This tutor began with two tutees and he let one tutee leave 15 minutes into the session! I was shocked, it made me think of the thin line between therapist and tutor because this girl came to the session talking so much and explaining all these ideas on a research topic and he was like "you have great ideas you just need to narrow it down to one and start on that since it's due Wednesday." So she shows him this paper that was based on Edgar Allen Poo and she said she wants to find research on his poems in connection to his life and he said "I think that's a good idea you have a lot of good ideas in the paper already just find research that help you connect the poem with his life," she said "Okay thanks a lot and left." If I were the tutor I would have sent her to the lab that is in the writing center have her find at least one article and then have her write one paragraph showing how she would connect the poems with Poo's life, this guy just let her leave. I had to look at my watch to see how quick that session was and we started that session at 11:50am she was gone by 12:15-12:20pm, max.
Then he moved on to the second tutee, I thought the writing center was to help students with their paper structure. This tutor became a grammar expert. He began reading her paper out loud and he would point out every little grammar error this student had. First of all, you can clearly tell that she was not an English native speaker so her writing was not academically correct, but she was there because she needed help with her research paper not with her grammar.
While he was pointing out every grammar issue in her paper, I guess he got angry and literally stopped reading her paper to discipline her about articles. He got a blank sheet of paper and explained the difference between "the" and "a." He said "if I say I went to A store in Manhattan, I am speaking about one store out of the many stores in Manhattan, but if I say I went to THE store in Manhattan, I am referring to one specific store, so I would write, I went to THE store on 34 street in Manhattan." First of all, that was so random, second what does that have to do with her paper or her structure of the paper? Again, this guy shocked me.
He continues reading her paper out loud and the only time he gave good advised was when he said "you need to some how connect this to the topic sentence because you are getting off topic." The rest of the session he just pointed out grammar issues as if grammar issues was one of his pet-peeves.
The session was 20 minutes before finishing and he went to the office and got this poor girl grammar worksheets. SERIOUSLY? It's summer, it's bad that she has to do a research paper during the summer, It's even worse that she is taking summer classes and you're giving her grammar homework???
Then we left 15 minutes before the session was even over.
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