Third case study

For my third session i had one student this time and was very concerned because during my last two sessions i got use to handling two students at a time.  However it went pretty smoothly so i was worried over nothing. This students topic was about weight discrimination and how over weight people are not treated the same as "skinny types". Her topic was very interested and asked her if this is something she is comfortable writing about, her reply was that she wanted to work with something she has no knowledge about and i was bit concerned because she did not have a lot of information down on this topic. So for this session i started by asking questions on the topic, how are over weight people treated in this country, why is it okay for 100 lb models to wear very little to no clothing and not okay for people who are a few pounds heavier? I asked this questions to get her motor starting and to see if she understood the assignment. She gave a few great ideas and basically went back and forth talking about that conversation. After discussing the topic i asked her to write down her thoughts and ideas for a few minutes so she wont forget what we talked about. After her free write, i gave a few ideas on advertising companies and how they use women and their bodies to get profit. Towards the end of the session she had her ideas, her thesis statement and advised her to do more research on her topic and to focus on body paragraphs as well.

Second case study

For my second tutoring session i had two students from an ENG 101 class and both students are friends and had very similar problems with their educational research paper. Both students A and B did not have a draft but had many ideas and because they could go in many directions with this paper both students had problems starting the piece. For both students they had the same topic NCLB act, so i told them to writing about what you think of this topic, is it negative or positive? I let them write for about 10 minutes while i looked over their assignment. Student A finish a bit faster than B, so we worked together for a few minutes while B get her thoughts sorted out. With student A we talked about the ideas she wrote down and what which ideas she felt more passionate about. I told student A to bullet point those ideas as they will be part of her thesis and body paragraphs. I then switch to student B who was ready to present her ideas and pretty much asked her the same questions as student A. I also asked both students if they were for NCLB or against and then depending on their answer write the paper from that point of view. I went back and forth between the students until both tutees had an intro and a thesis statement, and all they have to focus is the body paragraphs along with a conclusion. Both students had all the research and ideas, but were just stuck on how to start and did not how to write a thesis statement. this is proof on high school education today in this country that students who are in ENG 101 are having trouble with thesis statements or do not even what a thesis statement is.