Some Challenging Questions

Melissa raised an interesting issue in her response. She said, “Sometimes I’m not sure how to tell the student there is an error without telling them how to correct it.” I’ve had trouble with this also.

In class we spoke about waiting the student out—the dreaded awkward silence. But is there another way—an alternative? What if the student just needs to begin the sentence with the word ‘after’ or ‘because’ to have a really great sentence, but despite their efforts, they just can’t think of it? Do we suggest a particular word or phrase to get the ball rolling? Or do we wait them out? If we suggest the “right” word, we know they will probably use it. But in that case, are we taking-over the paper?

How can we lead a student in a better direction without simply spelling it out for them? If we show them a few good alternatives will they learn how to do it on there own, or just learn how to take answers from a tutor? I don’t really know the answers, but maybe it goes back to the questions Molly Wingate asked in the text: Did the student learn anything during the session? And who did the work? Before an answer can even begin to be formulated, we have to consider that each session is different, each student an individual, every paper has its own challenges, and the answers aren’t always the same. So where do we go from here?