Writing Center Obervation #1

March 18, 2015

I was excited  for my first observation at the writing center. I didn't know what to expect but I was hoping I would learn a lot from the session.
Before the session started, I noticed that there were two students who were going to be helped by one tutor. I started to think, " Could this be a good idea"? I didn't think so... at the moment.

In the observation at the writing center, the tutor asked the tutee if she had a hard copy with her. The tutee didn't bring a hard copy and said  "I only have my tablet with me, but I can come back another day with the hard copy". The tutor said in a polite way, "Its  fine, I'll try to work with what you have in the best way possible. But for future reference, always bring a hard copy."
This was a great example of " Never responding too late" , according to the book: Tutoring Writing.

Throughout the session, the tutee said that she was still confused of what the thesis really was, so the tutor explained that the thesis is "...not always an argument... It is NOT the main idea, it is MORE than the main idea"!

The session consisted of a lot of questions from the tutor to the tutee. There was good eye contact, posture and encouragement. The tutor noticed that the tutee was missing a lot of details such as the setting. So the tutor asked the writer questions on the background of the story she can understand her essay better. The tutor guided the tutee on how she can re-structure her paper. The tutor also explained to the tutee about providing more context before a quote. To me, this was a perfect example of a tutoring session.

There was also a second tutee that went to the writing center with the same tutor. The tutee came in with two articles that she said she was confused about. So the tutor suggested that she should annotate what she understood for each paragraph.
Throughout the session, the annotation really helped the tutee understand the articles and you can tell that both tutor and tutee were happy for the progress.

After, the writer began to get off topic and talk about her own eating habits, since her article was about "What we eat is our business". The tutor nicely asked a question to the tutee in order to get back on track. It was pretty smooth. The tutor asked the writer that she can actually use those experiences to add to her paper.

At first, I thought having a session with two people wasn't a good idea. But it actually helps the other writer to work on what she needs to work on, while the tutor helps the second tutee. What a great experience for my first observation.