I had my first week of tutoring this week. It was a little nerve-wracking at first. There's definitely something to be said about fostering a writing community in the writing center, especially since I've found I have a lot of free time to do work and get to know other tutors. I've only had 2 appointments so far, and 1 unofficial appointment helping Amanda. My first tutee came into the writing center with very little work done and with little understanding of the assignment. I soon realized that I barely understood the assignment either. Rather than accept the poor prompt and move on to the girl's writing, I was stuck with the vague-ness of the assignment sheet. It made me mad because if I don't understand the assignment, how can I help someone write a paper for it? I did the best I could, though, and stressed that she e-mail me when she had more done with the paper - which she did the next night.
With the session I helped Amanda with, I can see why EWC has a chapter about time in it. It is so easy to go over time because you want to make sure that a tutee has a good experience and walks away believing that we have helped their writing rather than wasted their time. Amanda and I spend 50 minutes with the girl, something we could only do because we didn't have any other appointments. I think it will be hard for me to just stop a session only because 30 minutes is up--especially if the session doesn't naturally come to an end at this time.
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Sarah, I think it was an awesome idea to stick with the somewhat-faulty assignment sheet than push on with the girl's writing. I know how difficult it can be and the discipline required to stay in that gray area -- as you said, it is awfully frustrating! I think that was probably an excellent use of the girl's time, too; although we're trying to work with writers on writing in the Center, I think helping students/showing students how to negotiate an assignment sheet - the step before the writing! - is a great idea.
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