Kayla TS #12

Date/Time: October 7, 2016/4:30 pm - 5:30 pm
Location: Tutee's Home
Topic/Skill: Writing an Explanatory Essay/Planning and Writing
Feedback provided to tutee:

It was a little struggle, but this session was great as well.  I believe PJ did his best, and that's all I can ask for.

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned:

Today was a must that PJ finished planning his essay, and then write it.  The whole point of planning it was to reduce the time it took actually writing the essay.  During the planning phase, I had him write in complete sentences so that when he wrote his essay, it could be easier for him.  I gave him a time limit to complete his planning (20 minutes I think), since he had to finish body paragraphs 2 and 3 and the conclusion.  He was able to do this in less that time.  Then I gave him the rest of the session to write the essay.  Now I'm not sure as why he was confused on starting the essay, but he was not doing it right.  I tried to make him write on his own as much as possible, but 10 minutes in I noticed he was skipping lines for every sentence.  During his diagnostic writing from the first session, he knew how to write an essay and when to start a new paragraph.  So I had to explain to him that although we planned his essay out in sentences on every line, he can't write it like that.  So he started over, and did the same thing again for the introduction, but started writing regular for the rest of the essay.  It was weird.  Then I guess I confused him when I said use your outline to expand on your ideas in your essay.  He thought I was saying re-write every sentence that he planned out, and I didn't want him to do that.  I just wanted him to use those sentences, but let him know that it's okay to add new material.  So maybe I confused him again, but I didn't think I did since it was simple.  He was able to finish before the time ran out.  I plan to read it, and hopefully it is a cohesive essay (for a 5th grade level of course).  I think I really need to start printing out worksheets and graphic organizers so that he can actually write on the worksheet and not just copy what is necessary from the computer.  I should definitely invest into that.