Non-directional tutoring

I have had my first really big challenge in the Writing Center since coming back from Istanbul. The problem is that in Istanbul I had to be VERY directive as their teacher. The lack of English skills in many of my students was nothing short of stunning. Many of them could not write a sentence in English if their life depended on it. However, my tutoring style has always been a mixture of directive and non directive comments. So all year I had to put my 'tutor training' aside and dig straight in to doing whatever it took to help them. Now I am back in the writing center with English 109 students. Yesterday I got back descriptive essays that I assigned. I have three students in that group and all three essays were very disappointing. Why was I disappointed, you ask? Because I really struggled with being non-directive. None of the three wrote well - that was to be expected. If they were good writers they would not have been placed in English 109. Student A did not do the whole assignment. Student B had all kinds of misplaced modifiers in her run on sentences in an attempt to "look smart". And Student C had a jumbled up mess of poorly formed disorganized sentences, however hers was the most interesting essay. Sitting at one of the big tables in the writing center, with my newly assigned Mento, (tutor trainee) I really struggled with how to approach these students. I asked lots of questions and did, I think, all the right things, but I was definitely battling with myself over the whole thing. And once again asking myself, "Can I do this again? I am not one of their peers."