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.