Seventh Visit

4/9/2008

Rolled into the writing center with my mind adrift and dead from countless hours of calculus. I had thousands of things to do still and didn't know if I could handle any drama. Thankfully, upon arrival the student who was being tutored was geared up and ready to go. The tutee was writing a paper about Resident Assistant's. She had written the entire paper, but it was all things considered quite rough. Emily began acting as a psychologist helping the tutee guide herself through the paper. Acting as a peer tutor/psychologist reminded me of the article by Christina Murphy, in The St. Martin's Sourcebook for Writing Tutors titled "Freud in the Writing Center: The Psychoanalytics of Tutoring Well." The key behind the session was the ask and tell session that Emily conducted. Rather than fix the errors, Emily asked the writer what she would rather say, or what she wanted to say. The question and answer session helped the author better understand what she wanted to say. As the paper progressed Emily suggested that we attempted to "de-clutter" the paper, and eliminate un-needed statements. For example, the author had a lengthy rant about whiteboards, however it was exactly that, a rant. When Emily asked if it would be better to leave it out the author got defensive and insisted that the whiteboards were a vital part of the resident life and the paper.

As I continued to listen I realized that the author was a perfect example of a "tough tutorial." Even though she wanted help, she was not extremely receptive to the help offered. Emily and I discussed at the end that the paper was hard to edit because we both felt it was poorly organized. We both agreed that the paper had good points but in the end it would have been much better if it was better organized. As I stumbled off to my own tutorial in calculus I realized that Emily does a great job of leading discussion and forcing the student to acknowledge flaws within the papers they wrote.