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How do I set a purpose for a tutoring session?

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How do I set a purpose for a tutoring session?

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Every tutoring session should start with the same question: "What would you like to accomplish during this tutoring session?" Often times, students schedule tutoring sessions knowing what they struggle with. Therefore, your tutee will likely have a goal of his or her own for the session already set.

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What if my tutee's goal is to make the essay more persuasive? How do I continue from there?

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What if my tutee's goal is to make the essay more persuasive? How do I continue from there?

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In persuasive essays, the most important devices are ethos, pathos, and logos. Ensure that your tutee is utilizing all three devices. To do this, write the three devices at the top of your notes, and as your tutee is reading, list each time he or she uses each rhetorical device. If there is an imbalance, and, for example, your tutee uses logos more than any other device, it will be visually noticeable when you look at your notes. This method would allow you to figure out which rhetorical device needs more development instantly. Using this method, your tutee will leave the session with an essay that is more persuasive than the Nature Conservancy commercial.

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What if my student asks me to just check his or her grammar? 

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What if my student asks me to just check his or her grammar? 

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This type of tutoring blurs the line between a writing center tutor and an editing service. There are two main methods for handling a “check my grammar” tutee. Many tutors would suggest that the tutee reads through the paper and then go about correcting grammar just like a tutor would correct syntax, organization, or any other obstacle that could prevent the student from getting an A on her paper. However, I began to feel that using this method didn’t truly benefit students beyond that essay. If you correct grammar directly and in the moment, your tutee will simply correct the mistake and move on. I find it useful to treat the session as a typical session while prioritizing the structure and ideas first. Afterwards, I end the session by teaching a mini-lesson on the grammar error that occurs most frequently throughout the essay and asking the student to correct his or her own mistakes using what was learned in the lesson. The Purdue Online Writing Lab suggests that tutors "always have students demonstrate their understanding of a concept. While this idea applies to all facets of tutoring, it holds especially true for tutoring sessions concentrating on grammar. Students should exhibit their comprehension of a concept either by explaining it in their own terms or employing it in their writing."

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These resources provide a rationale for tutoring grammar and strategies tutors might use when working with grammar in a tutoring session.

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What if my tutee doesn't know what the purpose should be?

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What if my tutee doesn't know what the purpose should be?

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When working with a tutee who is revising or writing based on little to no feedback and doesn’t know what the goal of the session is, ideally, a tutor should treat the session as any other while prioritizing mistakes in the following order
First: Ideas/Argument/Thesis/Overall Structure
Second: Structure/Logic of Particular Sections “
Third: Individual Paragraphs
Last: Syntax and Grammar

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The way you close a session is as important as the way you open it. Too often, tutors rush the end of the session, feeling the need to get to the next writer on the sign-up sheet. Don't rush.

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What if a goal is set and then eventually the session deviates from the initial goal and moves onto another?

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What if a goal is set and then eventually the session deviates from the initial goal and moves onto another?

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Sometimes, during tutoring sessions, we learn that what a tutee originally thought he struggled with isn't truly the problem. If your tutee thought that his thesis was weak, but his thesis was acceptable, and the essay only needed to be reorganized, that is absolutely okay.