reluctant tutees

I’m probably going to jinx myself by saying so, and I will be plagued by an endless flood of unbelievably reluctant tutors who would rather be drawn and quartered than have a piece of their writing critiqued by a writing tutor, but I have yet to have a session where I felt that the tutee was reluctant to share his or her paper with me and receive my advice and suggestions. However, I know from personal experience as being a reluctant tutee of the Writing Center once upon a time, that having a session with a reluctant tutee is plainly and simply inevitable. Sooner or later, I know that I am going to have one of those freshman students who is required by his or her professor to have a paper critiqued. I’m pretty confident that I will be able to break through the barriers that the reluctant tutee will setup. It might be kind of awkward at first (talking to somebody I don’t even know for the first time always is), but I see myself as being a fairly friendly and easily approachable person and I am quite sure that I will be able to overcome a tutee’s fears within the first few minutes. My biggest fear in regards to reluctant tutees is that the tutee will allow his or her feelings about having to come into the Writing Center for an assignment to get in the way of my helping him or her to learn how to write more effectively and more clearly. This is my biggest fear because during my freshman year, one of my professors required us to take our term paper into the Writing Center and have it reviewed by a tutor and I remember vividly how much I resented having to have somebody else go through my paper and give me suggestions on how to make it better. ‘I don’t need your help, my paper is perfectly fine the way I wrote it and I chose those words and phrases for a specific reason. How dare tell me how to write my paper!’ I can remember thinking all throughout the session. I can’t remember just exactly what the paper was about or what the suggestions and the corrections were that the tutor advised, but I remember that I did not make the changes. I also remember that my grade on that particular paper was not my best grade on a paper I’ve received in my college career. I learned quite quickly that had I heeded the advice that the tutor had given me, my writing would have been much better and my grade would have reflected that. I wish I could find a way to reflect that experience to the reluctant tutees and help them understand that I, as a tutor, am here to help them learn not only how to get a better grade on a specific paper, but how to write better all around.