This tutoring session started good but then turned a little bit awkward. I think it was the first session I've seen with a some what "difficult" student. Firstly, the student did not have the assignment with him, so the student told the tutor about the assignment which (according to what the student said and what the paper lead to believe) was to write an argumentative essay. After this conversation, the tutor read the paper to herself (this is something I have seen every tutor I've observed before do, but one, and I know in my Writing Seminar class we have been told not to do this so I wonder why so many tutors prefer this over reading out loud). The tutor did take a long time reading the paper and there was a long awkward silence where there was really nothing for me or the student to do but wait to for the tutor to be done and I imagine for the student it might be a very nerve-racking situation.
After reading the paper the tutor started by leading with praise, telling the student the best parts of his essay before diving into the critiquing part. Starting with the intro, the tutor took parts of the other paragraphs to add to the intro in order to straighten the paper. Next, the tutor helped the student develop the rest of the paper by asking him questions about the topic. This student in particular was very talkative and the tutor would let him talk as much as he needed and not talk over him, this helped them both develop new ideas and especially come to the "why" for the paper. I noticed that, not only did the tutor start with praise, but also made a compliment every time before making a critiquing comment. After having longer discussions on certain topics of the essay, the tutor would ask the student what they thought over all, basically saying he had the final say in his paper.
Something she was telling the student was that in an argumentative essay the writer could not remain neutral. He had to pick a side and stick with it through out the whole essay. The student disagreed with the tutor and continued to say it was best to have both opinions on the essay. The tutor would reply with "For essay sake", basically saying that in a real life argument you would want to think of both sides but that most ardent essays only needed one side. Then the student said his professor wants him to use both opinions in his paper. There was an obvious confusion that could have been avoided if the student would have had the essay prompt with him, but although the tutor said it is not "classically correct", she was still polite and told him that if the professor wanted both arguments he needed to add more to the second opinion paragraph. Together they brainstormed what other information could go there.
After this conversation of what to add in second opinion paragraph was over, both the tutor and the student stopped talking and the session had turned again into just awkward silence. I believe the tutor thought she was done and that there was nothing else he needed help with. Then, the student asked about his conclusion paragraph. While the tutor reread the conclusion (again to herself) she noticed he could use a sentence to "close" the essay or to "seal the job". The student seemed to be very stressed about the conclusion and could not understand how to "close" the essay. He kept trying to put in examples and add extra facts instead of summarizing the other paragraphs and bringing them all together. The student would start to ramble and was at times hard to understand because of an accent but the tutor always grabbed something that he said and connected it back to the essay sort of to keep him on track center his rambling. In the end the tutor was trying to get the student to come to his own conclusions, and when he was close to coming to a conclusion he would always add on an extra example that could better be suited for a body paragraph but not the conclusion. The tutor was running out of time for the session and the student was obviously stressed too so the tutor had to give him her own words but with statements like "I feel what you're trying to say is.."So she used parts of his essay to come up with her own closing for his essay.
Finally, the tutor summarized the session and reminded the student about where he needed to edit certain things (straighten intro, add to certain parts, etc...) and also again gave him praise for the good parts of his essay. The student copied the tutors name and said he would return if he needed help with anything. Overall, I think this essay may have had its ups and downs but it was still very successful. The tutor focussed only on Higher Order Concerns and tried hard to have the student make all the final decisions. Keeping the students voice in mind through out the whole essay is key during sessions and I believe the tutor was successful in doing that, maybe not completely when it came to the conclusion, but I believe I can learn a lot from this lesson.
No comments:
Post a Comment