Returning to ENG 101 tutoring

  Returning to tutoring the English 101 students, I was able to tutor the same student I had previously which made me very excited! Not only was she excited to work with me as well because she was comfortable but I, myself couldn't wait to read what she wrote.
   As I began reading a few paragraphs I noticed that her structure was very well organized and she had a thesis as well. I knew what I was going to be reading about which was "Being against Deportation". I really was interested in reading about her paper and helped her add more details. It was very well said and there were a few Low order concerns which I later focused on after we both finished discussing the paper. I also noticed that she took my advice from the previous session and remembered to check grammar and re-read after she is done with her piece of writing.
  This session went very well for both Myself and the student I was tutoring and I enjoyed tutoring the same student two times. Having the chance to experience tutoring students in LaGuardia really helped me prepare myself more for the future of becoming a teacher.
 

Mondays Tutoring with ENG 099 students

   Mondays tutoring session with ENG 099 students was a great experience for me to go through. I had the chance to tutor two students, which was different compared to the last session of tutoring I did, being that I only worked with one student. At first I was a little nervous because I never worked with two students at the same time, but I just remembered all the positive things Professor Cooper told me and got to work! It is very important to stay calm and focus on the students you are working with and not lose focus.
   I introduced myself as they introduced themselves as well, and then I read their work both. As I skimmed through one of the students work, I asked the other student to read over their work for any minor errors they made. The young woman had almost finished her essay and all she needed was a conclusion to end her draft. As for the young man, he had one paragraph and wasn't even close to being finished. I gave a few ideas to the young woman as I began to work with the other student and help him develop his writing. As I was working with the young man, the other student kept asking me questions and asked for help. I told her nicely that I also needed to work with her classmate and asked her to get more into depth with her paper. When I finsihed working with the student I began looking over her paper again.
 In both papers I looked for a thesis, topic sentences, details and minor errors. Both students didn't have all of these but by the end of class, they did develop a great thesis, topic sentences and details to support both. I encouraged them to always restate their thesis in their conclusion and not have more then four-five sentences in their introduction. I reminded them that they would do great on their exam if they stayed focus and thought positive!
  I enjoyed tutoring both students and would love to have the chance to do it again! Yes working with two students is a little more difficult then working with one, but I was well prepared and used all the strategies that I learned in class. Strategies like, body language,  friendly introduction, spoke out loud, complimented and praised them and many other strategies.

Response to videos about ALEC

Republic Mark Pocan says that "Bills like the ALEC were put out and that they are nothing but special interest corporate giveaways." This bill is not about education or helping kids with special needs, its about corporate profits, privatization and taking apart public education. Mr. Pocan hopes that no one would vote for such a legislation to happen but he does expect people to vote for it. Who would want to vote for something so cruel to happen to kids and allow anyone to take apart their education. Instead of helping children with special needs they want to deprive them of any methods that could help them. All private corporations really care about is stealing money away that would benefit others. Seeing these videos makes me realize that in a few years, it will definitely get worse if someone doesn't expose ALEC for what it really is. Instead of finding ways to steal money away from public education, corporations should find as many ways to help children who are struggling and need it the most.

My Exciting Tutoring session

 Having the chance to experience what it is like to tutor a student one on one for the first time was pretty great for me. Going into the session, we introduced ourselves and I was prepared and excited to get to work!  I didn't want to come off as if I was nervous because then that would make the student nervous as well, in that case pretended like I was speaking to one of my friends and looking over her essay so I can help her get a better grade. One thing that really helped me was that she was very friendly and had all her work in front of her for me to look at. To not make things awkward I read her paper out loud just so she wouldn't stare into space or feel uninterested.
  As I read through her paper on being against Gentrification, I made sure to address lower/ higher concerns and not too many corrections. I noticed she had a great thesis and as soon as I started reading I knew what she was going to argue about. I gave her ideas on how to expand her sentences and get more into depth. For example; I asked her to talk about reasons why people couldn't afford rent or why they were being kicked out of their homes. Giving her ideas helped her think of more on  what to write about.
  I am excited to see what she did with all the ideas I gave her and if she added them onto the final draft. Having the chance to tutor a student in my school was a great experience and this just makes me look forward to working with another student again.

Having the Chance...

Having the chance to tutor a student on Monday for the first time is pretty exciting for me. I will introduce myself of course and let the students introduce themselves to let them know that i am interested in knowing their name and learning more about their paper. I will most definitely give them a friendly vibe and let them know that I am not there to criticize them but to help them get a good grade on their paper. 

     I will mostly focus on the structure of their paper and help them organize their ideas, look for a thesis, talk more about their topic, read their paper out loud to get a better understanding, take notes and MOST importantly, ask if I can write on their paper. I will not ignore their grammar issues or punctuation because I do want them to get a good grade on their paper, so I will try to tell them in a positive way what they can fix. The reason why I cannot just attack them with their problems on their paper is because they will not be interested in me helping them with their paper anymore. Giving them a few compliments here and there to let them know that their paper is good but also needs a little work will make them feel good about themselves. 

 I am very excited and cannot wait to tutor a few students in ENG 101! 

