11/6

I had two sessions today, the first for 30 minutes and the second an entire hour. The first student came to me with a rough draft of a research paper on a topic of his choice. He was interested in writing about Anime and how it was not only introduced to America but in what way it has influenced American culture. Previously, he'd written a smaller paper on a similar subject and planned on expanding upon this essay but he only had a research question, not a thesis statement, and seemed to be somewhat confused as to how a thesis and a research question differ. I explained to him that a thesis is essentially a statement of how you plan on answering the research question. We worked together on developing a working thesis and once he wrote it down he sort of looked at me like, "Oh, this is it? That was easy." I am always a little surprised each time a student comes in with an incorrect/minimal idea of what a thesis statement is and how to write one. They ask me "Ok, so how should I say this?" And I do my best to help them develop one on their own by asking them what they think is important to discuss within the paper; how can they most effectively answer the research question? I guess I'm surprised because all throughout high school the idea and structure of a thesis statement was drilled into my head in every single English class I took. I realize that many students experience writing in different ways, all teachers have their own methods of teaching, not everyone receives the same kind of information, etc. But being in college, I would have thought that professors would be clear about what they expect in papers, for instance, going over strong thesis statements, how to go about writing one, and so on. Perhaps some teachers already expect students to know how to write a thesis statement/what it is? Or perhaps some teachers don't even care if there is a thesis? I find the latter a little less likely but you never know, therefore I urged the student to speak with his teacher about the thesis we had worked on together and ask what she expects in a thesis statement. 

My second student was working on her prospectus for engineering and was simply asking for a read-through to see if she was using grammar correctly, if the sentences made sense, how the paper "flowed." He language was very clear and strong, I understood what she was discussing even though I have absolutely no knowledge pertaining to engineering. The only things I had to point out to her were her use of articles (when to use them) and which sentences to possibly consider rearranging to strengthen the argument. If she was to read through the paper on her own she would easily be able to spot most of the grammar/syntax errors but she said it was very helpful to have a second set of eyes to look over the paper and tell her if everything makes sense.  

11/6 reflection

This week I tutored three very different people. The first student I tutored was an international student from Japan. She wanted me to look over her paper for grammatical errors specifically. Her paper had to do with a topic I was unfamiliar with which made things a little more difficult but I think as a whole we were able to work out most of the grammar issues. Being an international student, she didn't have a good grasp on the difference between present tense and past tense. Her sentences would oftentimes switch back and forth between the two and we had to work through that issue. She was extremely patient with me while I was trying to explain the difference between these two types of tenses and seemed to have a better grasp on it when she left the RWC. I really enjoy working with International Students because they are oftentimes much more open to learning new things than those who are forced to come to the RWC. International Students always seem eager to learn about our language and are truly interested in bettering themselves.

The second student that I tutored was a girl who was taking a Religions course. Her paper compared and contrasted aspects of Christianity with some of her course readings. Her paper was a research paper essentially only using materials that they had read in class. Overall she had decent structure and grammar but she really wanted me to focus on her citations. Being only a little bit familiar with in-text citations, we both looked up the proper MLA format for in-text citations and incorporated this style format into her paper. She left the session feeling as if she had a better grasp on these citations.

The last person I tutored was another International Student who wanted me to look over her paper for her accounting class. The paper was not really a paper, but more of a systemized data analysis of a local car dealer. It was very complex she was able to break it down for me slightly. Overall her paper was good from what I could tell with my lack of knowledge of statistical analysis. She did have some grammar issues and also formatting issues but overall her paper seemed to be pretty good.

11/4 Response

This week I only had one tutoring session because my first student was a no-show.  However, I did still have a good experience with my other student.  This student was a freshmen in an ENC course.  Her project was to create a website addressing stereotypes of a major other than hers.   She chose to make her website about music majors.  I thought this was a pretty complex project for a freshmen English class, so I was definitely interested in seeing what she had already.  Aesthetically, her website looked pretty great.  She did, however, lack some depth in her information on music majors.  This was addressed by her instructor in their meetings, and that was mainly what she wanted to work on in the session.  I read through what she had so far, and while she did a really good job of finding and incorporating quotes into her website, she never expanded on any of these quotes.  I tried to coax out of her what she thought about these quotes and stereotypes.  She didn't seem to have too much of an opinion because she thought the project was kind of weird, but she did understand that she just can't pull quotes from her readings.  She understood that she needed to add some of her own content to the conversation.  I also explained to her that as an outsider seeing her project for the first time, it was kind of confusing.  Because she didn't thoroughly explain her quotes, I didn't really understand any of them.  I got her to explain why she incorporated each quote and why it was important to each section.  I explained that she needs to assume that someone visiting her website knows nothing about her subject.  To convey her point, she's going to need to expand further on each idea so it is clear to everyone viewing her website.  I then went over the rubric with her.  As far as quotes, aesthetics, and flow, she was fine.  I explained that the content she was missing probably fell under voice, how she felt about the subject.  During the session, she was able to write down a lot of her thoughts so she could remember them later when she adds more content to the website.  She then asked if there were any grammatical errors in her website.  There definitely wasn't anything major, but I did explain the difference between the noun "effect," and the verb "affect" because she did happen to use those words a lot throughout her website, and most uses were incorrect.

11/4 Reflection

Just like last week, I again did not tutor anyone during my sessions. This week I was hopeful because I had one student signed up for a full hour. Unfortunately, this student did not show up. The last half hour was left available for walk-ins, but no one came during that time either. I’d like to focus on maybe why it is students do not turn to the writing center for help. 

