Things you should Know before taking ENG 220

I enjoyed this course because it  pushes you to exceed your limits. Professor JRC gives practical assignments that does help a student to understand the ideas of Moffett and how students can use his ideas as future educators. What I wish I would have known before the class began is that JRC post previous students assignments on the blog which  are very practical. I wish I would have from the beginning taken advantage of the sample essays because by following the examples my essays became stronger and I  knew what JRC was expecting. I really enjoyed this class, especially the tutoring observations, and me doing the tutoring because this opened my eyes to the different types of learning strategies students have from different parts of the world. I learned how to be open to these different types of learning skills. One thing I would change if I could is asking questions if I did not understand something. I should have asked the professor since I was confused about a paper but instead I asked my classmates. Nobody knows the assignment better than the professor. By going to his office hours it helped me understand what he expected from the Moffett paper. Once I started to ask questions this is what helped me to succeed in this class. The new students must really apply themselves to the reading and to the class in general because everything JRC goes over in the class it will benefit us as future educators.        

Third Tutoring Session

My third tutoring session was wonderful. I started off by introducing myself to the student and asking him how did he find the assignment. He was very well organized and the first thing he has ready for me was the prompt, which I truly appreciated because that is the whole ideas of the essay. He was the first stunt ever to give me the prompt with out me asking for it. The session was very collaborative because the conversation simply flowed. We both enjoyed the song the tutee chose for his essay therefore I felt even more interested in what he had to say about the message of the song he chose. The student told me that he only had two-hundred words because the professor told him to bring in what he can. I commended him for doing what the professor had assigned him and I told him it was great because now we can build on these ideas. The funny thing about this session is the tutee knew what I was going to say even before I said it. For example, there were some sentences in which he can expand his idea and explain more and once I said "this is good but you know you can..., he already said yea I'm going to expand on that idea its just that I wrote main ideas down since you guys were coming in today.   

Successful tutoring session

What I believe makes a successful tutoring session is when one applies what they learn in class to the tutoring  session. The books we have read in class has made me realize the importance of giving praise "cheerleading" to the student, this way they feel proud of their work even if it is not completely right. In my first observation I noticed the tutor gave praise to the student even thought he made many errors, she praised him the parts he did well. Also, in one of the session Cindi was observing the tutor took their time to explain something the student did not understand. In one of my  session the tutor did the exact thing and explained to the student the rules about past tense verbs, and I believe he should have focused on the HOCS instead of the LOCS.  I also was able to read Michelle's blog and i agree that what makes a successful tutoring session is when the "tutor is very charismatic and attempting to make the students as comfortable as possible." I agree with this because if a tutor is not charismatic and is mean the student will not feel motivated to ask any question. They would want to get out of there as soon as possible. A simply smile can go a very long way so a nice tutor can make the session enjoyable for both the student and the tutor. Therefore a smile is very important. Like I stated in my third observation good body language is very important and this way the student knows that the tutor cares about their achievement. This can motive the student to do better on his paper.

My Fourth Observation

The tutor introduced himself to both of the students.  The student's paper was already graded so the tutor read over the teachers comments. This way the tutor as able to help the student understand the professor's comment and build the ideas the professor needed clarification. I was happy to see that the tutor focus first on the teachers comments because it gave the tutor a feel of what the teacher was expecting. In class JRC told us to do the same if we are going over a graded paper, so it was nice to be reminded of this point. This was a collaborative session because the student was asking sufficient questions about parts of the paper  they did not understand and the tutor answered them to the best of his abilities. This tutor focused on the HOCS, which is getting the main points across. Once the teacher's comments were taken care of, the tutor then proceeded to ask the student what parts of the essay they wanted to fix. The student tells what they believe were their weak points and the tutor addressed those. I liked how the tutor took in consideration the wants of the student I would name this method "taken into consideration". Once the first fifteen minutes passed the tutor then passed on to the next student and they were working on the same assignment and were in the same class however, he had a different situation. He had trouble understanding all of the teachers comments. The tutor helped him understand the comments and help him add  more ideas for his paper.

 My first tutoring experience went very well. I started off by introducing myself to the student, reading his paper out loud and commending him for the good paper. It was a good paper because he stayed on topic for the most part and used the factual evidence that was needed. After I read the paper I noticed that for a couple of his paragraphs the topic sentence was not clear therefore, I remembered the tutoring and writing readings and  used the strategy of one-sentence summary. This way he told me which point he was trying to get across, and he also wrote it down as a reminder. From here, I helped him reorganize the sentences so that his topic would be more clear to the reader. Once this was done, I  asked him which parts of his essay did he think he can better on. The strategy of Nutshelling and teaching is very practical because he was able to point out the weaknesses of his essay in which I too agreed were the weak points and the major. Since they are asked to write an example that can relate to the article the teacher had wrote a comment on his paper that his example did not go with the article. I had him focus free write about how does he think the illegal immigrants from China effect Japan's economy, since he was born there. This is were the ideas started flowing and he got excited because he said he did not think about the similarities Japan shares with the United States. He was very grateful that I had help him connect hie life experience to the article, now he was even more exited to finish fixing the paper. So for the remainder of the time I helped him with his conclusion. Since he had very little concluding ideas in his conclusion, I asked him to tell me more about the topic why is he so moved that Illegal immigrants do not benefit the economy.

First Observation

Victoria was  helping Wilfredo complete his ENG 101 paper. Victoria began with asking the students what was his purpose for coming into the writing center. He had said he was stuck and did not know what else to write for the essay. It had to be a 600 word essay and since English was his second language he was having a hard time. Also he was having difficulty because he was use to the standard of the ENG 95 exam, and ENG 101's was very different. Therefore, she encouraged him to write an outline of his essay and this helped him a lot. I saw the use of cheerleading, because even though he made many mistakes on his paper she gave him positive feedback him on the part he did well. Then it turned into a therapy session because he was putting himself down since he felt that he was not a good writer. She told him he is not a bad writer and that practice makes perfect, at this moment the biggest smile went across on his face.

Third Observation

My third observation  was nothing like my first two. The tutor first introduced himself to the student, then he read only the first paragraph of the student's paper. The tutor started to write notes without telling the student why certain word needed to be changed. So the session became teacher-centered at first, then the tutor sort of caught himself just focusing on the LOCs and not talking to the student, therefore he changed up his technique and got the student involved. Now the session  became collaborative, and the student seemed excited to work side by side with the tutor. The student read out loud and caught his own mistakes. The tutor maintained a high tone and showed his involvement through his body langue. The student appreciated the tutor so much that he even wrote down the tutor's schedule to go to the writing center only when that tutor is present.