Week four..

   This week I observed a session that was very helpful for me and I learned quite a few things that I can take into consideration when I am tutoring a student on Monday. My tutor was quite friendly to begin with, introduced himself, asked what the assignment was on and then began reading the paper. One thing I did not really like was that as soon as he took the students paper, he began reading and it to himself and it took him longer then I thought it would. I could sense the uncomfortable body language because the student did not know what to do as the tutor was reading the paper. At this point of the session, I noticed how awkward it became. I learned that instead of reading a long paper to yourself, you should read bits of the paper out loud so the student can also hear what he/she wrote about.
  The topic the student was writing about was about their fieldwork experience they were doing as a student observer. As the tutor finished reading the paper, (took about 10 minutes), he then asked the student questions as to why did you write this statement?, why not put it this way?, can you expand this sentence more? I remembered Professor Rogers saying something like, whenever you don't know what to say as a tutor, ASK QUESTIONS, and in this case that's what the tutor was doing. He then helped the student organize her paper in a more proper way, gave her ideas as to where she should put the sentences and where they sound better, which i thought was quite clever.
   This session I was able to observe the DO'S and DON'TS at a tutoring session. A few of the DO'S were be friendly and introduce yourself.  A few of the DONT'S were, Don't read the paper to yourself as a tutor, and if you do, don't take a really long time because then the student will feel uncomfortable and uninterested. I definitely noticed many things that the tutor could of done differently but after all I must say that for my last observation at the tutoring center, it was a interesting one that I learned from.

Third week...

  This week's observation consisted of the tutor working individually with the student. The tutor and student were both on time which is something I always notice in every session.

    First things first, she took a look at the students paper, of course read it over to try and get an idea of what the paper will be about. I noticed that in every session I have attended, every tutor reads the paper before they start doing any other work. The student had some grammar issues and some corrections needed to be made. Corrections like spelling, past tense, when to add commas and how to start a sentence in a more proper way. When i noticed that the tutor informed her about this issues, I remembered that in class correcting errors on a writers work was not something they should start doing right away. The tutor instead needs to encourage the writer to revisit the piece of writing not throw her off by telling her right away that you have grammar issues. When i begin observing, I will not address the issues right as soon as i read the paper because than the student will feel discouraged and feel like their paper is not good enough. Eventually the tutor will find a way to tell the student about the errors, but at a later time. 

  The paper the student had written was about a personal experience her friend had gone through and her friend getting into trouble. When the tutor told the student to get more into detail about it, the student said that it was too revealing for her to talk more about it. In a way at that point i noticed that the student was a little uncomfortable, even though the tutor didn't  mean for that to happen. The tutor told the student that she didn't have to get too personal about her paper but at least try to expand the paper more. It was a great thing that the tutor continued to encourage the student to expand her paper more instead of just ending it on the note of saying don't add anymore details. 

Second Observation! Ohhhhh the excitement

My second time at the writing center, my observation did not go as i thought it would. I could not hear the tutor at all, and let me remind you i was sitting right behind her. Her voice was not loud and clear like i had hoped it would be. The fact that right from the beginning i had noticed that, i was already wanting to leave the observation, but of course did not.
As i continued observing the "quiet tutor" i did notice that she read over the essay before starting to give any feedback. Perhaps i did hear the student speaking clearly so i understood what she was trying to get help on which was, grammar and corrections on her paper. There were a few good things about the tutor and i wont lie. She did look over the students paper more than once and checked for grammar errors as well as punctuation. Some of the students sentences were being used as the past tense and the tutor pointed out that it was not the right thing to do for the sentence she had. She of course did not write on the students paper but allowed the student to make the corrections and take notes.
Another good thing about the tutor was that she did give the student specific ideas to expand her writing on, even though i could not hear what those ideas were. The tutor told the student that the more details she had, the better her writing piece would be and i strongly agree on that.
This observation was a very different one compared to my last one. I did learn a lot of things from this observation and one thing that i learned was to be LOUD and CLEAR. I am glad that i had the chance to experience this so when i begin tutoring a student, i know i would have to be loud and clear.

Observation In the Writing Center

I am a student in Teaching Writing ENG 220 and i observed a tutor helping a student come up with ideas to compose her essay. What amazed me was that the student had not started the essay coming into the session and all she had was her notes from the class. Using those notes both the student and tutor discussed the essay question and started jotting down ideas to help start the paper. During the session, i noticed that the tutor questioned the student many times about the notes and that way the student went more into depth about what she was writing about. Most of the time the student was confused about what she was speaking about and she as well questioned the tutor if her work was making sense. The tutors responses helped her understand the topic in a more clear way. The student was coming up with more ideas not just from her notes but from having a conversation which lead to writing more about her topic.
 I noticed that the student wrote down all the tutors ideas down onto her paper and when she finished writing, she read them out loud. Reading them out loud helped her realize if it made sense or not and of course the tutor recommended she had done this.
One thing that i really liked about the tutor was that she made the student feel comfortable and not nervous. She did that by making a few jokes comparing the essay into real life. The student came in with no essay for the tutor to look at and left with a full page essay.