Re-thinking Blog #7

The most important features of effective tutoring have everything to do with building rapport. The tutor should do everything that she can to establish a good relationship with the learner in the least amount of time possible to ensure a successful tutoring session. (It should not take thirty minutes to get going in a positive direction.) The student needs to trust that the tutor is a capable teacher. This can be accomplished if the tutor is good listener who will encourage the learner.

To improve my tutoring methods I will need to become more confident in my ability to teach. My recent understanding that I don't need to have all knowledge about all subjects helps a lot. I just need to know what questions to ask the student. He or she will be able to answer the questions and get the desired results, a well-written paper.

A good handshake and a smile as I greet the student who comes to me for tutoring is where I'll start. I will continuously make eye contact with him or her and be aware of my own body language, making sure it is open, not closed. As for additional training outside of this classroom, I can observe real life sessions and look at some on the Net.

Blog #10

If money was no object, I would work on a project that helped younger writers. I am thinking about high schoolers. If they worked on their writing in good writing labs, they would be better writers by the time they got to college. This would probably eliminate the Composition I class.

Blog #9

I think I will use the minimalist approach when I have confident learners. I do not think I will use this method with ESL learners or persons with learning disabilities. I think the minimalist way may frustrate already frustrated writers even more. When I do use the minimalist technique, I will use it sparingly. I think it may be too strong for the average learner and then the whole purpose for the writing lab is defeated.

When a writer is a strong writer or has a strong personality, he or she will be able to take the badgering better than a shy or self-conscious person. For the less confident learners and most other students, I will take a more teacherly stance.

Blog #8 Minimalist Tutoring

It is difficult for me to say who would be the best candidates for minimalist tutoring because it seems to be a very direct, take no prisoners method. If I am just going to collect my pay and not really help out writers, this is the way I would go. This approach is rather cold as far as I am concerned, (of course I’m just learning).

There are parts that I would like to use, for instance; “Your paper has value as a piece of writing. It is worth reading ad thinking about like any other piece of writing.” That’s good. I also understand; “Don’t be an editor.” The “goal of the tutoring session is learning” and if a tutor writes the paper, the student doesn’t learn to write better. The “basics” like; sit next to the student, get the paper in the student’s hands, and having the student read the piece aloud all work well for my personality. However, after reading the chapter, I thought I might be being too hard on a student and that perhaps I could be a little more helpful opposed to so “down to business.”

So, to answer the question, I think a person who is a pretty decent writer to begin with would be the best student for the minimalist tutoring approach

Blog #7

The most important features of an effective tutoring session in my opinion are perspective and training. I think a tutoring session will be successful if the tutor knows what the writer needs and is able to address those needs, if not the session will be unsuccessful.

Improving my own tutoring methods involves me doing more sessions. Once I put some of the strategies to work I will be able to see what I am comfortable with and what does or does not work for me. In addition to me finding my own techniques, I need to tutor different people because individual students have different learning styles the same way that different tutors have different tutoring styles.

Addition to Blog 5

I learned from the reading in M & R that the first concerns are high order concerns. It is more important that issues dealing with thesis and focus, development, structure and organization, and voice be clear for the writer than the lower order concerns of punctuate, spelling, etc. When asked by my tutor what was the central issue of my piece, I had to think about what I was really trying to say. That question helped me to understand that what I wrote about was not really what I wanted to write about.
The strategy we used was talking aloud. I read my paper and then told her what it should have been about. I took notes and rewrote the piece now that I knew how to improve the paper.

Blog #6 Rethinking My Writing Center Philosophy

My writing center philosophy is ever evolving. At least I am now persuaded that writing centers are a good thing. That was not the case when I wrote about my own writing philosophy. I still like the look of what I proposed however, reading the North piece gave me additional insight on what a writing center should and should not be. I do think that a tutor must take on a role of a listener to hear what the learner's needs, weakness, and strengths are. I don't think a "cookie cutter" approach will work as no two tutoring sessions will be identical.