Blog 5: Tutoring Reflection

In college, I never went to a writing center and never discussed my writing with anyone except my professors, so the tutoring session was a new experience for me. Surprisingly, I looked forward to receiving feedback on my work. My paper was longer than the requirements for the assignment, and I knew I needed help scaling back a bit. I expressed this to my tutor and she helped me condense the essay. First, she had me state the central idea of the entire work. Then, she asked me to restate the main idea of my first "response" paragraph. She then asked me to restate the support in only 3 sentences. After seeing that I could do this, I realized that my original version had been needlessly wordy and descriptive. We repeated the process for my second response paragraph, and I realized that that too could be condensed. Lastly, my tutor read my piece aloud to me, which gave me a chance to hear some awkward phrasing and instances of inauthentic voice.

What surprised me the most was how uncomfortable I was being the tutor. As a teacher, I'm constantly giving students feedback on their work, but so I thought I'd be at home with aiding a classmate. But I was wrong. I felt like I didn't know where to begin. I tried to start by asking my classmate to read her work aloud, but she seemed reluctant. What she did instead was summarize the points in her essay and ask for feedback. She was unsure as to whether she had sufficient examples to ground her ideas. I read parts of the essay and told her that I did see examples in her paragraphs. I asked her example to me verbally and she was able to do that. I suggested that perhaps she could include her explanation in her essay.

I think I was uncomfortable because I was never sure if I was offering enough help. I did not want to take over the session, but I did want to offer useful feedback. I also felt that my classmate was relunctant to share and I didn't know how to help her overcome her initial shyness.

I can see how the strategies that McAndrew and Reigstad suggest can be helpful. I even know that I will use some of them in my high school classes. But it was hard for me to know which strategy would be most helpful during the tutoring session. I was so nervous that I didn't know where to begin. I will have to get over my insecurity as a tutor before I'm able to implement the strategies fully.