A key concept that always comes into my head at the end of every tutoring session is reflection. I find that one can reflect over a paper at basically any stage of the writing process. It’s necessary to reflect in the beginning to make sure you know what your process will be or what your goal is. In the middle of your paper, it is important to reflect on the work that has already been done; do you like the work so far? is it getting you towards achieving your goal? And of course, at the end of the paper reflection is necessary to make sure your work meets your standards and can be presented to the audience in a way that they would understand it.
I think along with reflection, observation is an important concept. It can almost relate back to reflection because they have some similarities. Observing can help a writer find those places where some extra work needs to be done. I think its important for multiple people to observe my paper and my writing process. I, alone, cannot catch mistakes that I have made; they can be caught with the help of a couple of other eyes.
As a tutor, I feel like I have spent most of my tutoring hours helping ESL students. For the most part, they all come in wanting specific help. I try to focus on that help they ask for- usually it something like spelling or grammar. Sometimes I find further problems. I’m also glad students come into the writing center and learn that there are other problems in their writing than what they see. It’s interesting when they find the problems even before I bring them up. The important term seen in all students is the need for conversation. Conversation allows students to share their goals with the tutors, help students find their audience, and make sure that their message as writers is getting across.
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