I enjoy a new challenge. In tutoring, this came in the form of a student who wanted help in broadcast writing. I’ve written for broadcast —both rewriting Associated Press (AP) stories and covering local events and writing those stories for the local radio news cast. The other broadcast writing came as I directed and produced three half hour programs that were aired on the local PBS affiliate in Muncie, IN back in the day when I was studying for my Master’s Degree. So that required directing a camera crew and then editing the actual video tape (in the days before digital editing came into the broadcast field), drafting the script for Voice Over (VO) of the Sound on Tape (SOT) footage and then recording the VO of the edited video program.
Now that the garlic is all braided and almost all sold, my attention turns in earnest to finding new students to tutor. And just in time as the academic year gears up.
It is a great joy to meet with the same student for a session each week. We look at what tasks they are developing for various classes and study strategies to help them complete those tasks successfully. There is nothing better than receiving a text from the student: “Ms. Deborah, I got 97% on my AP practice Multiple Choice (MC) exam!” I am as excited as the student. It is delightful to see their skills and confidence develop week by week, term by term, and course by course.
As the student is more independent of my help because they have integrated skills into their planning and drafting processes, I seek new strategies for the next assignments they will encounter in their courses. I let the student guide me to know what task or skills they need for upcoming assignments. We rely on teacher scoring rubrics, comments and in class instruction to be sure my instruction is in sync with what the student is receiving in class.
2023 was eventful and in many ways stressful, yet it presented hope for growth in my tutoring business through WYZANT.com Learning Studio.
Early in December ‘23, I was grateful when my first WYZANT student accepted my application for a job. We met for 3 sessions and they progressed well. They said they were pleased to work with me and that I’d been helpful to their writing process. Yet they did not leave a rating or a review.
Ratings and reviews—that’s what other students or their parents look at to see if they want to request me to be their tutor. I try really hard to provide each student/writer the coaching and help they need to become better writers and to polish the essay they are drafting or revising at the moment. I need my tutoring students to leave ratings and good reviews. I’ve received mostly 5* reviews. However, I’m grateful for every review. Some point out what they want me to do differently. Some may be irritated with tutors before they get to me, and some may have nothing good to say about me. Their reviews are also valuable to me to help me learn how to better serve their needs.
A couple weeks after that first Wyzant student, a doctoral student selected me to review a critical report 2 days before it was due. I agreed to begin immediately and review their report until my next appointment (which was a Christmas gathering with musician friends). I’d return to finish posting my review to them at a specified time that same evening. They accepted these timeframes.
After working 20 minutes past the time I told them I needed to stop, as soon as we were on our way to the gathering, I continued to review and mark the draft for 30 minutes on the road, each way. On return to the Learning Studio a half hour before I’d promised, I added in-line comments. Then I noticed a message from the doctoral student.
They had messaged to say, “Thank you, but I need someone who understands the doctorate and content perspective.” I responded, a bit offended, that I do understand the Doctorate and content perspective. They’d hired me to proofread and help with clarity of language. So that is what I reviewed in the document. And those were the highlights I’d made on the doc. I left comments where the language was unclear—did not communicate a clear idea. I finished commenting, sent them a link to the reviewed doc and, as I always do, sent a link to the Summary Response form with definitions, examples, and some links to further explain the language commentary I’d left.
I charged them for 20 minutes less than I’d informed them I’d spent Reviewing and commenting on the doc. They paid my full rate (of which WYZANT gives me only 75%). The doctoral student did not post a rating or leave any grateful comment. Not a “Thank you, this helped me finalize my language choices. I appreciate that you fit my paper around and into your evening’s engagements at such late notice. It was kind of you to accommodate my needs and accept my request.” Nada.
I can understand that the simplistic definitions and simple instructions I have pre-scripted for college essays—some students are writing their first college essay after years away from school—obviously seemed too simplistic for the task he had to complete. So, despite my being offended, his comment informed me that I must create a Doctoral and Masters Cheat Sheet of resources and examples in more sophisticated, graduate level language .
