Please don't mind the dates on the blog. These post went through a lot of editing. I hope reading these you find something that will stick out and help with your own sessions. Peace and Love. God Bless!

My Session #2

The second session of mine was harder than the first. She didn't want a collaborative session, but more of a teacher-student style session. She wanted me to basically do the work and tell her what to do, but I couldn't do it even if I wanted to .I wanted her to speak up with me, and tell me what she thought was wrong, but she didn’t start talking until toward the end of our session. Working with her, I had to realize that the process I had laid out was not going to work for her, and that I had to change my way of approaching her. . I did not want to be that tutor that was going to be “too expert”, and made sure that the student only walked away with what you put into them, but not what they put into themselves I told her to show me her paper, and highlight the areas she felt that she needed help in. The assignment was to write about her major, and to think about the pros and cons of being in that major. She is doing Nursing, and talked mostly about other people's accounts in the nursing field, other than trying to write about her own. Looking at her paper, she highlighted almost the entire essay, and I noticed that the 'cons' part of her essay was missing. She wrote only about the positives, and she didn't have any sources. I went back to my fool-proof method- the free write. We wrote down all the cons she and I could think of that was in the Nursing profession, and we came up with quite a few, for her to write a substantial paper. I helped her with JSTOR- a site that finds all of the sources you will ever need, about any topic. We even got the chance to find some sources that will help solidify, the cons that she has there. This session really started off rocky, and I was very uneasy, but towards the end, I was certain that she would've written a killer paper.

My Session #1

This first session of mine was a little rocky at first. The writer worked on an essay talking about the the factories, and how we can improve them. She was stuck for a very long time wondering about solutions to these issues, but she couldn't think of any. Working with me, we were able to come up with a total of seven solutions. I didn't know where to start first because her paper was so well developed. She had everything that the outline asked of, and she even checked off everything on her personal checklist. Her thesis was perfect, her sentence structure was great, and reading this essay I was very uneasy until I saw her solutions paragraph. It was very under-developed and she had about two solutions, that she didn't express very well. Seeing this, I was very happy because I had something to work on, without sitting there looking awkward! I took out a piece of paper, and we started to collaborate. She would say something like, "We need healthcare for them, and I would say, how come? And what could be the outcome of that?" And she would go really into detail until we filled up two pages full of solutions. She was very open to my suggestions, and the trick to unlocking her mind was free writing. It didn't matter what she said, it didn't matter if it was stupid or the answer to achieving world peace, the only thing that mattered, that it was on the paper. If she wanted to take anything out later on, that was her will doing. But all I wanted to know was that she left with enough options to write a great solutions paragraph. I was very nervous at first, and it was so hard to get started. But when I did, it felt great to help another person reach their absolute potential.

Tutoring Session #4

This tutoring session by far was probably the most inspiring one. This tutor really embodies everything that it takes to be a tutor. She had two tutees talking about two separate issues, and she handled it with such ease. The first writer she helped came with a philosophy paper, questioning the stance of religion in society. The first thing she did was ask to read the paper. She read the paper, and the first thing she said to the writer was, "Question: What is the core meaning of religion to you. Why is it important to you? Why should it exist?" At first the girl was stumped, she couldn't answer, but she explained that it gave her hope and a reason to believe in something other than the chaos here. Working on that, the tutor was able to build a thesis, and even the first body paragraph. There was a lot of collaboration here, and she asked her so many thought-provoking questions. In addition to this, the tutor introduced her to JSTOR and showed her how to use it to find articles, while the second writer looked for her paper.

The next writer had as much quality tutoring as the first. She had a hard time finding the assignment, so the tutor went back to make sure the other girl was finding her sources okay. The student had an Urban Studies assignment, and she had a lot of Higher Order Concerns. Her thesis was missing, her quotes were not cited and her sentence structure was way off. This was more of a teacher-collaborated session, but it was much needed. The writer said she didn't know what to do, and that she needed as much help as she could get, and was pushing for more of this style of tutoring. As the tutoring session went along, the writer tried to be collaborative and give her ideas for what she wanted, but she kept giving in to what the tutor wanted. The tutor told her that when trying to develop a 10 pg paper, have questions that you should answer along the way, to build up your paper. She told her to think in terms of questions, not statements. This tutor was very though provoking, and she made sure that the writers left feeling that they understood their issues, where they need to fix, and what they need to take out.

Tutoring Session #3

This tutoring session lasted a very short period of time. It was only for twenty mintues, seeing as the girl cut out very early. The tutor was very concerned with everything else besides the assignment. She started out fine, asking questions about the topic, and hearing the writer's views. The assignment was on changing how factory workers are treated. She didn't have any ideas, but the one thing that she did have was health insurance. From that statement, the session went awry. The tutor began telling her how insurance works, and what the best one was to get. Also she even told her where to go if she didn't have any herself. After that, she began to complain about her own insurance company, and the writer and myself began to feel uneasy. I saw the tutee looking down at her phone while the tutor was talking, and she said "Well thank you, this has been very informative," and left. The tutor looked confused, as if she didn't know why she left, and I didn't think it would've been appropriate for me to tell her that her session was a bust.