Journal 14
Journal 14
On Tuesday, I assisted a new student with an in-depth review of APA formatting for their final essay. On Friday, I met one final time with my regular ENGL 121 student as well as a new ENGL 121 student whose normal tutor was unavailable. For both sessions, I helped with organizing and outlining for their final essay assignments.
Summary: Tuesday's student had completed their draft and was satisfied with their content, but they asked to go over APA formatting for the entirety of their paper. We covered the placement of pictures both on the page and in the body of their essay; how to reference pictures and other diagrams in their text when they need to indicate those diagrams as evidence; what captions are required; how to format their references page; what in-text, parenthetical, and reference list citations should look like; general structure of the essay; and how to navigate an individual class's expectations for specific formatting preferences. My regular 121 student had come in with one final essay to build, and after reviewing some of the course learnings, we dove into brainstorming and outlining a narrative connecting their own experiences to the Civil Rights Movement. Briefly, we looked at a previous essay for their gang culture class, reviewing the focus and clarity of the research; here, I inserted some comments about her overall progress as an English student. To close off the session, I also had the student fill in an end-of-semester assessment identical to the beginning-of-semester assessment they had filled out when we first met. The session with the new 121 student was very similar where we outlined for their final essay using a free-write draft they had constructed as the base about discourse in academic and professional communities. Their essay focused on the interaction between a set of researchers and an indigenous community, using a research paper about these interactions as their essay base and ultimately making a connection to their intended future career path based off of their learnings.
Challenges: This week was a perfect closing on many of my long-term goals throughout the semester. My Tuesday appointment was both through Zoom and focused specifically on APA formatting, matching both my plans to develop my online synchronous tutoring and my understanding of APA format, while my two Friday appointments were either my own or another tutor's regular students which gave me the opportunity to concretely observe their progress across the semester as well as gain insight into how other tutoring sessions typically go. Each session was a challenge in their own right: the first brought me into an area I was not familiar with, both through Zoom and via a less familiar format, while the second was the final cap of the challenges across the semester. These final sessions highlighted how far I had come as a tutor since my very first sessions in the URWC.
Ideas or theories: My final understandings come to the following: my purpose as a tutor is not necessarily to be an expert guiding the students forward but rather a fellow-learner helping them discover resources and strategies that I myself have had to learn; my philosophy as a tutor is to create comfort and positive reinforcement where possible to make the learning process as enjoyable and rewarding for the student wholistically; and my abilities as a reader and a writer are in need of constant development to match the needs of all students no matter their background and their own abilities.
Above all else, I am most proud of the progress my regular ENGL 121 student made. While my other ENGL 121 student dropped out of the course early on, and I wish I had been able to make better headway with our sessions, I am beyond satisfied with the degree of learning and confidence my Friday student had made. While they were a strong writer coming into the course, their growth showed itself in their ability to handle the final essay almost entirely on their own with minor clarifications and direction needed from me. Often times, when they asked a question during their final session, they were able to answer that question themselves with prompting. As a tutor, there is nothing more satisfying to me than the satisfaction of a student eager to learn gaining the growth necessary to develop their own internal confidence when writing on their own.
If I were at the outset of the semester again at the start of my internship, I would ask to see a fellow tutor's tutoring process earlier. Whether that opportunity would be in real-time during an actual session in the center or reviewing their journals with their and the internship's permissions, I would like to gain a broader understanding of tutoring at Sac State.