Therapy Tutor Session

Therapy Tutor

Jenny walks into the writing center, looking upset and tired. 

Jenny:  Hi, can I see a tutor that might be able to help me with my final paper. 

Secretary:  Sure, just fill this out (hands Jenny a piece of paper) and take a seat and someone will be right with you. 

Jenny:  Okay, thank you.

Secretary:  Not a problem. 

While waiting in the chair Jenny fidgets around and can’t seem to sit still.  She can’t stop thinking about her grade depending on this paper, and how much she is struggling with it.  She zones out replaying the events that have occurred the last few days in her head and she begins to feel herself get upset.  Her tutor comes out of the back room……

Tutor:  Hello, you can come with me I’ll be tutoring you today.  Let’s go find a table somewhere and get to work. 

Jenny:  Okay sounds good to me.

Tutor:  This looks good right here.  Take a seat and let’s get to work.  How are you?

Jenny and the tutor take seat.

Jenny:  I’m good thank you, extremely stressed and this paper is adding to the stress.  I’m just having a really hard time getting my thoughts together and an even harder time getting them down on paper. 

Tutor:  Okay, well my name is Janelle and let me see what I can do to help you regarding this paper.  Do you have the prompt from your professor? 

Jenny:  Yes here it is.

Janelle:  Give me a sec, let me read over the prompt and read your paper.  Then we can see what we can do here. 

Jenny:  Fine, it’s really not that great of a paper seeing how I was up with my daughter all night with my daughter the last few days because she’s been sick.  And I just have a lot going on in my life right now.

Janelle:  No worries, I’m sure we’ll be able to figure something out together.  Sometimes it helps to have someone collaborate with you. 

Jenny sits in the chair looking very nervous and anxious.  As the tutor reads her paper, she looks on read it as well.  She is so embarrassed by her work. 

Janelle:  Okay so there some really great things going on in this paper.  Your thesis statement is excellent and so are some of your supporting ideas.  We have to work on maybe coming up with some better supporting ideas and also expanding the ones you already have down. 

Jenny:  Yeah I sort of rushed this paper.  I am definitely much more capable of producing better than this, but recently there have been a lot of things going on in my personal life, that I haven’t been able to concentrate. 

Janelle:  That is totally understandable.  Unfortunately our personal lives can’t be put on hold in order for us to concentrate on other things.  But let’s take this time right now, and see what we can come up with together. 

Jenny:  Yeah but you don’t understand, how difficult my life is right now.  I have a sick child at home, I just lost my job, and I’m barely able to make ends meet.  I just don’t think I can do this right now. 

Janelle:  Sure you can.  We are going to do this together     

Live tutoring session #3

Entering the tutoring session this week was much easier.  I was glad to see that the students had done a practice CATW.  The prompt talked about how the advertisements of fast food and junk food have influenced the youth and affected them negatively.  It also spoke about  After reading the prompt and reviewing the first tutee's practice exam, I was highly impressed with his work.  He had definitely take into account some of the things we had worked on.  He had originally struggled with the introduction and summary and this time around it was really well done.  However he only had two body paragraphs.  I explained to him how his first body paragraph could definitely be split into two paragraphs, seeing how there was so much information in it to begin with.  In this paragraph he spoke about how McDonald's advertised their Happy Meals to children because it included a toy in it.  He spoke about how children begged their parents to go there because they wanted the toys.     Once we split the paragraph into two, he realized how much better the paper flowed.  From there we sat and talked about maybe adding a few more details here and there.  We used just talk about it to expanded his ideas and add more details.  We talked over the ideas he already had and began to develop more.  He actually told me he had so many other ideas but because of time he was unable to include and develop them.  This bought music to my ears because he had always struggled with coming up with ideas.  Since day one he had asked me for ways to come up with ideas in such a short amount of time.  I was extremely happy to see that he had found confidence in his writing this time around.  At the end of the tutoring session we were asked by their professor to get them feedback on two things that we thought the might want to work on.  For him I told him to work on overcome writer's block.  I explained that all he need was the right amount of confidence to start off because once he started writing he wrote well.  And I also told him to work on sentence structure.  Often times his writing, although not hard to understand, lacks sentence structure. 
The second student that I was asked to work with (because my usual second student was running late) was not at all open for help.  He refused a few times with me and with his professor at all.  I even asked him why it was that he did not want to get any help from me, if he was shy or embarrassed

