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.