I only had one appointment today, with a boy named Steve. It was my first hour-long appointment so I had a little apprehension walking into Johnston but I found that it wasn't any more difficult than half hour appointments. In some ways, I found it was even easier. 

My one concern was that I wouldn't have enough to talk about and we would get through the appointment rather quickly. I wanted the appointment to last the full hour so that the student would be able to get the most out of the appointment that he could. What made it very easy for me to help Steven was his good listening skills. I've found that I feel encouraged to talk more during appointments when the student is friendly and shows me that they are eager to hear what I have to say. I was grateful that this was the case with Steven.

He came in with only a prompt for his LIT2020 class, which was topics in English involving short stories. He had to write a topical analysis about four stories in particular. He didn't have a draft, nor had he read the stories very thoroughly, so I decided it would be a good idea to go through each story individually to start with, in order to find common themes between them. We read through the sparknote summary in order to get a better understanding of the stories, although he had a general idea what the plots involved. Doing this, we were both on the same page and were able to brainstorm ideas for his essay. 

It was nice not being as limited on time as with shorter appointments and I felt less pressure to come up with ideas on the spot. Without this added pressure it was easier to relax and let ideas flow between us. By the end, he had a paper full of notes and an outline with the potential to be a great paper. Time seemed to fly and I felt like we had accomplished all that needed to be accomplished in the meeting.