Ammon's Anxiety

Coming off of the summer I feel like I have left everything that I have learned somewhere between here and New York.
Honestly, when I do my first session I think that I will be more nervous about getting the person signed in and everything than actually helping them with their work. I am not implying by any means that I know grammar perfectly or even better than anyone else in the class. I bet this post will have numerous grammatical errors in it. I have just learned that if you are nice to someone and at the very least act like you know what you are doing then people respond respectfully to that. I understand that acting doesn't replace genuinely good help, but I can only do my best at helping these people with their papers. I plan on doing my best. Nobody can ask much more than that.
The phrase "get your feet wet" finally meant something to me today. You know when you go swimming and no one wants to jump in because the water is cold? Well once everyone jumps in they find out that the water isn't really that bad at all. I think that the writing center will be the same way. The hardest part is taking that first step.
When that first person walks in for me to tutor I am going to take a deep breath and jump in. Hopefully everything will work out. If it doesn't then maybe I will get more anxious.

Cynthia's anxieties

My greatest concern is inadvertently making a mistake in grammar, punctuation, spelling, or those types of things, and being immediately discounted as an intelligent person. I don't want a tutee to not take my suggestions on improving a paper because I misspeak.

I'm also concerned about my interaction with the tutees and other tutors. I've been told I come across as rude and aloof at times, which is something I never intend to do. I'm working on that, but if I'm not thinking about it my dry sense of humor doesn't translate well.

As for the actual tutoring part, I'm pretty confident. I enjoy the challenge and am good at verbalizing my ideas.

Anxieties?

So here we are, finishing the first week of classes and staring ahead at a long weekend. After class on Wednesday, some of you stuck around to talk about your anxieties regarding tutoring. What are they? Are you nervous? About what? Why?

Post a blog entry in response.

blog090204

Well, first week in tutoring class and everything I thought I knew about writing seems to have fallen out my ears. Maybe I’ll stumble across it in a hallway while looking for one of my classes…one can hope. This experience so far has combined with orientation/first week of the semester shock and rendered me mentally quite numb.
I’m actually excited about it. I want to teach fourth grade, and a formal class in one-on-one tutoring will be a great benefit. Being a tutor with America Reads is what made me decide to teach in the first place.
Dealing with people over the age of nine presents its own difficulties. When I applied, I wasn’t thinking about addressing sexual harassment or counseling issues. I thought they’d come in, sit down, I’d read their papers and tell them something very wise, and they’d leave happy. Okay, I see it’s going to be a little more complicated than that.
We haven’t done enough in class yet for me to have a lot to say about it. In going through some sample essays, I discovered I’m much better at nit picking than I am at recognizing global concerns. I also realized that I’m hesitant to make suggestions—what if someone tells me I’m wrong? That’s not a good trait for a tutor to keep. I need to learn more about order of importance when it comes to helping to “fix” a paper in half an hour. I still can’t recognize a thesis statement if it doesn’t announce itself by blowing a horn…oh, well. I never could. Now I know why I was required to take a class.

First Post!

Welcome to the English 3840 class blog, which we will discuss very early in the class. This is where you will be maintaining your online "journal"--as opposed to simply keeping a paper journal. The idea here is that the information you post will be publicly available to both your classmates and the rest of the world. In addition, you may leave comments on any posts here, which means you can ask questions or add information if you think something is worth discussion.

Before you can add content to this blog, I'll need to make you a "member" of this community. All you need to do is send me an email. I will then send you an invitation to join the class blog. The invitation will contain instructions for how to get yourself set up on blogger.com (it's stunningly easy).

We'll talk in more detail about this in class, but for now, send me an email (from an account that you actually check and we'll get you set up.