Hey all,
Today Keenan and I talked about his sessions that he had this past week. We started off by talking about his two weekly students. He said that Monday was rough; they were both tired and slogging through the session, however, she told Keenan that she was pretty confident in her W&R class, and he agreed. I encouraged him on the fact that he didn’t just let the student go because she didn’t have anything to work on, but suggested she stay and work on other material. His other weekly student wrote his 2nd draft for his class, but didn’t have it or anything concrete to work on. Instead, Keenan had him write out a moment in his 2nd draft that wasn’t as strong as the others. They collaborated on this and had him write it up. Once again, I praised him for working with his students and using the session wisely. He had one drop-in student this week who worked on a W&R paper that Keenan had written before – so he said that went well. Overall, he said that this has been a pretty easy semester for tutoring. Since he will not be at the meeting on Friday, I asked him if he had any ideas to contribute about session dynamics – he did not.
That’s it for now, see you all on Friday!
KC
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KC,
ReplyDeleteUnderstandably, "off" days are a reality here at the WC--we all get bogged down with classes and other obligations but honestly, how well does Keenan represent the WC by being OBVIOUSLY tired and not fully engaged during his session? Another area of concern that I have is Keenan's comment that the student was doing well ("pretty confident") in her W & R 1 class. While this information may be conveyed by the instructor to the student (for example, in a mid-semester conference), or the student's personal feeling, the tutor MUST NEVER GIVE ANY INDICATION that this is the case--especially as this relates to progress in the class in which the tutor is not present--this is the domain of the instructor and student. Also such agreement can return to haunt the tutor; for example, the student getting a lower final grade on an assignment or for the class. Less direct comments along the lines of "your writing is much improved compared to when you first started coming to the WC" can be directed toward the student in order to boost confidence and strengthen the writing even further but direct commentary on a student's progress in a class should always be avoided.
Keenan's choice of working on other material with one student, and revising part of a second draft with another shows good use of session time--best practices indeed!
I just want to reiterate to ALL MENTORS that we need to be careful when mentees supposedly confide in us that their sessions proceed smoothly. As I have mentioned in previous posts, it is often the more difficult sessions that we learn the most from and grow as tutors. So yes, mentees should deal with thorny sessions in their practice; in the long run they will see great benefits. I am not implying that sessions cannot proceed in such a manner, only that the mentee may be avoiding a potential snaggy session by exclusively applying minamalist practices, or some other elusive measures. For the most part, all the newbies want to succeed as tutors, but may not be so willing to disclose specific details of sessions that did not proceed as smoothly as intended. What do other mentors think about this?
Steve