In a perfect world, the student would come in excited about sharing their work, and would, in a sense, lead the session. My role would be to ask questions as a reader, and do my best to facilitate a comfortable exchange of ideas. I would love for the writer to leave the session very confident and excited about making the necessary changes in their work. Again, this is my description of a perfect session. As we all know, perfect advising sessions do not exist. However, I am always in control of both my actions, and my speech. I hope that tomorrow demonstrates my love of helping writers grow and feel confident in their writing, and also demonstrates that I am capable of asking the right, thought-provoking questions. Thus, I have created a short list of things I hope to accomplish tomorrow—they focus primarily on the pre-textual aspects of tutoring.
1. Always be incredibly enthusiastic and positive. As tutors, we must understand that it may not be easy for a student to bring in their paper. At times, the writer may feel very vulnerable, and unsure of their ideas. Thus, we must always be very positive and encouraging. The first greeting/handshake will set the tone for the rest of the session. Moreover, there will certainly be papers that make no sense to us at all, so we must control our body language and speech. It’s OK to tell a writer about your confusion with the text, but we should never degrade their writing skills. With regard to tomorrow’s session, I hope the writer feels very comfortable and leaves the session feeling like our time together was very beneficial.
2. (This is a personal strategy.) As briefly mentioned, I fear getting ahead of myself in an advising session. Although it is perfectly acceptable to “restart” and clarify the prompt mid-session, I really want to try and let the session flow without such interruption. Mike has already given us some information about their prompt, so I would really like to try and get some good information about my writer’s paper before we begin reading. I want to say, “I’ve briefly heard about your prompt. There needs to be a clear thesis, evidence/examples, counterevidence, etc. Can you please tell me what you’ve discussed in your paper about each of these criteria?” I think this type of discussion will really help me understand their paper, and also see if their ideas are well represented in the text.
3. Lastly, I want to end the session on a strong note. The session reflections have been a bit tricky for me, so I really want to get some good ideas down. I think a combination of summary/suggestions would be very helpful for the reader, and would not suggest that the paper was perfect. I’ve learned that strong adjectives like “good” and “great” can be utilized to my disadvantage, and I should really focus on specific ideas or organizational aspects of the paper that are “good/great.”
Well, I think this is a great starting point for me. Feel free to add any other ideas you may have, and best of luck to everyone tomorrow!
Sounds like an excellent plan, Kelsey. I think you'll have a good session. (Yeah, I'm using that word, but I think it's all right in this context.) Think of the pre-textual, the textual, and the post-textual stage. That's how you've set it up. Know the assignment, talk through the paper, and end with a good idea of where to go next.
ReplyDelete