Eleni's Case Study

Being able to help out a few times at the Writing Center showed me the advantages to being a tutor. I saw how one hour of my time gave courage to a writer to try harder and succeed.  I have learned that tutors should be knowledgeable, precise and reflective. When using the word knowledgeable, I mean using techniques from the book; when I refer to precise, I mean explaining thoroughly what you say; by reflective, I mean questioning yourself. Besides reading the textbooks affiliated with the course I believe what I learned during the tutoring sessions was what motivated me to continue in the teaching field.

The first tutoring session I encountered was easy going. The writer had a complete thesis, elaborated correctly, and gave examples. She asked me to just check it for her. I explained to her that she had done a great job but there was room for corrections. We went through her essay together and I helped her find her own mistakes. There were points that she seemed a bit unorganized. Also there were a couple of run on sentences that I helped her break up into two or three where needed. The tutee engaged in conversation with me. Despite that it intimidated me in the beginning I did let it overcome me.

During my second observation was where I used all the key terms I stated above. The tutee was very quite at first so I started asking questions to keep her in the session. When she got comfortable she started asking the questions. That is when I received the “green light” from her and we started making progress. She asked me the difference between claim and thesis. At this point I remembered Sondra Perls “felt sense”. Felt sense is the emotion involved in how you write and how you will portray these emotions. As Sondra Perl states “The crucial operation in the Perl process is when you pause and attend to that felt sense- -pause and say, “What’s my feeling for what I’m getting at” (or “Whats my image or word?”)” (Perl, 39).  I explained the importance of a thesis statement and encouraged her to always go back to her thesis while ending her essay and revise it. The tutee understood the importance of going through the revision process. I gave her pin point ideas of how to form her essay. I explained that an essay should begin with a thesis, explanatory paragraphs and a conclusion.  The writer had great ideas but even trying to sort them out by words just as on paper they were confusing. We read the article together and asked her questions for her to understand she was missing information in her essay that was provided in the article. She explained that she gets confused while writing. I told her she should clear her mind stop re read what the article is saying. I advised her to relax her mind and try again.  As Sondra Perl in her guidelines states “Relax, stretch, clear your mind, try to attend quietly to what’s inside- -and note any distractions or feelings that may be preventing you from writing” (Perl, 38). We had a discussion on the saying “practice makes perfect “and I tried to incorporate everyday examples to make it easier for her to understand.  I advised her to make notes on her article. Taking her own notes can make her engage her brain directly to what she is reading. By going through this procedure when she picks up the article another time she will instantly understand what the article is about.

Throughout the whole session there were little voices in my head questioning every word coming out of my mouth. I am doing this correctly? Have I answered her question?  Are my methods helping her? For that one hour that I was helping her there was a constant questioning process in my head.  I got relieved of these questions when she seemed pleased at the end of our session. Leaving she said “Thank you for your help, It was easy to relate with you and you understood exactly what I needed because so far I haven’t been able to come to this conclusion with a tutor”. I felt a sense of fulfillment because her couple of words gave an answer to all the questions that were in my head for the length of our session. The key here is to always question yourself during a session because this will help you help the writer effectively.

The last session I encountered was the hardest because the ENG099 student did not speak good English. When I realized what I was dealing with I got frightened but immediately gathered up my thoughts and began the session. While reading her essay I understood that she did not fully comprehend the article. I moved on to asking her questions on the article and she would give me one answer to all; there was a constant repetition. The same concept was going on in her essay. She then expressed to me that she did not write the essay by herself she did it with a class mate because she did not know how to start, continue and end. That is when I realized that a lot of work was needed in this case. The essay had no thesis, no personal example and no conclusion. We started reading the article together. In this case I used a personal technique; while reading a paragraph I form a sentence on what I understood from the reading. Throughout the rest of the session we took each paragraph analyzed it and she gave her own interpretation of the reading. At the end I asked her to give me a brief summary of what we just read. Before starting to summarize she smiled and said “Now I understand” and went on to giving me the full explanation of the article. Unfortunately we did not have enough to time to proceed because the session was over but I feel that I gave her a good push into a better writing experience.  

Ultimately, my goal is simply to provide an educational environment that will set each writer on the most direct path toward future academic success. I believe I have already acquired many of the necessary skills and the perspective to accomplish that in my role as an educator. Public school education in certain poor neighborhoods of New York City deprives children from standard teaching. As Kozol states in his article “Savage Inequalities”, “Denial of the “means of competition” is perhaps the single most consistent outcome of the education offered to poor children in the schools of our large cities; and nowhere is this pattern of denial more explicit or more absolute than in public schools of New York City” (Kozol, 78). This is due to the fact that certain public schools are deprived of obvious to others necessities. Kozol’s article describes how a public school at north Bronx has low ceilings, no windows and missing building parts. To me that seems more like a jail cell then a learning environment. Also teachers do not get credited for their hard work especially in the conditions described so, they give up on themselves. With them they give up on the students as well.  Providing a correct foundation for students will lead to a better future. If we don’t care enough to make sure that we have safe and worthy school establishments for our future then we are the only ones to blame when these children end up in the wrong position.