Response 11/20

The most common key concept that comes up while I’m working is reflection. I generally start every tutoring session by reading the paper or excerpt with the students. After that I ask the student “Where do you think the strengths are in your paper?” followed by “And where do you think the weaknesses are?” I like to start this way to get a general feel for the student’s awareness of their own writing and to see if the student and I are on the same page. I feel like this is a great way to start every session because the first question generally seems to improve the mood of the meeting as the student gets to reflect on their own success and may get to hear other successes they hadn’t consider before. The second question usually gets the student to talk a little more and open up about issues other than “grammar” or “this just sounds weird.” I also like to end the session with some reflection by looking at what we’ve talked about in the session and what we’ve improved/changed over the course of the session. Overall I feel that this process gets students to open up a little more during the session and to feel better about their writing.

The second key concept that comes up the most in my sessions is the rhetorical canon. I like to take time to ask about the specifics of the class (what are the key terms used, what’s the general attitude of the professor, did the professor emphasize anything). I take time to remind the student that they’re writing to both their professor and possibly to the community of the school of academics the particular class falls in. I then shift focus to talk about their overall argument (I usually ask “what’s your point in writing this essay”) and then I check this against their thesis statement and overall essay to see if the two line up. Finally we talk about any other issues that may have come up during the session until about the last 5 minutes where I stop and ask if they had anything else that we haven’t looked at that they want me to give a quick look at.