Note:
This assignment has been directly copied from the original post in order to correct formatting issues. This assignment was first published on September 14. The author was UNAWARE of formatting issues until recently reviewing the post, and creatively fixing the issue.
This assignment has been directly copied from the original post in order to correct formatting issues. This assignment was first published on September 14. The author was UNAWARE of formatting issues until recently reviewing the post, and creatively fixing the issue.
Summary: In the first few minutes of Asia being tutee, and my assigned part as tutor, Asia jumped right into describing her paper writing assignment for her English class. She started with describing how the paper was about a specific book she was reading in class, and that she didn’t have a thesis yet, but knew which direction she wanted to take the paper in. She said she wanted to have the paper look at the female perspective of a major character in the Shakespearian novel, rather than focus on the male leads the professor was always discussing in class. After talking about the main female character for some time, together we generated some thematic elements that she could explore and find supporting evidence through quotations and passages. In the first few minutes of being tutee, and Asia’s assigned part as tutor, I showed her my lab report that I completed for my Mammalian Physiology course. After showing my lab report, and after she spent a few minutes reading the first page, she asked me to summarize what the lab report was about. After summarizing it, she asked me what the requirements of the lab report entailed. I pulled up another document that contained the outline required for the lab report. We went back and forth discussing the lab report, and then she asked me what my biggest concerns were. I told her that the length of the lab report was bothering me, and she gave me a few suggestions about how to break down, for example, the abstract of the lab report into parts that model after the lab expectations document I showed her, and fill it in as parts, and make sure that each part has a few sentences of explanation.
Pre-session Questions:
How do you help a writer brainstorm about a topic you don’t know anything about?
In addition to the previous question, how do you strengthen a thesis if you aren’t familiar with the topic?
Preliminary Answers to Questions: Brainstorming can occur through simple explanations of the topic that the student writer can explain to the tutor. Asking open-ended questions, like the what, when, where, why, and how can help with the brainstorming. As for the thesis, the thesis can be modified after the brainstorming is complete.
Post-Session Questions:
What seemed to work? I think asking about the assignment and discussing it in great detail within the first few minutes of the session is imperative. If there was no writing down for the assignment yet, brainstorming was essential to the tutoring session, and the tutoring session focused on that instead.· Allowing the tutee to explain what direction they wanted the assignment to head
What didn’t work?
Brainstorming about an unfamiliar topic.. NO prep?
What did the “tutor” say/do that was effective?
Asia did a really great job of giving me suggestions about how to complete the assignment for a professor that grades strictly. She recommended that I approach other professors, and ask them to look over my lab report and mention the professor that I am taking. I thought that was a really great idea that can contribute to a solid second lab report. She also suggested that I try to rewrite/edit the lab report before getting back the graded lab report to see what corrections the professor may have made to the graded lab report. This will allow me to see the mistakes before being told what they are. The last recommendation Asia made was to ask the professor for a previous lab report that was an “A-grade.” Asia’s ideas were fabulous, and I definitely will look into utilizing them.
What did the “student-writer” say/do that was effective?
I’m not sure how I can possibly answer this question because this requires Asia’s POV and her feedback for me to know my effectiveness in the tutoring session. I think I may have helped with brainstorming...
When you stepped into the tutor’s shoes, what did it feel like? Describe the interaction. I didn’t know if my word choice was good. I caught myself saying “you should focus on this or that...” and didn’t let the student writer come to that epiphany on their own.
· I was really struggling with formulating a plan for the student because I was unfamiliar with that particular book/genre.
When you stepped into the student-writer’s shoes, what did it feel like?
I felt better about my writing because the tutor gave really nice encouragement.
· My tutor mentioned creative suggestions on how to get feedback for a strict grading professor that I never thought to explore.
Assigned Readings Connection: All of our assigned readings discussed strategies during the session, such as spending a few minutes and breaking down the writing in stages (Bedford Guide). When Asia was the student and I was the tutor, we spent the majority of the time in the "pre writing" stage.
Asia + Andrea,
ReplyDeleteI’m writing to you two together b/c you were partners for this activity.
It sounds like Asia took the role of the tutee/student first and she described her assignment right off the bat. Good stuff. We’ve got to remember that this -- along with hi/hello’s and setting agendaq -- is usually an excellent starting point for tutoring sessions.
Asia’s idea that “she wanted to have the paper look at the female perspective of a major character in the Shakespearian novel, rather than focus on the male leads the professor was always discussing in class” is really cool. As people working in/around writing education, I think we’ve always gotta keep our eyes on the prize, and IDEAS are alway valued! Whenever this kind of unique, outside-the-box thinking pops up in a tutoring session, it’s worth taking a moment to say: “hey, ya know what--you’re doing some great thinking. That’s a great idea.” This can be particularly useful for students who might be having trouble finding an “in” to their assignment (i.e, they haven’t quite found their topic and/or argument).
The next step you took--”generat[ing] some thematic elements [to] explore and find supporting evidence through quotations and passages”--sounds very much like “close reading,” which is a prized practice the English/literature discipline, along with other humanities disciplines. That’s awesome, and it reminds me of our conversation in class last night, namely, how “discipline-specific” each indivdidual assignment, and therefore, tutoring session can be.
Speaking of disciplies, when the two of you switched positions and Andrea assumed the student/tutee role, you took a pretty hard pivot from the humanities to the hard sciences. As Asia noted in her field report, terms like “hypothesis + experiment” begin surfacing which probably wouldn’t ever emerge from a tutoring session centered around an assignment in a Shakespeare-themed course. Similarly, Andrea noted how, as a science major, she “really struggl[ed] with formulating a plan for the student because I was unfamiliar with that particular book/genre.” To Andrea’s point, here, this might be an instance where you encourage a student to set the agend more so than you/they might otherwise. (We should always, I think, be encouraging students to set the agenda, btw.)
Asia, I like what you wrote here: “I had to ask myself internal questions as well as tap into other information that i knew about the sciences [...] basic knowledge can help the student as well and also make the tutoring go more effectively.” You seem to have natural tutoring instincts in terms of meeting people where they already are and, then, moving forward from there. Tutoring writing can be tricky (to say the least) when, as tutors, we don’t have too much familiarity/expertise with either the content (i.e., hard sciences in this case) or the writing style in tha discipline. What we can do, though, is learn from + witth each other and talk about how/why writing functions in particular contexts.
One last note: Asia, you mentioned how a “change of scenery” might benefit tutoring sessions, and I like what you’re thinking here. Doing something like that is Janel’s call, really, but it’s worth bringing up to her at some point: “Janel, can the student + I work outside the Learning Center? Can we just, like, go for a walk around Sutherland and talk through some ideas?” I mean, hey, you never know. When I reflect on my own writing process, sometimes my best ideas come to me when I’m *not* sitting at my keyboard--sometimes they come when I’m just taking a stroll with somebody + talking to them through my earsbuds, chattin through my ideas. I don’t see why a similar approach can’t be adapted to a writing center tutoring session, especially if the goal is to generate some good free-flowing ideas.
All told, good work here. You both “got your feet wet” and began experiencing some of the challenges of tutoring students who are working in disciplines / on assignments that you might not be familiar with. That’s normal and natural.
Z