Second Session February 28, 2011

For the second session, I helped Tom to write a proposal for his Justice Studies class. I noticed that he depended on me to tell him what to do because he kept asking me how to write certain things. Of course, my job is to help him get it on his own, not tell him the answers. I told him to say it out loud before writing it to see if it made sense to him. He did just that, and was able to point out some errors (not all). However, he did not know how to correct the errors. His errors consisted of spelling, missing articles, and wrong preposition usage. He copied a lot from either his textbook or online sources. I asked him to explain to me what he copied meant, and he was unable to tell me. It seemed to me like he was just taking the easy way out. I had him synthesize his outline for me and explained to him that when he presents it in class, he will have to do it in his own words instead of just reading from the paper. He gets frustrated when he does not know how to correct his errors. Conversely, he takes in my advice and suggestions very well and attempts to follow them. I encouraged him to ask questions when he was not sure of what word or word form for verbs to use.