with the second student, it was a little harder for me, the student made it seem like he knew what he was doing and didn't want my help. As I read through his paper out loud with him I noticed that he didn't have a clear thesis or a thesis at all for that matter, I decided to keep reading and leave comments for last. As we go into the body paragraphs his in text citation was incorrect and made him mark those specific in text citations and told him that we had to work on that after we finished reading.

1st Tutoring

The student that I tutored on Wednesday had an idea of what he had to revise but didn't quite know how to do so. He said to  me "I think I'm going to change the whole thing", he said this because the notes his Professor said to explain more. He thought that by giving another example instead of the one he had would make his paper better. I told him not to, because what he had was good but he just had to expand on it a little bit more.I started by asking him questions and told him to jot down what he was responding to me, I had him brainstorm. We went back and forth, I would ask questions and he answered. Ten minutes later his notebook was filled with more details for him to use in order to expand what he already had. Although, there were some questions that I would ask and he didn't know what to answer because he wasn't familiar with illegal immigration. I was able to give him a little of more facts because I know people who are undocumented and know the struggle they have to face, so I used them as an example so that the student could be more detailed in his essay. After we finished with the brainstorming, he was able to expand on one paragraph that he already had and create a new one, the one his Professor asked him to. His thesis was a good one so we didn't touch on that, he had a few minor grammar issues but I decided not to focus on that since his body was what needed more work, although I told mentioned the grammar issues to him and told him to do it at home. At the end, I asked him if he needed help on anything else and he said that he was satisfied with what I helped him with.

My Second Observation

I went to my second observation on Monday September 29, I was so amazed from my first observation that I went in hoping that'll be the same, but it wasn't.
My second observation I observed a student that had to go to The MOMA and write about an art work she saw. The tutor made the student feel welcomed but she sound so happy about it or maybe that's how she speaks either way the student looked as if she didn't want to be with her; she had requested another tutor but got stuck with her. The student showed a picture of the art work to the tutor and she responded, "let's see if the art work matched the description you have on your paper". She told the student that she has to make sure that her writing has to always be written for others to read. As the tutor was reading the student's draft, she kept mentioning grammatical errors. Spelling was the main one and subject verb agreement. The tutor gave the student a mini lesson of how to use the verb have, since the student's first language is French the tutor gave her examples in French and told her that French is not the same as English so for her not to write like that (she was mean). She even told the student that she had to go back to the Writing Center for a lesson on subject verb agreement. She praised the student for some sentences she had. Once she finished reading her paper she said to just correct those little errors and that's it she ended the session. The session was only about 40 minutes long, the student as I mentioned before didn't seemed that she wanted to be there so she just left without asking any more questions.

My First Observation

I went to the Writing Center for my first observation and I must say it went great! I went thinking it was going to be awful for some reason. I myself have trouble writing, so how am I going to be able to tutor someone else who has the same issue as me. Fortunately, my first tutoring observation session was with a tutor that has tutored me before more than once. I see her as a very helpful person and has helped me get A's in my papers thanks to her tutoring skills.

I observed an ENG99 student who had to write about a relationship that changed him in the past. When we first started the tutor was so professional and greeted him and made him feel welcomed. the student decided to write about his ex girlfriend, which I thought was too personal. The tutor said that it was indeed a personal thing to write about but to only write what he felt comfortable writing that even though the paper asked for details he didn't have to be specific. The student had already written his introduction but wasn't sure what else to write. The tutor told him that the best thing to do was to PRE-WRITE, that that would help him gather all his ideas and make the writing simple. She kept saying that its better to take the essay piece by piece instead of trying to do all things at once. She asked him what his professor was looking for in the paper, this is something we went over in class. The tutor helped the student gather his ideas by asking him so many questions like "What make you say that? What do you mean by this? Say that another way? who benefits from this? Read it to yourself, does it make sense? Is it enough? Give me more info". In other words not once did she point out a grammatical error or as we know correcting errors. Since the student already had an introduction she encouraged him by telling him that it was good, even though she told him to change it a bit at the end.What I found to be weird was that the student kept wanting the tutor to answer all the questions or give him the exact sentences to write, but she didn't. She asked would just rephrase the questions until he answered it, she would make him write his answers. By the end of the session all he needed was his conclusion, the tutor told him that all he had to do was rephrase his introduction. Overall the skills the tutor has are amazing and she helped the student so much that I think he left the Writing Center with an A paper to give to his professor