Eye Opening

Over the last week, I've been able to observe a number of tutoring sessions by a variety of tutors. It has been an eye-opening experience to see how common certain writing errors occur. I think that every session has needed help with coordinating conjunctions. This is surprising to me because they have always come fairly easily to me. I expected comma and other punctuation issues as well as a variety of grammar confusions, but not so many questions about conjunctions.

I have been pleasantly surprised at the general writing skills and complexity of ideas from students including ESL students. It's good to know that many students have strong ideas of what to say, but they only need help expressing and organizing those ideas. I hope that I was able to lend confidence to students by sharing that I have struggled with the same organizational issues as well as trying to come up with theses. Sharing writing strategies that I have learned seemed to help them relax about the stage of writing they are working in. They expect to have a finished draft on the first try, but seeing that it can be best to just get a bunch of ideas on paper and then re-read to work on organization and editing eases a lot of their fears.