Before beginning this course, I told a couple of my friends about it and what I would be doing as a tutor. I got some negative reactions back and a couple positive ones. Some of my friends believe that going to a stranger for help is not as efficient. I had one of my friends tell me that he would prefer someone knowledgeable in the particular subject to read over his paper. He said he was not as concerned about grammar and layout of the paper but rather that his facts and information were correct. This one friend is a Biology major. I could see where he is coming from because his papers contain scientific research and detailed facts which, as an English major, I would not really know about. I did find it interesting that he would not want to make his paper stronger overall. Word choice, paragraph placement, and formatting could be just as critical to a paper as the actual facts being presented. I guess his teacher’s are not so keen about those issues. 

The other friend that was part of the conversation was my roommate, an Environmental Science major, who graduated this past summer. She was completely surprised to hear that FSU even had a writing center. After four years of being a student here, she had never heard of the RWC. She even said she would’ve probably gotten better grades had she known there was a resource that helped her with her biggest issue during her time in college- research papers. 

I guess it mainly depends on the student, but I can’t see the RWC as something that would hinder a student academically. I’m sure there are plenty of reasons why students don’t come in more often, like time obligations or maybe they just receive enough help in class, but maybe the RWC is not promoted sufficiently. I’d hope that more students start coming in and telling their friends about how great peer tutoring can be. 

11/2 Reflection

Today I had two students plan to come into the RWC, the latter canceled. My earlier appointment was a fourth year student majoring in history. He was in the process of completing a senior capstone paper that needed to be 15-20 pages and cited in Chicago, a format that I was unfamiliar with. I was initially overwhelmed and nervous when I looked at the appointment and saw the length of the paper but he was extremely prepared when he came to the session and that made a world of a difference. His paper focused on student loan debt and how its negative effects are opposite of the goals of capitalism. The student came in with a 15 page polished draft as well as an outline of each paragraph and introduction because the time constraints wouldn't allow us to read his entire assignment. I started out by asking him about what he wanted to address in the session and we moved from there, I think his preparation and my concern to talk about his specific questions helped to combat my initial nervousness.

The student said that he wanted to focus on his comparison between his introduction and conclusion, strengthening his thesis and making sure that his paper does not start to get weaker because of his concern with the page number minimum. I began reading his thesis and having him explain to me the context of his paper. It ended up being a bit redundant and so I made suggestions on where to make his thesis clear and concise, he initially believed because his paper had to be so long that equated to having a lengthy thesis statement. We then workshopped the introduction and talked about the ordering of his ideas: he wanted to focus on the history of student loan debt, the idea of capitalism as an economic theory and how student loan debt is related to moral values. With each of these three tenants , I used them to refer back within his body to make sure that he didn't go off on tangents. By using his outline, it was easy to make sure that the content of his body paragraphs were aligned with his 3 subtopics. Lastly, we revised his conclusion paragraph. Initially, it was composed of small choppy sentences taken from each body paragraph and so we discussed the idea behind a conclusion: "it summarizes the paper and then brings about a new or circumventing idea that encompasses all the previous information." By discussing this and "talking out" what he actually wanted to accomplish in his paper, his revised conclusion was in fact quite different from the original.

Throughout the session I learned to really listen to what the student wants to accomplish, what is their end goal? Also, if a sentence seems cloudy, ask them what they are really trying to say. In this short experience, I learned many students try to make their own thoughts complex in an effort to make them "appropriate for the context of the class," when in reality when they verbalize their actual thoughts first, their ideas come across clearer on paper.

Tutoring Session

In the RWC this week I tutored an International Student from Japan for an entire hour. She wanted me to specifically look at grammar errors in her writing and odd sounding language as English was not her first language. She wasn't working on an essay, but rather a question sheet that required lengthy responses. She wanted me to work on grammar but her sentence structure needed help as well. We worked each response sentence by sentence and I tried my best not to sound condescending when correcting her sentences and paragraphs because that was an important topic we discussed in class when dealing with International Students. The tutoring session was also difficult not because she didn't speak English that well, but because the student's major was accounting which I have absolutely NO prior knowledge of. As an English major, it was hard for me to understand exactly what the student was talking about and the language barrier did not help.

However, the student had dealt with peer tutors before and was very patient with my lack of understanding of both the subject matter and her oftentimes confusing sentence structure. She worked with me to help break down some of her confusing accounting concepts and likewise I worked with her to try and make her paragraphs flow naturally instead of sounding disjointed and confusing. We used up the majority of the hour working on her responses and revising her answers. As a whole, we came away with a much cleaner and easier to understand assignment that the student was happy with.

As far as pros and cons go for this session, the cons were already mentioned. Language barrier paired with a lack of knowledge about the subject matter the student was talking about. Pros included patience and understanding on both parts, and a mutual understanding on what needed to be done with the writing. As a whole, I think this session was very successful given the harsh circumstances and I would be interested in working with International Students in the future!

Tutoring Observations

This week in my first tutoring session, I experienced what it's like to tutor a nontraditional student. She was much older than your average college student, and she was writing an essay for her English class about the novel Call of the Wild. Tutoring her was honestly not all that different from tutoring any other type of college student; she was just significantly older than me. She still had the same kinds of questions and needed the same type of assistance as anyone else - if anything, she was almost easier to tutor than traditional students, as she was very mature and willing to listen to my advice.
My second session was with a pre-law student, working on her personal statement that she planned to send out to various law schools with her applications. She was concerned with whether or not her paper stood out; she said she wanted to ensure that it was professional, but still interesting to read, so that it wouldn't blend in with the 4000 other applications that the admission board has to read. Together, we fixed a few minor errors and added in some extra details that added a bit more voice to her piece.
This past week's tutoring session made me think about the project I plan on researching for class. Both of my students this week were female, and I felt very comfortable talking with them. They seemed comfortable, too, and the sessions went extremely well in my opinion. This made me ponder whether the fact that both I and the student are female had anything to do with the success of the sessions.