What To Expect in Justin Rogers-Cooper ENG 220 Teaching Writing Seminar

The Seminar in Teaching Writing combines three hours of class discussion of theory and practice of teaching writing with an hour of actual classroom experience as an observer in the writing center and as a tutor in ENG 101 or ENG099 classrooms. In class discussed numerous readings on writing theory and the practice of teaching and tutoring methodologies. My classmates and I have worked with students on a composition or basic writing class helping them practice for the CATW exam. We have observed tutors in the writing center for the first weeks of the semester and during the second half we tutored under supervision of the professor himself walking around the classroom making sure things went smoothly. This Professor is simply one of the best English professors I've ever had who is very dedicated to teaching. As a student all you have to do is to make sure you hand in your assignments, participate, attendance, blogs, essays, read the amazing readings, and quizzes and you will get a good grade. His class went further than English writing, Ive learned so much from professor Rogers-Cooper such as how important creativity is in learning. He works with you to help your writing and allows essay revisions until the last week of class.  His syllabus is very clear and tells you exactly how the class will go and what to expect. Overall, you will enjoy yourself being in such a great class as much as I did.

Third session...

I've enjoyed this tutoring session the most because of the similarities the student I tutored shared. The student was very excited to have me to critique his work and was very open to my opinions. The class (ENG 101) was assigned to write an essay that argues a work of popular culture (short story, novel, comic book, advertisement, T.V. show, movie, or song) either discriminates against a particular group of people, or that it works to raise awareness about a specific type of discrimination. The student I tutored was very prepared and showed me his 2nd draft of his paper on discrimination towards African Americans. After reading his draft aloud I was very pleased with his work, it was well written. The few issues that came to me was the in-text MLA formatting and the organization of his paper. We begin to work on the MLA formatting, I begin to scan through for the errors and showed the student the correct way to cite in a MLA format. Ive also recommended a few websites for a further reference. After working with that we begin to organize his ideas and arguments. When the time was closer for us to leave I have set a goal for him that should be done before we meet again the following week.  

2nd tutoring session!

 I feel like my second tutoring session overall was a success. I was very pleased with the outcome of this session , because I believe that the tutee and I were both prepared. I was chosen to help one student with her paper on her views and ideas on Charter Schools. I introduced myself to my tutee as I normally would and had her explain to me what her assignment was about.  She showed me the assignment prompt and rubric. Since the professor had already gave us an overview of the assignment, I already knew what to expect and what to work on as the tutor. Another reason I believe it went good was because the tutee I had was very prepared with her research/information and had a direction as to where she wanted to go with her paper which made the session go even smoother. After, I start skimming through her paper I noticed that her paper had a lot of grammatical errors but my main focus was to help her focus on the assignment, the overall structure and what her professor was asking for. Her thesis was a little unclear just needed some fixing we worked on that for about six minutes and began working on the structure of her essay. I recommended to explain what charter schools are and their background before giving her argument. Overall, it was a great turnout and I enjoyed helping every minute of it.

First tutoring session!!

In my first tutoring session I've worked with two students in a ENG099 class. The students are practicing a sample CATW test. I began to read the first tutee's paper and told the second tutee to go over his paper and have questions on his paper ready. According to the professors comments the first tutee needed examples from the text to support her thesis and to clarify his arguments. I began to read her paper aloud which was a challenge due to the vast amount of grammatical errors, she is constantly quick to correct me and repeatedly says "oh, I meant to say..." I am approaching the last paragraph and she finally says that she has a disorder called dyslexia and it is hard for her to get down her thoughts on to a paper. I found it to be very challenging working with two tutee because I find myself assisting with the student with the most consistent errors. As I finished reading her paper I've noticed that her paper do not correlate to the article. As a task I asked her to re-read the article, carefully and jot down ideas the writer is trying to convey and whether or not if you agree or disagree with the author. I move on to tutee #2 and begin to read his paper aloud, overall it was a great piece the only thing was that the student sidetracked and went off topic on a paragraph that the professor also pointed out in her comments. We begin to brainstorm different ideas and topics that can expand on his idea instead of going the wrong path. After finding great informationto add on to his idea, as a task I asked him to rewrite that paragraph and to include the new ideas without going off topic. I go back to tutee #1 and she has written down an idea, "undocumented immigrants contribute greatly to the states and should eventually become citizens" and she writes that she agrees with this. We begin to write an outline for her paper, then professor comes around to give us a 5min warning. I start to give goals to each tutee to do when they reach home so they can receive a successful grade. We say our good byes and begin to head out. Although this first time experience was nerve wracking in the end it felt great helping a fellow student.

The Keys to A Successful Tutoring Session!

I believe there is many keys to a successful tutoring session starting off by introducing yourself and welcoming the tutee. As a tutor, you should always start with an introduction because it makes the student feel welcomed. I think the tutoring session goes well when a tutor introduces herself to the tutee, it makes the tutee feel comfortable. Making your student feel comfortable is another important key. When you are starting off your session, it is always important to give off a good vibe to the tutee. Good vibes consist of having good body language, being friendly and overall making your tutee feel comfortable enough around you. In Melissa's blog she states, "...he read only the first paragraph of the student's paper...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". It is very important to involve the student as much as possible. Reading out loud can be very useful and can lead to a collaborative tutoring session. By doing this you give time to think about what is read and then you can take that time to formulate questions. The tutee is obviously not an expert at writing. I think its best when the tutor focuses more on Hoc than the Loc's . The tutor shouldn't tell the tutee what to write, let them think, don't make them feel low. I think its best when the tutee know how to explain what their paper is about. The more that a student comes to the writing center and get feedback on their work is the better their paper will. All of these strategies are the keys to having an ideal tutoring session.

