My third and fourth writing center observations!

In my third observation I noticed how sometimes, time is not utilized to it's full potential during a session where there are two students. It seems like there is too little time to address the issues the writers are having and fairly giving each of the students time deserved is not happening. Understandably, there is only so much a tutor can do in 45 minutes. I think it is a huge injustice to have students sign up for tutoring, wait for a tutor and have to share their time with another student. I see in both my 3rd and 4th observations one student was sort of dismissed and sat without an activity to do to improve their papers. Only one student was given full attention during both sessions, and the other was briefly spoken to at the end of the session. When the student in observation 4 expressed her frustration that she had been to the writing center twice that week and did not feel like she received constructive help she was dismissed and told to come back at another time, as the session was over and no other help could be given at that time, which falls into the category of responding too late.. The positives during session 3 were that the tutor showed the student how to look for their own grammatical errors, was constantly asked thinking questions about their paper, like "what do you mean by this, what are you trying to say, and state your main idea in one sentence". In session 4, the student who was given the most "help" was a student that the tutor already knew, and they chatted about personal things rather than the topic at hand. The other student was dismissed a bit harshly by the tutor saying "OK were done have a nice day" and immediately turned to the other student and continued their irrelevant conversation.
In the end of these 4 sessions I observed some good things and some ridiculous things but it has reiterated what should and shouldn't happen during a tutoring session.

First In-class tutoring session thoughts

In my first session, the first thing I will do is be alert and friendly, introduce myself, and ask the name of the tutee. I will then have an informal introduction, and explain what I will be doing with the student. I will say that I am going to help you with your paper, by reading it over, and giving them some tips on how to improve. The strategies I will use are asking the writer what the central issue is of their piece, and to summarize their paper in one or two sentences. Then I will do some outlining, where they can tell me how each body paragraph relates to their thesis if they have one. If the writer is having issues expressing their thesis, I will them have them do a writing exercise where they will write down everything that comes to mind about the topic they are writing about.   I imagine that due to the fact that most of these students will have read the book and discussed in class what their paper is about that they will more or less be familiar about the topic and should not have much problems in figuring out what they want to write about, as Food, Inc. is a touchy subject that everyone can relate to. Problems that might arise in their paper might be structure, organization and clear representation of their thesis, along with maybe some grammatical issues. The writer may be aware of the topic at hand but might not be able to have a definitive argument of the subject. The session will end on a positive note, where I will do a recap on what I think the writer needs to focus and work on, and wish them luck on their paper. 

My Second Writing Center Observation

Upon my second observation in the writing center, I found the tutor to be a little disinterested, she did not seem like she was willing to help her tutee, because the tutee arrived about 10 minutes late for the session. My assumption is that the tutor felt like since the sessions already began, she had a free period until this student showed up. The tutee was an older woman whom English was not her first language. She was practicing for the CATW test, and wanted to know how she could use her time more efficiently and get her thoughts down quicker on paper. The tutor explained to her that she could not teach her how to write faster (which I agree with) but she could help her use strategies to help her understand the text she is reading better, so that she can use it to write about the topic she was reading in a uniformed manner, thus helping her utilize her time better. The tutee then gave her a graded paper she already wrote, which had positive feedback from her professor, but she explained that she wasn't happy with nice or good, because other times she had excellent on her papers. The tutor then let her know the areas she was lacking but did not explain fully what she could have done better. The tutor then left her for about 5 minutes, and came back with some practice CATW worksheets, and explained a great idea that I thought was good for me to use in the future, when analyzing text. She showed the student how to read each paragraph and write notes on the side of the main idea of the paragraph, and use those notes to begin her own paragraphs in her paper. She told her to be very detailed in her explanations on why she felt the paragraph meant what it did. After she demonstrated this process to the student, she had the tutee do two examples on her own. Once the tutee did this, she let her know that the session was closing in five minutes, and that it was time to finish up. I though the tutor should have invited her back to work on it again, but she didnt, she kind of just got up and left before the tutee did. In my opinion, I thought that gave an impression that she didn't want to be bothered. All in all, I think the tutor knows what shes doing and can back up what she is talking about, but her attitude towards the student could have been better.

My first tutoring observation at the writing center.

In my first observation, I felt a little awkward because the tutor had two tutees. They were kind of looking at me like why are you here? I felt like they might have felt that I was going to take time away from their session. So I introduced myself and let them know I was just there to observe. The tutor was an older woman who had an interesting tutoring approach. She introduced herself and was very alert and friendly. The tutees were both students whom English was not their first language, and didnt know the meaning to alot of words. 
            The first student was from China, and she came to get tutoring to interpret a poem she was reading for poetry class. The second student was of middle eastern nationality and had to write a paper for history class.  Why I found the tutors methods interesting was that she found a way to use the definitions of words from the dictionary to define it under her own way, such as using curse words and sex as analogies to get the student to understand the words she was trying to understand.  The student as well as I really enjoyed her comedic behavior, but she was able to get her point across very well.
              Needless to say, the student will always remember what she learned because the experience was fun and interesting. The second student was not prepared to sit with the tutor for more than 15 minutes, as she believed it shouldn't take too long to help her. The opposite was obvious because she had many errors in her paper, in terms of grammar, spelling, and her thesis. The she told the tutor that she had class in 15 minutes. The tutor informed her that she had many errors on her paper, and in order to thoroughly help her, she needed the whole period, if not more than one. The tutee then told her that she had been to the writing center numerous times in reference to this paper throughout the week. The tutor then asked, if you were here, why weren't the issues in your paper addressed? The student looked perplexed and confused and said that she thought the paper was ok but she knew there were still issues because even though the tutor before never addressed it, her professor did. She explained that this was the tutor she had been using for a while, but the reason she was here was to get a second opinion and input on her final draft. The tutor then explained that if the student doesn't feel comfortable with the input she was receiving, that it was her right to ask for another tutor that she feels would be able to help her. The student then gave her a time of when she could come back to thoroughly go over the paper and they rescheduled for her to come back to go over it.   
          I found that the methods the tutor used were both collaborative and teacher centered, and I agree with this approach, being that the student she was able to help really needed help in learning about the meaning of words, and reading in between the lines of her poem. 

Blog 1: Writing Center Videos

     Based on the videos we watched in Prof. Cooper's class, I realized the potential problems that need to be addressed or noticed when tutoring in the writing center. First, we should be aware of the the body language of the tutee. We need to engage the tutee by our own body language, tone of voice and show them that we are willing to help them. Also in today's world, cell phones are a big distraction. It needs to be made clear before the session begins, that if the tutee has a phone out that we should put it away during the session. No need for digital dictionary, because we should have a paper one handy. This also goes for the tutor, we need to be paying full attention to the student and his/her paper's issues. If a student persists and continues to use their phone we should suggest that they come back to us at another time that is less stressful on them so that we can focus better on their work.
    When dealing with a student who has a negative attitude toward their paper, professor or even us, we need to help the student to calm down and assure them that we can help them by trying to focus on the assignment. We do this by letting them know that regardless of how they feel right now, the assignment is still due, also letting them know that they wouldn't be here if they didn't care about their grade they wouldn't be here.
      Never do the assignment for the tutee. Let them know that you are there to assist them and give them ideas and suggestions on how they can help themselves. If a tutee feels like you are doing an injustice to them by not "re-writing" their assignment, you can advise that if they do not feel comfortable they are free to choose another tutor.
      In the subject of plagiarism, if you see that the student has not given credit to their sources, advise them of the consequences that the professor can place on them if the paper is not edited and sources are not credited.

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Welcome to my ENG220 Blog!!