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