Fog

My experience with online tutoring, or tutoring by typing something out, has revolved around workshop critiques and a few newspaper articles. I've never had anyone ask me to look over a paper for them via e-mail, but it doesn't seem like a very daunting task.

In my creative writing classes, I am tasked to write a critique of someones work on the computer before class so that both the professor and the writer can have copies in print so that there is some chunk of text to read from beginning to end about a particular piece. The only difference between these critiques and an actual online submission to the Writer's Room would be the focus on grammar. Which, based on the examples from Raforth's "Responding Online," seem a little confusing to do for someone not familiar with the genre of online tutoring. He bounces one response after another with some spacing to emphasize points for the writer to look at, but if you've worked with Microsoft Word recently, the ability to track the changes you've made to the document seems to be the best route for a more hands-on online approach.

To the right, or left, of the text there are red lines leading to little bubbles with descriptions of what changes have been made. This, along with a written critique of the work not necessarily talking about overall reaction but talking more about clarity and repetitive grammatical errors, seems to be an easier way to make direct comments on the text. Sending a response with the attached edited copy would offer an immediate document for the writer to compare to their original draft. Bouncing text like that back and forth to showcase the progression of the conversation would keep the progress clear and create a history of documents to look back at and point out errors and awkwardness. Otherwise, things get foggy.

Little Bug

In the cases of non-traditional students and students with learning disabilities, the ego has be put away. That little bug eyed multi-colored ball floating over your shoulder screaming, "But I've done this, and I can do this and why would you write like this?" has to shut it's mouth.

Sometimes it's hard to throw it out, but I think that in extreme cases of learning disabilities and even with some non-traditional students, the ego is the first thing to go. In a regular session, your ego might be what gets you through it, what helps you find the answers or helps with the answers the client is looking for. In that case, it comes in handy and is something to be proud of.

I'm not saying that the tutors expertise with the English language is something to throw out of the window, but the fact that you might want to compare how your English stacks up with the paper that you're reading is something a tutor has to abstain from doing. I know this because it's hard not to compare yourself with someone, even if you don't mean to, because us Americans can be self-righteous and self-centered, and I often find myself making tiny comparisons or sizing up a piece of writing based on how it compares to my own English. But now that I'm aware of it I'm in better control of it.

I've only had to deal with a couple non-traditional students so far in the Writer's Room, and they've all been equally as intelligent as me but I still helped them out. It had to do with me not trying to prove anything to either myself or the client. Instead, I willingly helped the person because what they could learn from me is equal to what I could learn from them.