Observation.

I wanted to share two instances from today’s work.

First:

I sat with Katie and observed a student. We sat down with this student at 7:40 pm. She was an undergraduate senior of African decent and was taking a philosophy class because she was recommended by her ISS teacher from last semester. After settling down, the girl first told us how she was so annoyed by taking this class and how she hated the professor. The girl did not like this class because it used a form of English that Socrates and his colleagues used to convey their views on how people behaved in societies, etc. Adding on, the girl did not like the teacher because the girl felt that her teacher spoke just like Socrates and there was no T.A. who can translate the teacher’s words in normal English. Then, the girl told us what she wanted help with.

She explained the two things she was looking to gain from her drive to the union, parking her car there, and then walking across campus on one of coldest days to the writing center in the library. First, she wanted to get some help with understanding how to do MLA citation and second, to get some ideas on extending her paper another half a page.

The first objective was met within minutes. We showed her a few examples on how to do MLA citation from a book in the writing center. I also showed her a website from Purdue University dedicated to MLA citation with many examples online. Then, we went over her questions on plagiarism. Recently, her teacher had asked the writing center to do a presentation about plagiarism in her class and this presentation left this student paranoid about her writing. Katie and I helped the girl understand plagiarism and all was well until the next part.

It was around 8:10 and Katie had to leave. She was already 10 minutes late and I assured her that I would be okay. This was one of the scariest moments of my life! I was going to finish up a student session and then run the writing center by myself for the next 40 minutes! Well, the discussion with this student went pretty well. I made sure I didn’t say anything against the teacher and didn’t argue with the student either. I waited, patiently, for her to finish and pointed out how the teacher had given the students an interpretation of the philosopher’s essay. Eventually, the girl had calmed down and had a much more positive approach and revised the paper and added the half page she needed.

Overall, observing many tutors in the last couple of weeks has helped me greatly and I feel I did a pretty good job with handling this student once Katie left. However, I would also like to stress that Katie was there for most of the session and this session would not have been as easy for me if she had not been there.

Krish.