Too bad or not too bad...is that the question?
Writer’s block, it seems to strike every time the blogging deadline looms near. But, alas, the blog has been started and I can now begin the prompt. A good paper or a bad paper? I suppose it depends on how you define good and bad? Is it bad grammar? Bad organization? Or is it amazingly offensive? I suppose it could be all of the above, but as long as bad isn’t used in the street lingo sense where it actually means good then I suppose the definition isn’t too important.
Personally, I think I would like to tutor a student with a bad paper rather than a student with a good paper. From the experiences I’ve had, it seems like good papers don’t require as much engagement and the student usually wants someone to double check it. I’m not saying that’s always the case, but has been from a lot of the experiences I have had.
A bad paper requires a lot of attention, effort, and focus. Some of the bad papers I have tutored have been great experiences. It allows the tutor to teach the student about the whys, hows, and whats of English. I had a great experience with this last semester. A student came in and he was writing a six page argument paper. He had to have so many sources and meet other requirements. He was quite overwhelmed by the project and came to enlist the help of a tutor. When I first sat down with him the entire paper was one big paragraph. Six pages with almost no breaks. It was pretty overwhelming and I had absolutely no idea where to begin. But, we started. It was a long session. I think it was on a Saturday and went for an hour or two. We made a lot of progress, but still had a lot to do. He revised the paper and came back the following Saturday. This happened for a few weeks. Every week we would go over the paper and see what else could be done. By the end of our sessions, the paper was drastically better. But, the greatest thing that came out of this wasn’t the paper. It was the growth of the student. Every week when he would come in the paper would be much better. But, it wasn’t just because he fixed the mistakes we found. He would scrutinize every detail and try to make the entire paper better. I was amazed at how much he would do. Also, I learned a lot of important lessons about how to tutor from those sessions.
Bad papers give you the chance to get more involved, at least that is how I feel. You get to talk to the student and help them figure out the answers to their questions. It’s hard to help someone who is already pretty good at what you’re trying to help them with. I have found that some of the greatest tutoring experiences have come from the most daunting papers.
Personally, I think I would like to tutor a student with a bad paper rather than a student with a good paper. From the experiences I’ve had, it seems like good papers don’t require as much engagement and the student usually wants someone to double check it. I’m not saying that’s always the case, but has been from a lot of the experiences I have had.
A bad paper requires a lot of attention, effort, and focus. Some of the bad papers I have tutored have been great experiences. It allows the tutor to teach the student about the whys, hows, and whats of English. I had a great experience with this last semester. A student came in and he was writing a six page argument paper. He had to have so many sources and meet other requirements. He was quite overwhelmed by the project and came to enlist the help of a tutor. When I first sat down with him the entire paper was one big paragraph. Six pages with almost no breaks. It was pretty overwhelming and I had absolutely no idea where to begin. But, we started. It was a long session. I think it was on a Saturday and went for an hour or two. We made a lot of progress, but still had a lot to do. He revised the paper and came back the following Saturday. This happened for a few weeks. Every week we would go over the paper and see what else could be done. By the end of our sessions, the paper was drastically better. But, the greatest thing that came out of this wasn’t the paper. It was the growth of the student. Every week when he would come in the paper would be much better. But, it wasn’t just because he fixed the mistakes we found. He would scrutinize every detail and try to make the entire paper better. I was amazed at how much he would do. Also, I learned a lot of important lessons about how to tutor from those sessions.
Bad papers give you the chance to get more involved, at least that is how I feel. You get to talk to the student and help them figure out the answers to their questions. It’s hard to help someone who is already pretty good at what you’re trying to help them with. I have found that some of the greatest tutoring experiences have come from the most daunting papers.
posted by Derek Stout at 1:18 PM
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