My First Tutoring Experience

            My first tutoring experience for my writing seminar class went more smoothly than I expected, but it was definitely nerve-racking. My tutee had many issues in her writing. We sat down in a cubicle in the writing center and I asked her what her assignment was. She didn’t say anything and just took out the CATW reading. I made small conversation by asking her what she thinks of the test and she responded to me that this is her third time taking this exam. I expressed empathy to her and listened as she explained that she has received better grades on the essays she has written in class, but she can’t pass the test. I reassured her that I will work with her on whatever she feels she needs help with, and that we will go through the work slowly. Looking timid, she pulled out her notebook and showed me an only outline she wrote in class pertaining to the reading as well as informing me that her professor wants the class to have a thesis in their essay.

I then asked her what did she have trouble with in the essay. She told me that she did not understand it or how to make a summary. Seeing that my tutee had no draft, I told her that we were going to read through the essay, one paragraph at a time, and choose one sentence that is the main idea of that paragraph. I made her read each paragraph aloud to me, and we underlined words she did not know. I asked her to underline one sentence that captures the main idea in each paragraph and asked her why after she chose one. If she answered thoroughly, I made sure she wrote her explanation down and then generate a new sentence that put that main idea into her own words and if not, I prompted her with questions to help her realize why her choice was incorrect. The last paragraph of the essay was the most difficult because it contained long, multi parted sentences with many ideas in each. For that paragraph, I went through sentence by sentence and discussed what it meant. I understood at this point that this tutee was not going to take initiative to speak up so I had to do most of the talking. I noticed that her English was struggling. During her oral explanations to me, I could tell she was nervous by how she tripped over her words. I reassured her that this was good practice for her and that she knows more than she thinks. I reverberated her explanations she told me back to her to make sure I heard her correctly. She looked as if she wanted to crawl in a hole and die at times.

After we went through the entire essay, picking out sentences, and she generated her own sentences, we moved on to the summary portion. At this point her comprehension of the material was better than what it was when we started. I explained to her what a summary was and then informed her that the sentences she generated were so important because it was like doing two things at once to lead into the summary. The summary was already there for her because she had pulled out the main idea from each paragraph; now it was just about piecing it together. I let her take a few minutes to read through the sentences and choose how she wanted them to be sequenced.

After piecing together a summary, we moved on to a connection. I told the tutee to not worry about what the essay says or what she needed to write, but to just talk about it with me. Since the essay was about the ambiguity of child-rearing, I asked her if she has/likes children. She told me that she loved children, but didn’t have any of her own. So I then asked her if she knows anyone who does that she can write about or if she had any initial reactions to the details of the essay. She informed me that her professor wanted her class to agree or disagree with the argument in the essay, which she then told me she agreed. When I asked her why she agreed, she told me orally that her dad has a hard time supporting her school tuition with the other bills and rent to pay, so it’s still hard supporting a family even when the children are grown. I said that it was a great connection she could write in her response. So I then asked her how could she connect her experience with the CATW, but our session happened to run out of time.

Overall, I thought it was an effective first meeting since we did get through the part she was having most difficulty with, the summary. The tutee also expressed that the one sentence technique was helpful and that she liked it. This tutee had HOC and LOC issues, but her spelling and grammar did not get in the way of her writing being understandable. I focused on the HOCs because her writing needs to definitely be comprehended on the actual CATW exam. I left our session on a positive note saying that we will work on thesis and body paragraph structure for the following week.

