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.
Sounds like a total pro job. I really like the idea of the tutor offering the students more than one way of looking at the poem, rather than offering a 'right' way. How can we all do that with our feedback on blogs? Can you talk about this in class soon?
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