My second live tutoring session went very well. I came away feeling quite accomplished in the work I'd done with the two students I worked with. Being that it was my first time working with two students at once, initially, I was a bit overwhelmed. However, because I was fortunate enough to work with two very respectful and cooperative students, the session literally flew by as we engaged in revising and improving their pieces.
Firstly, I was paired a student that had an injury to his writing hand, and before I began working with the student, the professor wanted to correct/check the paper for himself to see if he understood the handwriting. Nevertheless, after the professor corrected the paper, the session began. The professor had left a comment that read, "Good job! Just work on your concluding sentences in your body paragraphs". While silently reading the paper to myself, I found it difficult to understand the student's writing. Because of this, I regularly stopped to asked the student, "what is this word? "or "can you read this sentence?". I also noticed the glaring omission of concluding sentences as noted by the professor in the body paragraphs - both paragraphs ended with just the examples and evidence, but no connection to the student's general claim/idea. Overall though, the paper was very well written; illustrated great structure and support throughout. After reading, I told the student, let's work on constructing concluding sentences. The student had a general idea about concluding sentences, but was having problems thinking of how to start the actual sentence. I noted to him that, a concluding sentence(s) can simply tie his example and evidence to his main idea (claim) stated in the introduction. We both worked together and created a few sentence templates to choose from. One of them read along the lines of, "This personal experience is an example of the 'new-age' thinking/mindset that men should take-up more responsibilities at home... it goes along way in insuring the household chores is equally shared and in-end could potentially result in a healthier relationship".
During the last third of the session, I was paired with another student who had came in late. This student was a bit less prepared than the first student. The student only had an introduction and part of his first body paragraph constructed. Nevertheless, I read the piece and it flowed quite well - had a well written thesis and the contents in first paragraph connected well to the claim made. I then asked the student, as it pertained to the rest of the paper, 'why did you stop'? - 'are you having problems constructing the rest of the piece'?. The student said to he did not have any problems constructing the rest of the paper, he simply didn't get time to finish. He then showed me an outline he had created in advance to help him during the writing process. Like the first student, the only issue he had was concluding his body paragraphs; that final sentence(s) that ties everything together. While trying to work with both students at once, I thought it would've been a great idea for student 1 to share the notes we had complied with student 2 since it pertained to concluding sentences. It also helped that I didn't have to worry about going back and forth with both students, instead we all three bounced ideas off each other to solve this issue.
Overall, this tutoring session was very efficient, effective, and enjoyable. I was really surprised with the level of writing both students displayed. So much so, I was tempted to asked both students the reasons for them being in 099 - I resisted though. Both students were highly motivated to learn and I have no doubt that they'll do well in the CATW exam.
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