When I first went into my solo tutoring session, I’ll admit that I was nervous. Many questions were running through my head: what if I made a mistake, what if the tutee didn’t understand me, what if I didn’t explain myself correctly? The list can go on. Thankfully, the session went smooth. I was able to help the tutee with his paper that consisted of a theme that he had a great passion for. I looked over his outline and his rough draft, noting that it was a good start and he had potential for a high graded paper. The tutee approached me last minute during Late Nite Writes in the library. I was unprepared but willing to help the student with his paper. He wanted me to read it over and make sure the format was smooth.
One of the problems that I had with the paper was when he started explaining how the teacher gave him a low grade for another project because he didn’t focus on the rubric. He didn’t have the rubric with him, but he explained to me what the prompt was about. The tutee proceeded to quote the rubric and I caught onto the mistake right away. I explained to him that the teacher might not like the “calling out” aspect of the paper. I realized afterwards that I should’ve explained to him that it’s okay to own your mistakes in your paper. The rubric and grade had nothing to do with the topic of his paper, so it was best to be deleted. Not focusing on lower order concerns, the main issue was the “Why?” aspect of the paper.
I knew that he had a love for the topic, but I wasn’t seeing it throughout his essay. Trying to explain how to show your passion through your writing was a lot harder than I realized. After I was done explaining, I asked if he understood what I meant. I suggested giving reasons as to why he has such an emotional attachment to the topic or inserting certain memories into the paper. Overall, I felt good after completing the session even though it was short. I mentioned that if he needed more help, he could always visit the Writing Collab. He seemed more confident in how to write his paper after the session. Like I’ve seen the other tutors do, I asked if he had any questions afterwards.
– Ann Doychak
