Three Girls & One Tutor

I was fortunate to observe a session that involved multiple students and only one tutor.  Three girls greeted the tutor kindly and pulled up some chairs to sit down and discuss why they had made their way into tutoring world. One of the three girls promptly discussed this was their first visit to The Learning Studio and that they needed help adjusting a collaborated piece so that it flowed smoothly, despite their various types of writing styles and authorial tones presented. Another girl chimed in and mentioned that the transitions were like a fly stuck in bubblegum: going nowhere. The tutor laughed pleasantly and reassured he was there to help.

The tutor then asked each girl to read the portion they had written. In the voices of each girl, it was highly evident they connected to the words they had placed carefully within the eight and a half by eleven pieces of paper.  The tutor himself then began to look over the piece with a pen in his hand, and the girls chatted amongst themselves quietly until he finished reading it over. He made a few markings here and there, but not enough to make the girls uncomfortable.  He asked one by one, each girl what they believed was a good way to create a transition. Each girl had a different idea of how to resolve this issue but surely here and there, a few points overlapped. The tutor began to focus on those ideas they overlapped with and had the girls collectively focus on those ideas and how to progress those thoughts.

Overall, the session seemed to go along pleasantly. Though the girls did not get a straight answer from the tutor on how to resolve it, they felt confident that they could take those ideas they all agreed with and turned them into nice flowing transitions. The tutor, personally to me, did a well job keeping calm and getting a perspective from each of the three girls. It is important to gain insight from everyone, especially on a piece that is written by multiple people with different ways of approaching situations.