Quandary Observations 

The tutor requested the professor's criteria for the essay. He then reads essay in silence while the student waits. The silent reading continued for about fifteen minutes. His facial expression and body language didn't respond to the text at all and you could tell the student was getting nervous because she started shaking her foot. The silence is nerve wrecking because the longer we take to respond the more errors the student assumes in their work. It might have been better to ask her to read her essay aloud as in the "talk and write method". The long silence of reading someones work merely builds anxiety while speaking and writing together makes both partners in a dialogue which serves as corrective critique.

Once the conversation was underway his first words were "The main issue is you don't recognize literal tools". Maybe it's just me but shouldn't the first comment be positive? At the very least an encouraging comment on the topic to ease the stress of the student. The student offers " Professor asked me to write again so I'm trying to focus on my thesis."  This observation was interesting. The tutor felt the student didn't want to hear about the HOC's but I didn't get that sense from her. She did offer explanations and informed the tutor "that is what the professor wanted" when the tutor would point out an HOC concern but it may have been teased out of her more if she read it aloud. At this point he launched into LOC corrections which ultimately placed him the light of the "know it all taking over her paper".

Of the entire session the ending was the most unsettling. The tutor said, " In terms of content based stuff your weary of going against what the professor said." When would any student feel comfortable going against the direction of the professor? The student asks for help with citation and the tutor responds, " If he didn't give it to you, you could only guess where he got it from". However, I thought all she wanted was a general idea of how to cite correctly. Why not offer Purdue? He wraps up with "You should come back with the professors comments" and yet we know all too well the odds are low to none she'll have time to return to writing center.