College Mentoring Program - First Visit

As my name was called in regard to who I would be paired with for this semester, a sense of nervousness pervaded my body. I was unsure of my ability to give advice without being a fix-it shop. After all, I had only attempted to shadow a writing consultant once, and the tutee was a no-show. I was also extremely nervous about how I would react; what if the paper was so inarticulate I didn’t know how to help the writer?

Luckily though, my tutee seemed to really grasp the concept of the question, and although she had a few recurring grammatical mistakes, her ideas were great. At first, I found myself doing something that I should not do. She had worded her introduction in a very awkward manner, but the idea she was attempting to portray was great. Thus, I asked her to read it, and see if she could come up with a better was to explain her point, or if she could see how it was awkward. This ultimately failed, and I suggested a revision to her. This revision used her words as I just flipped around what she said, explaining how that would resonate better with the reader. When I was doing this though, I thought to myself that this is a rough draft; edits should come later, thoughts now.

After putting myself back on track, I reread her paper and circled interesting points that I believed she could elaborate on. I asked her questions on these points and she gave amazing arguments- why hadn’t she written that to being with?! I praised her for really getting to the root of her arguments, and she told me that although she though the task at hand was a bit daunting at first, she felt much more comfortable about what she was going to write about, which really made me feel great.

After we finished talking about her paper we discussed college for a bit as well as her aspirations. She is so excited about learning and even aspires to become a doctor. However, I couldn’t help but feel a bit sad. This girl possessed so much determination, but her writing was no way near the standards of others around the country applying to college. This really made me think about how where you grow up and how you grow up often affects the level of education you are able to obtain. I have no doubt she will continue to be determined regardless of where she goes to college; I just wish she had the writing to get into a well recognized school, but who knows what is possible!