Leading Sessions 4 & 5

Today I had two leading sessions back to back, but it was with two opposite students. The first was a very motivated writer, and she was awesome to work with. She was a grad student and an ESL student studying to teach English to ESL students. We worked on her word choice. She often forgot to put "the' or 'a' in front of certian words such as "Teacher should answer the students" should be "The teacher should answer the students." She was genuinly interested in developing her writing in English. She asked me how I edit my own work and if I could tell that her paper was written by an ESL student. She did begin to catch some of the akward wordings she used. I suggested to her to read her paper out loud to herself and to print it off if that would help her. It was relieving to be able to work a student interested in their writing more than their actual grade.

And then my day turned around. The next session I lead was with a stressed out ESL writer who said he wanted me to help him with his word choice. He really just wanted me to edit his paper, asking me for my opinion and avoiding working on any other aspects. His paper was only 2 pages but he was in a hurry and explained when he left, after only a short 15 minute session, that his paper was due at a 6 o'clock class. Although his paper was very well written, it was frustrating to go back to working with a stressful "help me get a 4.0 by editing this for me" kind of student.
He did not put much effort into the session. I tried to ask him questions to spur his attention away from grammar, but he was not interested. I guess you get what you put in.