Our Beloved Tutees

As a tutor, we’ve all had our fair share of unique tutees. These are a few the most common ones that I have encountered.

The Quiet Ones:

What awkward silences feel like

You know these guys- the ones who read so quietly that you have to get to an almost creepy level of closeness to them to hear. Listening to them is a workout in itself. The only time a loud-ish noise comes from their mouth is when they breathe a deep sigh of relief, because they finished reading their essay. Tutoring them can be quite a challenge; as you ask them open ended questions, they stare into your soul, resulting in the dreaded awkward silence, and then promptly forcing you to answer yourself. I’m pretty sure I’ve had a good deal of one sided conversations while tutoring, but it’s not too bad-I’m fun to talk to.

The Overly Confident Ones:

These types of tutees always leave me feeling confused. Once upon a time, one of my tutees wrote a sentence that went something like this: “It was my brother and he was, wet.”

I asked them why they chose to add a comma before ‘wet’ and they simply responded that they thought it made the sentence more dramatic. After explaining to them why this was incorrect, they chose to go against my advice, because they really needed that part of their narrative to be dramatic. Later, in this same session, I was explaining to the tutee how independent and dependent clauses work, so that they could correct their commas. The tutee kept probing me with questions such as, “But is that really the way it works? Because I know that I am right. Are you really sure that you are right?” Eventually, I brought out the reference sheets to show them that I was, in fact, correct. Despite this, the tutee insisted that their way was correct and refused to take any of my suggestions into consideration.

The Talented Ones: 

These are both my favorite and least favorite types of papers to tutor. While it’s great to see talented writers’ work and learn from the fluidity of their writing, it’s frustrating to feel as if there’s nothing to do to help them improve. You almost start to wish for a typo or a comma splice, so that you have something to point out. It just feels wrong to leave the tutee’s paper the same way it came in.

The Unmotivated Ones: 

Right off the bat, you can tell that you’re in for a loooong ride. Filling out the cover sheet, you realize that their paper was due last week, oops! Next, the tutee shoves the paper in your general direction and is likely to utter the few words a tutor never wants to hear: “Can you just like...fix it?” I try to my best to specifically engage these types of tutees, otherwise I am certain that I would end up rewriting their entire essay for them. It often feels like not much is accomplished in a session, however they tend to leave very nice post conference evaluations (yay!).

Despite how negative some of these descriptions may seem, I thoroughly enjoy tutoring and tutoring a wide array of students. Tutoring has taught me how to deal with difficult social situations and that long silences are OK, and I hope that all of you have taken this away from tutoring as well.

If you ever want to share an experience with a tutee with me, feel free to email me. natalie_groder@yahoo.com