My last observation! :(

The tutor is assigned to two tutees. The first tutee brings in a first draft of his paper where he have to compare and contrast two poems. The second tutee does not a draft on hand she tells the tutor she has come to the writing center to receive some insight on her research paper. The tutor tells the tutee that since she does not have a draft on hand she will be working with the first tutee. She starts the session by reading the tutee draft out load and tells him that his introduction sounds repetitive and needs to be rewritten. She tells him to rewrite an introduction in his book while she talks to the second tutee. The second tutee tells her that she needs to write a research paper on a topic of her choice and do not know where to start. They begin by making an outline on the topic she picked. She finds the argument of her research paper and tells the tutor she is ready to look up for some research. The tutor ends the session by giving her tips on finding research and how to cite correctly. The tutor goes on to help the first tutee who was working on his introduction. She tells him that this introduction is much better then the one he previously had. She goes on to help him with the LOCs until the rest of the session.

Third Time's the Charm!

Going to the Writing Center for the third time I expected the usual and a similar  experience had with my first two observations. I got the total opposite then what I expected...

This tutor was assigned to two tutees, this was the first time I've observed a tutor with two tutees. The sessions starts off with the Tutor introducing himself to the students then introduces me and informs them my role as an observer for the session. He asks both of the Tutees "How can I assists you guys today?" Student 1 tells the tutor that he was told to go to the writing center from his professor for a revision of his First Draft Narrative account. Student 2 tells the tutor that she is just at the writing center to work on her grammar. The tutor tells student 2 since student 1 has a draft on hand he will be working with him first. Student 1 begins to explain what is his assignment and shows the tutor his paper and an additional paper with the professor comments of his first draft. Student 1 tells the tutor that English is a second language for him and understanding how grammar works has been a difficult task for him. The tutor reads his assignment out loud, after reading a few sentences the student was already able to see his mistakes he made. After reading the whole paper the tutor tells the student that the paper is just fine in terms of grammar. He later tells the student that he needs to highlight a turning point in his paper. He explains to the student that the turning point should focus on his grandmother since she is the main focus on his paper. He ends his session with tutee 1 with a list of goals he needs to complete at home. Student 1 leaves and the tutor now starts the session with student 2.
 The student tells the tutor that she has trouble with verb forms and fragments. The tutor gets different exercises sheets that goes over verb forms and tenses. He starts off by explaining to he student that a verb expresses action or a state of being and tells what the subject of the clause is or does. Then tells her that verbs a constructed from three basic forms known as the principle parts of a verb (Present, Past, and Past Particle). They begin to go through numerous exercises on verb forms until the session was over. The tutor ends the sessions by handing the student more sheets of exercises she can go over in her own time. The student thanks the tutor and gets his name down to request for him the next time she goes to the writing center. 

2nd Observation... Not as exciting as the first one.

Going into the writing center the second time was not as exciting as my first experience there, this session was very short and rushed through. The tutor that I observed had horrible body language, kept on fidgeting, playing with his phone, and talk in a very low tone. I'm not too sure his shyness and nervousness occurred due to the fact I was observing him, but as a tutor it seems he was unprepared and lacked the knowledge of tutoring. 

He begins his session by telling the tutee to take out the assignment that she needs assistance in, she hands him the paper and he begins reading the student's paper aloud. It goes to show that her paper was a second draft with the professor's comments on the margins of the paper. After reading the assignment he tells her  "I agree with your prof, Grammar is a huge issue in this paper." The student begins to explain that English is a second language and grammar always have been a problem for her. He begins to work with the student on the essay's Lower Order of Concerns or LOC.

 After working on the some of Lower Order of Concerns he realizes that she needs to build a stronger thesis that can support the evidence she is showing her essay. He ends the session by telling her to fix her thesis and suggested her to come back after she has corrected her main problems to continue working on the grammatical errors.  

My First Observation!

Hi, my name is Jennifer St. Surin and I will be sharing my experiences on observing Laguardia Community College's Writing Center.
The session starts of with the student explaining her assignment, she tells the tutor that the assignment is due the next day and have no other time to do this assignment besides now. She also states that English is not her best subject and she starts to express how much she hates ENG 101. The tutor disregards her comments and begin to read the passage that the student has to respond to in 250 words. After reading the passage the tutor ask the student "is there anything in the passage you would like to focus on?" She replies yes, and shows the tutor what she enjoyed most in the passage. The tutor suggests to reflect on that section that the tutee is the most interested in her 250 word response. The tutor continues to read the passage and start to point out important details that would stand out in her response. What I noticed is that this session was mostly concerned on the HOC (high order priorities) of the tutee's assignment. The tutor wraps up his session and  begins to list numerous goals for the tutee to reach to as she finishes up her assignment once she gets home.
Overall, I enjoyed my first observation of the writing center here at Laguardia Community College I've learned so much in just one session!