I was focusing on
content rather than style so my writing is not very good at the moment. I will
be addressing that issue shortly.
Abstract
This case study will
focus on my struggles to adapt for students who are already proficient in their
basic writing skills. As a first time tutor with little overall experience and
no formal experience, I started the process nervous but felt adequately equipped.
I was also looking forward to exchanging ideas with my classmates so I could
use their experiences to refine my tutoring process. I quickly realized that I
was a bit of an anomaly because nobody else had students like I did. Most
people had at least one student who did not speak English fluently and
exhibited the classical signs of students who would be referred to the English
tutoring center. I was worried about the typical problems a tutor might face:
uncooperative or unmotivated students. My "problem ," however, was
much different. Both my students, J and D, were native speakers of English who
had spent years in academic writing. My notes on pre/during/after reading
strategies and writing strategies were suddenly obsolete.
My Original Plan of
Action
I thought I would be
taking the role of a mentor; I was expecting myself to be someone who could
give them advice, explain their professor's rationale/assignments, and help
them generally improve as students. I suppose I could have romanticized the
whole thing. But because I had spent so much time in class discussing how to
things the typical remedial or ESL student would need, I was assuming that I
would be spending time practicing and explaining reading and writing
strategies. I was eager to try my hand at explaining my suggestions and
strategies the student could use to improve their abilities. I thought I would
be using graphic organizers like KWL+ and outlining strategies to help students
generate ideas.
The Students
J is a first year
student at SFSU who is enrolled in English 114. She has a solid understanding
of what an essay needs; she knows how to come up with a thesis and strengthen
her argument/position with the
supporting paragraphs. Her chief concern was that she tends to run out of
material and ramble on about unrelated sentences that does not help her essay.
She did, however, admit that she hates the drafting and revision process. She
can be a bit reluctant but will take the time and effort to further polish her
writing as necessary.
There are little to
no errors in her writing and most of the them are idiosyncratic. She does
occasionally have sentences that are choppy and awkward because of unnecessary
wordiness. We have spent about a third of our time revising her literacy
narrative and she has gotten better with simplifying and clarifying her
sentences.
D is a junior who is
a transfer student from a community college enrolled in English 214. Like J, he
is familiar with academic writing and also has a keen sense of audience (I am
not sure if this is because it was recently covered in class or because he has
been writing extensively). His range of academic vocabulary is slightly wider
than J's but that is understandable. D had some similar issues with wordiness
but his instructor noted that his use of pronouns tends to confuse the reader.
The only frustrating
issue with D was that he tended to wait till the last minute to bring in the
material. Many of his drafts he brought in during our sessions were due later
that day. Given his ability, going over and making changes to his essay was relatively
easy but it still felt a bit rushed because we had an hour to do so. He was
enthusiastic. He often requested to meet on Thursday mornings so we could go
over the changes we talked about during our sessions on Tuesday. On an
interesting but slightly insignificant note, both students are Kinesiology
majors.
My adjusted approach
As I mentioned
before, everything I had planned was now unnecessary. Since they already knew
how to prepare and start their assignments, I decided to use their assignments
as material for our sessions. I asked them to bring in anything that they were
working on. I figured that those assignments would be a good opportunity for
them to practice and refine any skills that they would need. This is where I
encountered my second problem: using their homework as the primary source for
material works well most of the time, but there were inevitably times where
they didn't have any immediate assignments due, and therefore, nothing to work
on. But my main concern was that I was beginning to grow disillusioned with my
role as a tutor. I felt like my role had been reduced to a glorified editor. I
was just another pair of eyes to look over an essay before handing it in.
Despite my
complaints, my time and efforts yielded measurable results as both J and D
returned with A's on their essays.
In my case, I had
become a collaborator rather than a tutor. For instance, J had a biology paper
assigned but the circumstances of the assignment was rather odd. She had no
idea how to successfully complete the paper according to the professor's
instructions. I was able to give her some hints/suggestions and she was able to
successfully come up with material that we both felt complied to the
professor's rubric. I think the main "problem" with becoming a
collaborator is that it often feels unnecessary. The student will often already
have an excellent idea of how to proceed and the best one can do is nod and say
"that's great." I think we often feel compelled to say or do more as
tutors, but when the student is already capable, there will be less to do.
Conclusion
Regardless of the
students' abilities, I was lucky in that both my tutees were willing to learn
and motivated. While the time spent in our sessions didn't produce results as
noticeable as an ESL student might, they have told me that our sessions have
helped improve their writing; both students are now more aware of their writing
habits and now know how to proofread for more than just grammatical errors. J
is now willing, albeit begrudgingly, to go over and revise her writing. D's use
of pronouns and sentence has greatly improved. I suppose my idea of being a
tutor was skewed. In conclusion, as painfully trite as it sounds, a good tutor
will tailor his or her skills depending on the needs of the student, and
depending on those needs, a tutor's input/overall role will fluctuate. Some
students will need another teacher while others just need a few words of
wisdom.
