Tutoring as a legal alternative to voyeurism

If I could steal something from tutoring methods I have seen it definitely would be the ability to make a nervous and self-conscious student feel comfortable and calm. And so far, I think I’ve been fairly successful in my stealing. I’ve basically composed a cut-and-paste script of my own from my tutoring spy sessions. This includes a warm introduction as I record their information and ask them to take a seat. After this is a tactful intelligence gathering bit with questions to figure out exactly what the student needs to accomplish, and how best to approach that particular student given the problems they seem to be heaving. If all this goes well, the actual “work” part of tutoring the student on how to make the paper better is straight forward. But if the first few minutes are confusing and stressful, then the rest of the session tends to reflect this. Most of it depends on the unique personality of the student; what I would like to steal most would be the years of experience from the seasoned tutors that can assess the situation quickly and precisely.

As for effective writing critiquing strategies, there was one in particular that I want to make mine. In one session I witnessed, a woman was having a hard time articulating a certain sentence. The tutor subtly asked her a clarification about the sentence that took the tutee's mind off the stubborn words on the page and into conversation mode, and she said ended up saying exactly what she had been trying to write. And that's when the tutor quickly answered, "Okay. Write that."