Gannon and Blog

Last Monday, I mentored Mike, my old protege. Since I've been his mentor for the past semester, we lept right in to his experiences thus far as a tutor.

I feel as though he could use some work in appearing confident and in control around tutees. I had observed him asking a student's name in order to find out if she was his tutee. The encounter felt awkward - it went something like this:

Mike: Hey, what's your name?
Tutee: Jane Smith.

Mike then turned away from her without explaining why he'd asked her name, while the student looked on confusedly. I feel that little courtesy things are really important in giving the Learning Studio an accessible, non-threatening feel. I suggested to him a different way of encountering potential tutees:

Mike: Hello, are you here for the writing center?
Tutee: Yes.
Mike: Do you know who you're meeting with? Would you happen to be with a "Michael"?
Tutee: No, I think I'm with someone named "Gannon."
Mike: Oh! I see. Well, I am not Gannon, but I'm sure the brilliant and prolific Gannon Reedy will be out in one moment to fill your brain with glorious tutoring.

Something like that. To his credit, that had been the first time he'd ever asked a student on the orange couch, so naturally he was a bit rusty.

And so we spent some time going over these important wee details, which I think don't necessarily need to be taught in classrooms and theory books, but are great for mentor-mentee conferencing.

We also discussed what one should do if a student comes in with an paper that is only OK but is so riddled with grammar errors that it is very difficult to understand. I run into this problem a bit myself and often wonder what I should do. We decided that it is more important for the paper to be understood, so focusing on grammar would be the most important thing to do in this circumstance.