What kind of tutor are you?
I have been thinking more about the topic of our last blog and I have come up with a few more observations. I am not sure if they will help or not but I am going to share them anyway. I was thinking back to my English 2010 class I remember my first experiences with argument writing and the writing center. I grasped on to argument writing more quickly than most of my peers and even though I quickly became good at recognizing fallacies I did not yet have the skill to know how to fix some of them, or how to connect certain parts of my paper to other parts in a way that did not sound bad to me. One of the tutors from the writing center came into our class and gave the little presentation and I decided to take in one of my papers.
When I did I was nervous because I knew that my paper had problems and I was scared that the tutor might think that I was dumb. I was pretty good at local problems it was my global problems that needed help. I can’t remember the tutor asking me if there was anything specific that I wanted them to look for but if they did I lacked the vocabulary at that time to communicate with them. They looked over my paper and fixed a few commas and said “this looks great” and I left. I felt so cheated. I knew that there were problems in logic and organization and that was later confirmed by my teacher’s comments. I felt that the tutors in the writing center were incompetent and vowed that it would be a waste of my time. Instead I started having a friend of mine read through my papers. One day he suggested that I take my papers to the writing center for another pair of eyes to look at. I shared with him my experience and he assured me that I probably just had a bad tutor and to go find another one and try again. He talked me into it and I went back. My second tutor immediately honed in on my global issues and gave me some great suggestions, thus renewing my faith in the center.
Later that semester one of my peers asked me how I was getting such good grades and I suggested that he try taking his papers into the writing center. I had been giving him peer critiques and I saw he had some major global issues. He also was not listening to my suggestions (he did not think it was worth listening to a girl) and I though he would assume a tutor would have more credibility then a girl in his class and listen to what the tutor had to say.
When he finally went in he came back to class pleased as punch because of all the corrections that the tutor had helped him make. As I read through his paper and immediately recognized that the local flow and language was extremely improved yet none of his global issues had been touched. He was convinced that now finally he would get an A. I knew he would be lucky if he got a C. When he got his paper back and it was a C- he was convinced that the teacher was prejudiced against him. He figured the tutor had fixed every problem. He started a vocal campaign against the teacher that I knew was unfair.
Conclusions? We have a responsibility to our students to look at the global problems first. What responsibility do we have to teachers? What other wisdom can be gained from my experience? I know what I learned but it is sort of abstract and I am tired. So tell me what you think.
When I did I was nervous because I knew that my paper had problems and I was scared that the tutor might think that I was dumb. I was pretty good at local problems it was my global problems that needed help. I can’t remember the tutor asking me if there was anything specific that I wanted them to look for but if they did I lacked the vocabulary at that time to communicate with them. They looked over my paper and fixed a few commas and said “this looks great” and I left. I felt so cheated. I knew that there were problems in logic and organization and that was later confirmed by my teacher’s comments. I felt that the tutors in the writing center were incompetent and vowed that it would be a waste of my time. Instead I started having a friend of mine read through my papers. One day he suggested that I take my papers to the writing center for another pair of eyes to look at. I shared with him my experience and he assured me that I probably just had a bad tutor and to go find another one and try again. He talked me into it and I went back. My second tutor immediately honed in on my global issues and gave me some great suggestions, thus renewing my faith in the center.
Later that semester one of my peers asked me how I was getting such good grades and I suggested that he try taking his papers into the writing center. I had been giving him peer critiques and I saw he had some major global issues. He also was not listening to my suggestions (he did not think it was worth listening to a girl) and I though he would assume a tutor would have more credibility then a girl in his class and listen to what the tutor had to say.
When he finally went in he came back to class pleased as punch because of all the corrections that the tutor had helped him make. As I read through his paper and immediately recognized that the local flow and language was extremely improved yet none of his global issues had been touched. He was convinced that now finally he would get an A. I knew he would be lucky if he got a C. When he got his paper back and it was a C- he was convinced that the teacher was prejudiced against him. He figured the tutor had fixed every problem. He started a vocal campaign against the teacher that I knew was unfair.
Conclusions? We have a responsibility to our students to look at the global problems first. What responsibility do we have to teachers? What other wisdom can be gained from my experience? I know what I learned but it is sort of abstract and I am tired. So tell me what you think.
posted by Anonymous at 11:05 AM
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