The Tutoring Book - California State University, Sacramento

some worked well for me but others, even though they were great ideas, were too time consuming to use
with the limited time we have. For instance, I tried a variation of the, “three-by-five card exercise” (Harris
35). What I like about this approach is that it helps the writer zero in on a topic and see the points he or
she wants to use to support the main idea. It encourages the tutee to be an active participant in the tutoring
session and to take control over their own paper. Unfortunately, I soon discovered that it was too time
consuming to use at writing center. However, I still share that option once in awhile with the tutee to use
at home when they have more time available. What seems to work the best for me is to just ask the tutee
questions about their book or article they need to write about, talk about it and have them write down
keywords that they think are important or relate to their writing prompt. Then discuss how they could be
linked together and draw lines to the supporting ideas already written down. This approach is part of the
mapping technique that you will learn about early on in the semester. One of my regular tutees tried
mapping at the beginning of the semester and before long, she moved onto outlining her paper before she
wrote it. This worked really well for the tutee and her writing improved dramatically. The bottom line, do
whatever you find that works best for you and the tutee.
Focus on One or Two Things Only at Each Tutoring Session
Focus on one or two aspects of a paper to work on for each tutoring session. There are plenty of things to
choose from, such as, clarity, focus, thesis, structure, organization, voice, sentence structure, grammar,
word choice, spelling, and so forth. The list is long but shows that we must pick only one or more things
to work on at a time. When I first began to tutor, I was overwhelmed and unsure about tutoring and
thought to myself, where do I start. For me, the best way to start this process with the tutee is to
remember to smile, be friendly, positive, and truly interested in helping them. Decide after talking with
them what would be the best place to start and let them participate in that decision. So even if we may
think to ourselves, “Help!” Just remind yourself that a paper can’t be made perfect in a half hour session.
Working Together to Find Solutions
Every person is unique in the way they learn so as tutors we need to find what works best for each
individual tutee and to make sure the paper is written properly. That is when we need to converse with the
writer, ask questions, and find out what is confusing them. Sometimes, a writer may be having a problem
with the same thing every tutoring session. They become frustrated over making the same mistake over
and over again and we as tutors may feel like we have failed them, so find out why a certain mistake
keeps happing by listening to them. Let them talk and share what with you what confuses them.
When a student becomes frustrated over making the same mistake over and over again, I try to find out
why that happens by asking them questions. An example of this is when a student was having trouble
with the tenses, which can be difficult to keep straight for an ESL student; we worked out a way to help
him remember. We need to remember that getting used to the English language takes time just like it
takes time for any of us to learn another language. I discovered an interesting tidbit that I added to my list
of “things to remember.” A student explained to me that in his country, the tenses were not addressed in
each sentence. This tutee showed me the words or symbols that are written at the end of the initial
sentence at the beginning of the paper. Those word symbols tells the reader whether the sentence is in the
past, present, or future tense and until the tense changes again, there was no need to worry about changing
the tense in their writing. He was so exasperated over the fact that he couldn’t remember to address the
tenses in each sentence throughout the paper. So we worked together and made a list of words in the three
tenses, past, present, future and listed them under the symbols he used in his own language. When he
became confused over what tense should he use, we would go back to his list of words and symbols. This
helped the tutee to gain control over his paper and gave him confidence by having something to refer back
to when needed to. Our team effort paid off and we were both very excited when we found something that
worked for him. Remember, this was a very specific technique that was used to help this one individual.
So keep the handy tips you learn from the tutoring class and the books you will read in a notebook and try
them to see what works best for each person you tutor.
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