During the second live tutoring session, I found myself being less nervous than the first one.  I was still nervous though.  I found a little comfort in knowing that we would be working with the same students we did the first time around.  They looked happy and excited to see that I was working with them again.  They had both worked on the same papers we had previously went over.  I read over the first students paper to see what kind of changes he had made.  I realized right away what he had fixed.  He had definitely expanded on things that we spoke about.  I read over his work again and we agreed that he needed to work on his conclusion a bit more.  While he worked on that I went over the second tutee's paper with him.  This student had also worked on his paper from the last time I had worked with him.  He had a problem with his conclusion and had written a few different options down and wanted my opinion.

My First Tutoring Session

Nervous is an understatement of how I felt waiting outside the room.  The more I waited the more nervous I became.  After sitting down and introducing myself to the two tutees a bit of the nervousness went away.  Not all of it but most of it.  I had two students both of them ready to work.  I spoke to the student I was not going to be working with first and told him to read over whatever he wanted me to work on with him and to make sure that he was happy with his work.  I told him to jot down anything he might want to change, add or develop on.  I turned to the student that I was going to work with and asked him to see the assignment.  After reviewing the assignment, I read his response.  He made sure to let me know he was still in the middle of working on it.  For the most part what he had done already was good.  He just needed help developing some more ideas.  I had never seen the movie "The Matrix" and by reading what he wrote I kind of grasp the concept of the movie.  He had come up with a great example but never connected it to "The Matrix" so I asked him to make the connection while I worked with the other tutee.  Right before I turned to work with the other student he asked me if I had any ideas on how he could come up with ideas.  We spoke about how he can draw from personal experiences and from things going on around him.  He didn't seem very confident and I made sure to tell him that confidence was so important.  I pulled out an example CATW prompt I had and we went over that quickly we read it together and I asked him to give me examples of what he might possibly write given that prompt.  At first he couldn't really come up with anything but once I gave him an example he was able to come up with a few on his own.  He looked a little relived after this.  I then began working with the second student.  This student had excellent ideas.  He made wonderful connections between the movie "The Matrix"

Observation Three

During my third observation, I observed a tutor with two students.  Both students had completely different things to work on.  The tutor was extremely kind, introduced himself to both the tutees and myself.  One of the students had never been to the writing center and as unsure of what was going to happen.  He took a few minutes to explain exactly what the student should expect during the session.  He was very attentive to both students and mad sure to give both of them the same amount of time.  He had the first time student read over her paper and make last minute changes while he worked with the first student.  He had previously worked with the first student so he was well aware of her struggle with English.  He spoke very slow and made sure she understood everything.  She didn't have a paper to go over, but had a previously paper she had worked on with the tutor and comments from her professor.  Apparently the student had problems with summarizing things.  The tutor wrote down on a piece of paper different techniques that student can use when creating a summary.  The student had a reading that she needed to summarize, together they picked out main ideas of the first paragraph.  The tutor asked the student if she felt comfortable to try doing the same thing they had both done with the first paragraph with the second and third while he worked with the other student.  The student said she'd try.  I liked how the tutor listed out different techniques for the student to look back on just in case she forgot about what to do.  I noticed the student going back to the list a few times, to make sure she was doing it correctly.
With the second student the tutor decided for them to read the paper out loud together.  The want over the HOC first.  After reading the introduction, the tutor asked the student what her thesis was.  The student was not clear as to what a thesis was.  The tutor explained to her what it was.  The tutor decided to read on and told the student to jot down the main idea of each paragraph and then they would work on putting that into a thesis.  During the session the tutor also helped the student learn how to break down the professors prompt in order to make sure that she is answering all the questions that the professor asked.  Because this student had a great paper, the tutor took the time to explain little things that he thought were important such as a body paragraph structure.  The explain what made up a paragraph.  He also wrote this down that way the student had this to overlook whenever she was unsure. 
This was on of my favorite tutoring sessions.  I felt like the tutor really wanted both students to take a lot away from this session.  He wrote things down for them so that they could take it with them and look back on it.  He constantly asked the students throughout the session if they understood what he was saying.  The collaborated with them but also taught them some things. 

