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.