     Moffett's system definitely works because it helps you get in touch with the voice that is cut off from everyday life. The voice that is hard to acknowledge. The voice that lives inside, dying to come out, but comes out, for me, in the wrong ways. Practicing Moffett's "tutorials" can help you get so acquainted with your own voice inside, you can help discover and create new voices and practice them in her dialogue and monologue "tutorials."
     I have always liked to write, but my problem is how to write. I never knew how to get in touch with myself in order to produce a real piece of writing. Since I've practiced Moffett's 15 minute stream of consciousness writing, I feel I have started to stir something up within me. As difficult and uncomfortable it was at times, I feel as if I have finally got in touch with something that can be used on paper to share with someone.
     There are some great activities that Moffett suggests trying such as, my personal favorite, the composed spontaneous memory activity. I constantly have flashes of very vivid memories and I wish I could share them with someone but I never do because I feel they are uninteresting. Tapping into memories can reveal a lot about ourselves and our lives. Composing a memory piece would be a great thing to do because everyone in a class has something different to being to the table.
     The one activity that I did not particularly think was so effective was the One-Act play. I think this activity could be beneficial to someone who is interested in writing a lot of dialogue and who would like to perform it themselves or have someone else perform it. This to me is a form of advanced form of situational writing. I think writing with the purpose of performance might not be the best type of assignment to give to someone who is a beginner at writing or to a group of children because it could be overwhelming. Screenplay writers and actors could really benefit from this type of activity since this is what they love to do.
    Overall, I feel that Moffett's ideas for becoming a true writer are great and they are worthwhile activities to try. Any or all of the suggested assignments can help people move away from writing being an unpleasant task to an introspective, highly fulfilling thing to do. I believe that practicing Moffett's ideas can strengthen one's desire to write, as well as the craft itself.

Tutoring Do's and Don'ts

Tutoring Do's

• Introduce yourself and make short, friendly conversation if possible.
• Have tutee's work in the center, to make it accessible and easy to read.
• Be mindful of mood, gestures, and tone of voice. Make sure they are all calm.
• Be inviting, supportive, and receptive to the tutee.
• Ask questions and give suggestions to tuee and the piece being worked on.
• Use resources available such as dictionaries and thesauruses.
• Ask questions to an authority figure if unsure about anything.
• Express what the tuee is doing well in the piece and what you see needs work on.
• Read or ask what the writing assignment was and make sure tutee understands it fully.
• Concentrate on higher order of concerns first, then lower order concerns.
• Let tutee read work aloud - they might catch their own errors.
• Repeat tutee suggestions to clarify meaning and interpretation.
• Signal for the tutee to return to the writing center to continue working on piece.
• Take notes if possible.
• Give mini-lesson if tutee continues to have issue with a particular area in writing.
• Have a conversation about the piece or topic of interest with the tutee.
• Provide probing questions to the tutee to make them think about their piece.
• Ask for tutee's opinion on topic.
• Suggest outside resources such as books, websites, videos, etc. if you feel it can help tutee with their writing or ideas.
• Be mindful of time in order not to waste it on one aspect of the tutee's work.
• Encourage tutee to contribute to their work in front of you.

Tutoring Don'ts

• Be rude, mean, obnoxious, or judgmental of tutee or their work.
• Talk about your personal life.
• Write or correct anything on tutee's work.
• Eat or have clutter in tutoring space.
• Give criticism about tutee's professor.
• Overtly express your opinion on tutee's work or topic.
• Have your phone out.
• Be distracted in any way.
• Hover over tutee or make them feel unwelcome.
• Insist your ideas or suggestions are better.
• Act as if you have all the answers or solutions.
• Talk the entire time.
• Claim the tutee's work as your own.
• Sugarcoat the truth about tuee's work or say that piece is perfect.
• Insist the problem is one thing, when tutee is expressing something different.
• Be informal or unprofessional with tutee.
• Rush the tutee out of the session.
• Make conversation with tutee the entire length of session.
• Argue or fight with tutee.
• Step away from session for long periods of time.
• Focus on grammer and spelling first.

      The most important aspect of Sondra Perl's essay to me was when she expressed how projective structuring is important but how many view it as the the essential part of writing. I myself have fallen into this trap. I have been in the process of writing and thinking the whole time if this is "what the professor wants me to say" rather than writing what I really feel. I thought it was important for Perl to say this because she is informing writers that there is something deeper inside of all of us that wants to get on the paper but can't because we're not letting it. Projective structuring is there to be mindful of the reader, not become the reader.