PRE-SESSION
With the school year coming to an end, I knew that I needed to complete my co-tutoring session as soon as I could. I wasn’t sure whether I was actually ready at the time that I had decided to schedule it, but I knew that I was never going to feel like I was ready. The day before we completed mock-tutorials, which had prepared me enough to understand some of my initial flaws during the mock-session. I wasn’t going to improve on these few errors overnight, in fact, I had somehow felt more nervous about the session than I had before. I hadn’t accounted for how challenging managing time was going to be in a tutoring session. With that being said, when I arrived at the Writing Collaboratory, I spoke to the tutor who would be co-tutoring with me. During this time, we went over the student’s appointment in regards to what they stated they wanted to work on during the session. The tutor was familiar with working with the student and reassured me that they were easy to work with and typically went through everything quickly. They came to the conclusion that I would be on my own unless I needed any assistance, because it was difficult having two tutors around one computer and because the assignment and session were expected to be brief.
THE FOUR WHAT?
I found myself following “The Four ‘Fs.” This was partly thought of by the tutor, as well as my own mind desiring some kind of structure in an unstructured and unpredictable situation. When the student arrived for their appointment, the tutor had greeted them and introduced me, as well as asking the student if they would be alright that I joined in on their session. At this point, the tutor had handed the session over to me, so I began with “focus” and introduced myself personally to the tutee and I asked them how their day was going. I asked a little about the assignment, but because (unexpectedly) we had been in the same class, I was familiar with the assignment. Despite knowing what the student wanted to work on, I decided to pose the question again; they replied: “to check the format of my sources and the bibliography as a whole.” In case I didn’t state this already, the assignment was an annotated bibliography for Tolkien. At this point, I passed level 1 (ha!) and moved to “facilitation.” In setting up the appointment in a way that we could move through the assignment in a timely manner as well as accomplish the student’s goals, I asked if the student could pull up there sources…
Just to quickly backtrack: I was more nervous then I had thought I was going to be once the session actually started, and I felt that I was being too directive (I quickly realized this right away and took a step back) but I had made the mistake of trying to copy and paste the link into a new tab on their laptop, so I could match the students citing the information on the website. After realizing this, I properly began the second “F.”
Once they pulled them up, I then asked them if they wanted me or them to read aloud their work. The student requested that I read it, so we proceeded. I would first check the citation format (MLA, thank goodness!) that the student had and compared that to the information provided from the sources, that are necessary to complete a citation. I then would read aloud their annotation and found minimal errors, though I repeated this process for seven sources and the errors found were in each of the sources, however, once I explained why certain things were “incorrect” the student fixed it before I pointed it out again for each source. As I was checking the sources, I was simultaneously (and discreetly) checking for any incorrect paraphrasing or plagiarism errors.
COMING TO A CLOSE
Now to the “finish,” once there were five minutes left, as I had completed looking through all of the sources, I asked the student if there was anything else they wanted to go over quickly before we ended the session. The student had requested that I read it through one more time and check for any errors that I had pointed out earlier, as well as checking that every source was fixed from the initial issue. I asked the student if they would like me to send an email to their professor that they came to the Collaboratory, which the student said “yes.”
In this last part, the tutor that I was with jumped in and completed the “future” component of the four “fs,” explaining to the student that they can come back and make another appointment for anything else in the future. After the student left, I asked the tutor if they had any feedback for me, and of course, they did! I had internally recognized that I was awkward at the start and that whole… “too directive thing,” but other than that, the tutor thought I did a great job at guiding the student through any errors and explaining to them why certain things are the way that they are. Lastly, the tutor let me fill out the end of the session form on WTC, where I wrote what we worked on during the session and sent that to the professor.
Despite not going into the session knowing that I was going to be solo (the tutor was nearby) but it was both a challenge and a rewarding experience. I was nervous going in thinking I was going to co-tutor, but I felt that I had done a good job even solo! Regardless of this experience, every session is different and as a tutor in training, I will only get better with more experience.
