Frightening Writing
Hmm...what frightens me most about tutoring? Could it be not knowing what to say when I sit down with a tutee? Or how about not knowing how to help the writer strengthen his or her paper? Worst of all, what if the student is a better writer than I am!? Fortunately enough, I had the chance to participate in the tutoring process during the spring semester, so this isn’t going to be an entirely new experience for me.
I still remember when I first started tutoring. Some of the things that freaked me out then still seem nerve racking. Breaking the ice is no problem. Been there done that! It’s relatively easy to greet the writer and find out what the paper is about. It’s when I find out that the paper is from an upper division English or Psychology class that I start sweating bullets. Here we have little Derek Stout, a sophomore who’s only finished English 2010, and I’m supposed to help this student with his or her paper! I probably don’t even understand what half the words in the paper mean! Not to mention the fact that many of the experienced tutors I worked with last semester have graduated so I can’t pass off these smarter, more experienced tutees to them!
With a plethora of new tutors this semester, it looks less and less likely that I’m going to be able to escape from humiliating myself in front of writers who would benefit more from helping me than from me helping them.
Of course, it’s not only smart students and well versed papers that seem daunting. What if I can’t answer the student’s questions? What if they come back with a poor grade on the paper I tutored him or her on? What do I tell that student? These questions and concerns are a bit troubling to think about. How would I feel if I came to the writing center and enlisted the help of an English guru (which is how I would view an English tutor if I were in the student’s shoes) and ended up receiving a worse grade than expected? I know I’d be pretty put off. I just hope that I never have to deal with a situation like that.
Luckily, I have learned that students don’t always come into the writing center because they are at a loss and don’t know what to do. It has been my experience that many students want someone else’s opinion on their paper and are looking for ways to strengthen it, not fix it. Thinking along these lines helps calm my nerves and makes me less frightened about tutoring. As I tutor more and more, I’ll find ways to deal with these and other situations. Like the old expression goes, “repetition is the mother of all skill.” Plus, with all the tutors working in the Writing Center I’m sure I’ll be able to enlist their assistance in helping me face these problems and finding solutions to them.
I still remember when I first started tutoring. Some of the things that freaked me out then still seem nerve racking. Breaking the ice is no problem. Been there done that! It’s relatively easy to greet the writer and find out what the paper is about. It’s when I find out that the paper is from an upper division English or Psychology class that I start sweating bullets. Here we have little Derek Stout, a sophomore who’s only finished English 2010, and I’m supposed to help this student with his or her paper! I probably don’t even understand what half the words in the paper mean! Not to mention the fact that many of the experienced tutors I worked with last semester have graduated so I can’t pass off these smarter, more experienced tutees to them!
With a plethora of new tutors this semester, it looks less and less likely that I’m going to be able to escape from humiliating myself in front of writers who would benefit more from helping me than from me helping them.
Of course, it’s not only smart students and well versed papers that seem daunting. What if I can’t answer the student’s questions? What if they come back with a poor grade on the paper I tutored him or her on? What do I tell that student? These questions and concerns are a bit troubling to think about. How would I feel if I came to the writing center and enlisted the help of an English guru (which is how I would view an English tutor if I were in the student’s shoes) and ended up receiving a worse grade than expected? I know I’d be pretty put off. I just hope that I never have to deal with a situation like that.
Luckily, I have learned that students don’t always come into the writing center because they are at a loss and don’t know what to do. It has been my experience that many students want someone else’s opinion on their paper and are looking for ways to strengthen it, not fix it. Thinking along these lines helps calm my nerves and makes me less frightened about tutoring. As I tutor more and more, I’ll find ways to deal with these and other situations. Like the old expression goes, “repetition is the mother of all skill.” Plus, with all the tutors working in the Writing Center I’m sure I’ll be able to enlist their assistance in helping me face these problems and finding solutions to them.
posted by Derek Stout at 10:00 AM
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