Writing Center Observation 2 [3.28.12]

Unlike the last tutoring session, the tutor had previously worked with the tutees and was more aware of what the tutees' writing areas of need were.  Like mentioned earlier, the tutor had already worked with these two individuals in the past, so the tutees knew what the tutor would ask/"expect" and the tutor knew what each tutee would expect as well. Tutee #1 (we'll call her Lucy) was writing a summary that lacked structure but not as much as proper grammar use or proper spelling. However, the tutor was very aware of this but put these LOC's on hold until she was done addressing her structure issues and suggesting to her what she should add or take away based on the material she was given (which the tutor quickly skimmed through.) The tutor was very effective in communicating what she wanted Lucy to do by using clear words, prosody and eye-contact. While Lucy spent some time improving her paper, the tutor turned her attention to tutee #2 (we'll name her Moesha) who seemed to be an ESL student, even though it didn't show too much when she spoke. Moesha was soft-spoken and had a clear understanding of what her professor wanted from her but was not too clear on how to get started on her writing. Additionally, Moesha had a problem with fully embarking on the purpose of her writing (which was to start controversy in her Communication class) because she thought it was a waste of time. It seemed to me that there was an underlying cultural reason behind her decision to not spark any controversy (at least not bringing up points to her topic that were too controversial) because she kept repeating that "students shouldn't be told that something is wrong because their parents already told them that when they were little." Moesha was a little tougher to handle, only because the first and main obstacle she had was detaching herself from her culture for the paper's sake. The tutor handled this very, very well by asking Moesha open-ended questions to allow Moesha to listen to her own reasons and little by little defying these reasons herself to complete her writing. The tutor did, finally, touch on the LOC's in the last 10 minutes of the tutoring session. Overall, the tutor was able to address Lucy's problem areas as well as Moesha's very well in the amount of time given to them.