The first appointment Calvin had was the same girl who came in last week. This time she was brainstorming ideas for her next writing assignment for her Composition class. It was another personal essay where she had to write about how past experiences changed her perspective on a certain topic. Me and Calvin both took a look at her prompt and Calvin asked her if she had any ideas. She said that she wanted to write about how various experiences changed her perspective on fear, and she went on to describe various experiences of hers that she wanted to write about. Both me and Calvin agreed that she had good material for a paper, so for the rest of the session she went in and started writing her draft. Calvin suggested that she just go and free-write since this is only a first draft. He told her that the main important thing with first drafts is that she just get stuff written on the page, and that she can always go and edit it later. Me and Calvin both just let her write. Whenever she had questions, both me and Calvin offered our suggestions. Our suggestions mainly came in the form of alternate word choices she could use, and we both also asked questions pertaining to her story if we felt she needed to add more details. When the session ended, she already had two paragraphs written, and was pretty pleased with what she had written so far. Me and Calvin both agreed and told her that what she had was pretty good for something written on the fly.
The next student came in a little late for his appointment. He was working on an essay for his Editing, Writing, and Media class. He had an almost complete first draft. All he was missing was his conclusion. He explained the assignment to me and Calvin and showed us his draft. Before the session started, Calvin suggested that I go and tutor him solo for the first half of the appointment. I started by going along and reading his draft aloud. Stopping along the way whenever I had any questions, or was unclear on a certain point of his paper. I made him aware of some issues he had with his opening paragraph, since he wasn't clear on his thesis statement. I pointed out some minor grammatical errors and typos he had in his paper, and I had him mark those mistakes himself on his draft. I gave him a few suggestions on how he can start his conclusion as well. After I was done, Calvin gave his own suggestions. For his thesis sentence, Calvin had the student do the same thing he had one of his students do last week. He had him read his thesis sentence quietly to himself for thirty seconds, and then write down what he was trying to say on a piece of paper. The student seemed a little resistant at first, and gave the impression that he thought the exercise was pointless. Calvin kept insisting, and eventually he played along. The student was surprised with the result as the revision he wrote down was much more clear than his original. With the last few minutes of the session, the student explained how he just added an English major as he had always loved to write. He asked me and Calvin for suggestions on writing in general. Calvin let me answer first. I told the student to let as many people as possible to read his writing. I told him that while each person will have their own suggestions, there is a chance that multiple people who read your writing will all point out similar things, which is a good clue as to what you need to work on. Calvin then suggested to him to read his drafts aloud to himself as any mistakes will become apparent. The student seemed to take our comments into serious consideration as he went on and wrote what we told him in his notebook. And with that, the session ended.
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