The session started with the tutor (Will) and tutee talking about the student’s paper. The tutor made sure that he asked about the prompt and what the paper was about. Unlike my first observational session, where the student read their paper aloud, Will was the one who read the paper. By reading it, the mistakes were apparent to both the tutor and tutee. When Will came to a mistake in the paper, he talked about it to the tutee and explained how to fix it. During the reading, Will pointed out where the wording was awkward, allowing the tutee to correct it. The meeting was short, but it was beneficial to observe a shorter session vs. a longer one. The session was only ten minutes and the tutor later explained to me that he had a lot of sessions with the tutee. Since the tutor knew the student, they were able to work in a different technique than Morgan’s tutoring session. I don’t fully agree with reading out the student’s full work such as Will did but do understand how it’s beneficial to the student. I would lean more towards having the tutee read their paper due to the fact that the session is to benefit themselves.
When the tutoring session was being conducted, I don’t believe that enough questions were asked and thought about. It might have been because the tutee had multiple sessions with the tutor that I was unaware of, leading to the session being shorter. The theme of the paper was discussed, being the student’s paper from my Major Author: Tolkien class. I don’t think it was discussed deep enough and revealed why the student wanted to write about the certain topic. This second session was interesting to watch and see how different tutors have different writing styles. Not always seeing the same tutor every session is helpful in many ways; multiple people looking at a paper will give the author detailed feedback and many perspectives. If the same student is visiting the same tutor every time, that tutee may feel too comfortable with the tutor and expect them to do their work for them.
Tutees who expect their tutors to complete their papers for them are missing out on the true values of the Collab. Handing out answers to the students won’t benefit the tutor or tutee, making it difficult for a session to be positive.
– Ann Doychak
