Be afraid

Well I would tell the incoming tutors to be afraid, be very afraid. I love being a writing tutor and I enjoyed this class-not the essay. I think that students should first just realize that being a tutor takes so much work. That’s what I wish I would have realized.

I felt so behind this whole semester because I had such a busy school schedule that I was rarely in the writing center. I missed orientation because I had SI orientation. I was never able to go to the meetings because I have a class at 2:00. And, if the meetings continue at this time, I still won’t be able to go because this class is every semester and it’s required for my major. Nonetheless, I felt very behind and left out because I never went to the meetings.

Another thing is that I only worked twice a week. I was actually only going to work one day a week until Claire asked me if I could work an for an hour on Thursday mornings. With how limited my schedule was and how many tutors there are, Claire could only put me in once a week. I thought since I was a beginning tutor that this would be fine, but it wasn’t. I didn’t get enough instruction while I was there, and when I did, I would forget it by next week.

So the first thing I would recommend to writing tutors is that they need time to learn and do this job. I had some time, but apparently it wasn’t enough.

The second thing I would recommend is to not wait for your bibliographic essay. I believe every single tutor who procrastinated will tell you this. If there is a tutor out there who doesn’t tell you this- either they are efficient with their homework and time, or they are crazy.

Lastly, I was never able to explain myself well. I have difficultly expressing myself in words, but on paper, I can sound okay. I was really worried that I wasn’t going to be able to help anyone because of that, but it’s really no big deal. The beginning is scary, but I fell into the swing of things. The writing center becomes your turf, so you become more relaxed. I still had situations where I could not explain myself very clearly, and it can be embarrassing. But, I just told myself that I don’t know everything, and I won’t always be able to help every problem.

Another scary aspect is “what if the tutee doesn’t feel like they got help?” Well it isn’t that big of a deal. Ya, it totally sucks to feel like someone went away disappointed in your work, but you come to realize that you know how to do your job. And if you did it well, then the tutee probably just didn’t know how the writing center worked and they thought they didn’t get help when they really did.

Lastly, tutoring takes a lot of patience and not just with the students. It takes patience to learn the ins and outs of the center, and there are experienced tutors who still make mistakes, but it’s okay. The owls take patience I promise you will get stupid requests and horrible essays that you won’t want to respond to. The same happens with the students who come in, but for some reason, online submissions are just much worse. You might get requests like “Is my paper grammar free?” and you will want to e-mail a brick to that student. But tutoring takes patience.

Time Capsule of Text

My advice to incoming tutors:

Don't stress it. Tutoring will seem frightening and terrifying at first, but it's not that bad. No one will punch you for failing to give them perfect coherent grammatical proof-reading for every single issue they may have. Don't feel afraid to ask for help from the other tutors or look something up. One of the big issues is to always remember that global issues (organization, "flow," etc.) are more important than local issues (comma usage, punctuation for MLA in-text citations, etc), because as easy as it seems to remember, it's cunningly easy to forget.

Also, enjoy the quiet time at the beginning of the semester, you'll earn your paycheck as you near the end.

Don't stress about the 20 minute rule. Even the best of us aren't 20 minutes exactly every single time.

Finally, jump on that Bibliographic Essay ASAP. It's easier to read one essay per week-end than ten the week-end before the due date. Space it out, give yourself time, but don't procrastinate, it'll just bite you in the end.

Where I was and Where I am:

I know how to explain grammar issues better and I know procedure better than I used to. I think I'm getting the hang of it. I feel good knowing where things are when students need help (for the most part, the APA/MLA books seem to avoid me whenever I need one). I feel good knowing that I've helped a tutee get what they need from a session. I've grown more confident about handling a tutoring session than I used to be, and I know how to handle things better (for the most part).

Slacker Prompt/Advice

Well folks, it's that time of year. You are all stressed about the final essay (surely none of you take other courses, right? Right?) We're busy, too, so you're not alone.

Last year, we asked the exiting 3840 students to compile a list of advice for incoming students. What do you say? What advice do you have for incoming tutors next fall? What do you know now that you didn't know then?

Hmm...

Very intriguing questions.

Several weeks ago, I tutored a student who had written a very pro-environmentalist paper. Granted, I wasn't offended by his academic bashing of the essential industries that power the international economy -- especially since this student had, commendably, recognized viewpoints opposed to his argument. But I did disagree with the political stance he took.

Swallowing my polemic pride, I helped the student make the best argument possible for hugging trees and rescuing baby seals. Most of that session was spent on grammar; the rest, on translating some of his ideas into the institutionalized parlance of academia. Steven North's statement -- that as tutors, our goal is to create better writers, and not just better writing -- is gospel in the tutoring world. So if that writer wanted to spur a crusade against the fat cats of the industrial sector, I felt obligated to help him do so.

After all, my name isn't on the paper. His, however, is, implying that the paper contains his ideas.

Bigotry is another issue. Personally, I've never dealt with any overt or implied racist remarks. Yet, I did conference with one student who claimed, without the tiniest lip-service to subtlety, that a metrosexual wouldn't fight terrorists or rescue hostages from a burning building.

My jaw popped open like a cash register. For a moment, I wasn't sure how to respond. Because the student prefaced his random, unexpected, insensitive example with the words, "I wouldn't expect a metrosexual to," I chose to move on. There were other concerns at hand.

But racism is another matter. I think tutors have an ethical obligation to alert students of any hate speech (or suggestions of hate speech) in their writing. Academia insists on political correctness, and university students must learn to speak the language of academia. Being an optimist, I like to think that most racist remarks in a paper would be unintentional, the student embarrassed but eager to make any appropriate revisions.

If not, then it's not my name at the top of my paper. If I had alerted the student, and if he or she had refused to make the correction, then my hands are tied.

between a rock and a hard place

That’s a very good question and it’s one that, unfortunately, I have already have dealt with this semester. In the case that I had to deal with, the topic was abortion, which is something that my personal views are against. It was very difficult for me, but I held my tongue and I did my best to try and help the student sharpen the writing that she had done about her experiences. I did not say a single word about what I personally felt about the topic, but it made it very difficult for me to concentrate on the student because of it. However, that being said, in my opinion, as tutors, it is not our job to try and stop a student from writing about something that offends us, unless he or she writes about an act that is illegal.