10/16 Response

I was extremely nervous about tutoring on my own but my mentor Clare had her shift during the same time and assured me that if she needed my help I could ask. The first appointment was a student who was the director of an international program and he needed help editing a GoFund Me Campaign page. I started out asking hime about his position and why he loved his job and what the campaign was about, he was a very enthusiastic student and was open to all my suggestions which was helpful and made the session go by smoothly. I read aloud the pitch to him and as I came to paragraphs that did not seem coherent I asked him to clarify and made suggestions about changes. We finished going over the page early and then I helped him compose a business email that asked people to donate to his cause. Later he explained to me that English is not his first language, French was and that helped me to understand a bit of his grammatical differences. I asked hi to explain the differences between Creole and English and I think that made him feel more comfortable talking to me because I was so generally interested in learning about his first language.

The second student was a freshman taking ENC1101. She was writing a paper on the dynamic of between visual rhetoric and text in women's advertisements. Her paper was well written but she wanted me to go over it to made sure it "made sense," which then I asked her to clarify what she meant. She then told me that she thought some of her paragraphs were repetitive and wanted to see anther persons perspective. Asking her again, what she wanted to gain from the session really helped me as a tutor hone in on the students needs. There were some instances where she repeated herself and so throughout my suggestions I let her write the corrections on her paper. If we came across a word that she thought she sed to much, I first asked her opinion. I think that talking the paper out with someone and really letting the student lead the session helps them to realize how they want their finish draft to sound. She had a well written piece but there some small suggestions that I think made her paper even better but I really didn't make the changes, I just asked her "what do you think a stronger word would be?" or "how does this sound aloud to you?" she would then correct her self and then I just helped to confirm as support for what she wanted.

I think a big proponent of tutoring effectively is engaging with the student as a peer, asking them about themselves and letting them guide the session, only working as a mediator between themselves and their paper to help reveal what many of the time they might already know. I believe both of the sessions went well and I can't wait to see what my other appointments will be like.