Case study draft

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.