Observation Reflection 9/24

         Observing Holly Horner in the RWC this week was a pleasure. On the first day of observation, Holly tutored two ladies in one session, both working on a very intricate paper about Magnesium Corrosion. Both tutees had a bit of a language barrier because their native language happened to be mandarin. Holly worked very well with them despite this, communicating all of her helpful points with clarity and understanding. She broke down specific sentences in text to find diction that would work best to describe what both tutees were trying to depict in their papers. She helped both tutees achieve perfect grammar in their essays, and she did an excellent job finding out exactly what the goals were of both tutees. She was very encouraging, and the tutees seemed to truly feel more confident about their papers by the end of the session. As Holly wrapped up the peer tutoring session, she asked the ladies if they had any more questions. They did not, because Holly seemed to cover everything they needed her to cover. She did an excellent job.

         For the second session I observed, Holly was tutoring a gentleman writing a paper about racism in the police and school systems. Despite the very controversial topic, Holly was able to expertly guide him in the direction he was trying to go, helping him make points that were strong and stood out powerfully in his paper. Before she read the paper aloud, Holly asked him if there was anything specific that he would have liked to work on. He said no, but she immediately dove in to how he could revise and correct his paper for the better once she started reading. After reading the paper, Holly asked the tutee what his specific argument for the paper was. She helped him with clarifying his thesis. She proposed very helpful points the student could use for the paper while encouraging him throughout. Holly pulled up specific articles relating to the student’s paper so that he could use more citations and more resources. She focused on main points/reasons for main points that student could utilize and wrote them on the back of his paper. She made sure that student understood the layout of his paper, and she helped him understand the bigger picture of the topic he was focused on. Holly has been a wonderful tutor to shadow so far and I am looking forward to more sessions next week.