As a first year writing tutor, it is hard to pinpoint only one place of improvement since I’ve learned so many new skills during the year. It is impossible to be a tutor without learning how to get to know someone in under 10 seconds. You also find that you yourself are getting better at understanding foundational things in other aspects of your life. Tutoring may seem like a very surface level skill, but from my experience it has rewired how I look at my own life.
Ironically, I have taught more math than anything else as a writing tutor, which may seem annoying in the moment, but there is something so important about being able to teach others foundational skills and concepts. I noticed myself using the same skills that I had reviewed and taught other kids during the SAT, or even occasionally in my own math classes. Learning how to boil something down to the most basic concept, and then how to apply it to everything else after is an irreplaceable skill. A lot of times students have a hard time understanding the content because teachers often don’t notice how overcomplicated they make simple operations seem. I have learned to break it down, and go step by step. “Because this number is next to the X instead of added to it, you would divide to get rid of it”. Little things like that can change the way someone looks at future problems. In my own class the next day, I suddenly find it a little easier to work one step at a time and use concepts to infer the next step.
When I do work with writing, it is often in the form of leaving comments on a piece. Criticizing someone’s writing can be super intimidating, and sometimes it’s hard to be objective when you might have a different opinion or writing style. One of the most critical things I have learned to do is to look at the content rather than the structure. While this may seem obvious as the number one rule of tutoring, I still have to remind myself that they can find that missing quotation or period themselves. Instead, think about what they are trying to say, and who they are saying it to. When you write something, you sometimes unconsciously assume that the reader would also be an expert in what you have to say, so there could be missing context or confusing spaces that your head will fill in on its own, but someone else’s wouldn’t. This is our job as a tutor: making sure that they are getting the message across.
Learning how to make a really helpful comment is an imperative part of editing a piece. Sometimes a teacher will tell you to give a compliment, a criticism, and then another compliment when peer editing as a way to not hurt someone’s feelings. While there are parts of that that are true, I have to remind myself that this person has asked for my honest feedback. If you see a part that you really like, put a comment there and tell them about it, this way they are reassured that their writing is not all wrong. When I give feedback, I will usually follow it with some advice on how they could rectify the problem, even if the advice is kind of vague. A general piece of advice is honestly more helpful than a specific correction, because it will make them think more deeply about why the sentence is worth changing.
Editing other work has also helped me. I have started looking at my own writing with the same lens that I would someone else’s. I start to think about how someone else might interpret the writing, or whether I need to clarify something or get rid of it. Teaching someone else can be one of the best ways to improve your own understanding and skills. Tutoring is the perfect opportunity to learn new skills and expand your horizons. While I won’t explicitly call this an ad for the learning center, I will happily promote it any day.
Skyline Learning Center 