Observation Two

During my second week of observation I observed two different tutors.  With the first tutor, the first student failed to bring his assignment with him.  The tutor made sure that the student understood how important it was that the assignment be bought into the lab.  The prompt is needed in order for the tutor to make sure the student is answering all of the professors questions.  This student struggled a great deal with word form.  Many times throughout his paper he would use a word in it's noun form instead of the verb form and so on.  The student and tutor collaborated together by going through the paper and correcting the students errors with word form.  After the completed this the tutor gave the student work sheets to take home and work on.  I really liked that fact that the tutor did this.  The tutor assured the student that with practice he would eventually get the right word forms.  There was definitely a language barrier.  Both the tutor and student had accents and many times throughout the session the student became frustrated because he was unable to get his points across and at times did not understand the tutor.  For the most part the students paper was good, and whatever parts the tutor felt were weaker, both him and the student worked together to make it better.  They brainstormed together to come up with better points.  The tutor made sure to push the student to read as much as possible.  He wanted the student to know that to improve yourself as a writer, you must be a reader.  This made so much sense to me, and when the tutor said it you could tell that the student realized the truth to it. 
With the second student the tutor had worked with him prior to this session.  The student handed in a paper and bought it back with some feedback from his professor.  The tutor read the paper and read the professors comments.  The student had already made some changes so they went over those changes and made sure that the student answered the professors concerns.  This student had already done must of the work on his own and just wanted a tutor to read over his paper.  They worked on the conclusion together.

Observation One

The writing center is a place where students can go and get their papers read by a tutor.  At the time, the tutor will go over your paper.  The tutor is there to help you with your paper not write it.  I am observing at the writing center because I will start tutoring soon.  I must complete a certain amount of observation time before I am able to tutor.




During my first observation, the student came in with a paper where she had to analyze different poems.  Once the tutor and student sat down, the tutor asked the student about the assignment and then asked the student to see the assignment that the professor had given to her.  The tutor then went on to read the full paper.  When the tutor was done with reading the paper, she pointed out positives about the paper.  For example she spoke about the organization of the paper and that the student had great ideas.  I connected this to the reading I did in Tutoring Voices, about cheerleading.  Although the tutor did praise the student for certain things, she made sure not to sugarcoat the truth.  The paper lacked the proper formatting.  The tutor went over formatting quickly with the student only to make sure she understood it.  One thing I like that the tutor did was not zero in on all the LOC (lower order concerns) such as grammatical errors.  I felt like she didn't really want to nitpick the students work, which was also pointed out in Tutoring Voices.  She kept great eye contact throughout the tutoring session as well as good posture.  She made the student feel welcome and you could see this when the student would express her ideas.  In Tutoring Voices we spoke about how the tutor needs to respect the writer's ideas and work.  Although the tutor had her own ideas, she worked more with the student to develop her ideas.  She gave the student different ways to look at the poem.  She made sure that the student had complete ownership of her paper. 
I think the tutor was very effective during the session.  The student seemed to be very happy with the changes that they came up with.  Just by sitting there with a tutor, the student seemed to be more confident in their writing.  She stated that her ideas were flowing better while having the tutor help her. 
For my next observation I want to be able to see the same things.  I'd like to be able to make more world to text connections.