During these past four months, I have had the opportunity to work with a diverse range of students through drop-ins at the library as well as during appointments at the Writing and Communication Centre. Among the teaching and communication skills that I have learned through this experience, I am also thankful for the lessons learned. Here are a few:
Learning never stops
The experience of working with everyone from undergraduate to post-graduate students has taught me that writing is a life long learning process. I don’t mean that in a one-day-I’m-going-to-wake-up-as-an-amazing writer way but more along the lines of looking at writing as a constant opportunity to improve. There is no formula or algorithm to construct the perfect essay, rather a successful essay requires the writer to learn from their past mistakes and avoid making them again. Mistakes don’t have to be negative if you end up learning from them!
Understand what you don’t understand
As a tutor, determining what the student needs help with can sometimes be half the work. Learning to identify the core issue when it comes to revising written assignments is a necessary skill. “Why?” you might ask. Well imagine this; you spend hours and hours revising your grammar in your essay only to realize that your organization is the biggest issue. Not only do you now have to reorganize your work but you might have to rewrite entire paragraphs. That is why it is important to start looking at the bigger problems rather than the fine details.