My tutoring Experience

When I was told by my professor that I would be tutoring another college student, I automatically felt nervous but yet still a bit excited. The thought of tutoring another college student left me with many questions. One question I raised in particular was; would the tutee take the advice I give because I was a student like them? Going into the tutoring session I felt anxious and still remained a bit nervous. Although I had tutoring experience, I did not know anything about the student. When my tutee wrote me a letter introducing her to me, she mentioned her goals, expectations, and struggles she had when it came to her writing. In reading the letter, I realized we had more things in common than I originally thought. For example, in writing we both find that our strong parts of our essays are the introduction. After reading her letter, I became aware of the problems that she had in writing. I grew less nervous and more excited on how I can help another peer accomplish their goal.

            During the first tutoring session with my tutee, we introduced ourselves as we walked towards the desk we would be working at.  First, we reviewed the material for her paper that she was in the process of writing. My tutee explained to me that she had taken the CATW test before n failed by a few points. After going over her well written summary on the article that was given; we started looking more in depth of the article she was writing about. I advised her that underlining and high-lighting the main ideas of the article will help her a lot when trying to write a paper. My tutee made me aware that she didn’t know how to start her paper off. I replied by explaining that you have to state your main idea first. I explained to her that the Main idea of a paragraph is the most important thought or topic in the paragraph. Next, I told her she should state the topic sentence.  She wasn’t sure what I meant by this so I explained that this is the sentence that includes your main idea. I also advised her of the sandwich method when outlining her paper. I explained to her that her introduction should include her thesis and preview of what the paper is about. Then I explained next comes her body paragraphs. Then finally her conclusion which includes the review or sum up of her paper and a restated thesis.After, explaining the method she used it as a guide to help her when I wasn’t there to help her. We also worked on sentence structure. My tutee often had run on sentences, which we corrected. I had her read her paper over with the changes; we both agreed that the paper was now a definitely passable paper to the exam.

            During our tutoring session she addressed the problem she was having whether it was not understanding the passage thoroughly, organizing her paragraphs, or even determining what was important enough to include in her paper.  After my tutoring experience, a question that was raised was, is my tutee going to take the information that she learned and use it for her writing in the future? Finishing the tutoring session I wanted to leave my tutee with good techniques to use when she is writing future papers. Therefore, I printed out some good techniques I thought would be helpful for her when she is writing future paper.