I am grateful for the tutoring income. And I am a person, offering a service to people who want to use my knowledge and experience. I’m willing to share and help you benefit from what I’ve learned. I won’t do your work for you, but I’m delighted to teach you how to do what I know how to do. You have to put your ideas about your content and research into your text; you must paint those ideas with your voice AND with English diction, sentence construction, syntax, and language conventions to create your masterpiece to put on display for your audience to read.
My purpose for doing this tutoring job is to let you USE what I’ve learned. I hope to mentor writers (even those at the doctoral level or published authors) and some student writers to become the very best writers they can be. My goal is to develop independent writers who know what they want to say and how to say it most effectively so that the reader clearly follows their train of thought, understands, and is moved by what the writer is saying. I hope to create independent writers who don’t need me anymore.
By the time my third WYZANT student came to me, I’d read the tutor forums and found that I should ASK for ratings and reviews prior to the next session so that I find out the student’s perspective on how this session met their needs. Not only because this helps me plan the next session with that student, but also because ratings and reviews are posted on my public profile for prospective clients to see. I asked my student to watch for WYZ’s email and rating/review form. A day later when I’d not been informed of a rating, I sent them a message, asking for a review. Later they told me Wyzant emailed them the rating form after I sent my email to them. They immediately rated 5* and gave a warm, satisfied review. I’m grateful. Since their review, other students have requested I tutor them through Wyzant.
I hope I can help every writer who sends me a request for tutoring or proofreading. I hope each one will grow in their knowledge of essay writing and in their skills to masterfully craft the English language. I hope I continue to learn what to say and how to say it so my students know their own strengths and are willing to learn new skills. I hope I become a more empathic tutor/mentor/guide and am able to discern just what each writer needs. That is my hope for 2024.
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Yes, I really do enjoy working with writers to hone their writing skills for essays and other texts. But that doesn’t mean it’s an easy job. As I work with a writer or a text, I am racing the clock. I must review the essay, comment in-line to the text, and explain what skills the writer may need to learn and how to apply those skills as they revise. And all that must be done as quickly as possible. After all, the writers don’t want to pay any more than is absolutely necessary for my review. They want to revise the essay to be the best they can possibly craft at this moment … and submit it before it is due.
BUT sometimes technology feels like the wrench dropped into the works that grinds the machine to a halt. Don’t misunderstand me, I only tutor online now, and I’m grateful for technology which makes that possible. Had I found online tutoring platforms when I retired, I might have embraced this career 8 years ago.
No, I don’t think I would have. Though I did some out-of-country tutoring online that year when a friend asked me to teach his children, at that time, I didn’t know how to harness the technology to our best advantage and success.
What I really wanted to do at that junction in my life was to narrate audiobooks to bring in an income to supplement my pension and tiny, little social security checks. And that’s a story you can read in my Audiobook Narration blog Career after retirement. I do very much enjoy narrating books, and editing them is fascinating. I look forward to the next author who asks me to narrate their book. But, in the meantime, I still need to supplement my income.
I launched this current tutoring career in February, 2023. Prior to this, I have tutored a total of 10 years, mostly in-person, during my teaching career and since retirement. I opened shop online this year. And I’m grateful it has brought in an income every month. Praise God!
Learning to use online tutoring platforms was slow-going and nerve-wracking. I read all the manuals and watched the training videos, but they didn’t prepare me, even though I practiced with the learning studios, to keep within the time-limits and to quickly manipulate those online platforms. I failed many times with many details of the technology before I asked my manager how to do what I was failing to do. I’m grateful that I received her personal instruction and explanation.
I’m grateful for a personal coach/manager who helped me—couldn’t have done it without her. Support answered many questions and resolved many confusions I had. However, I’d asked a few questions of Support that were never answered, but with enough hours online with students, I’ve realized the answers to those unanswered questions through trial and error and more time on the platform. Now I’m mostly comfortable with the technology systems and not so stressed, although I am still racing to stay within time limits.
However, I have realized that my own technology—my own computer—seems at times unknowable to me. I have failed three times in the past two days to find the essay I’ve just reviewed and must return to the student. I’m sure this is basic, and I should know it by now. My docs were saving in the last folder I had saved something in. But Recents wasn’t showing when I searched for the name of the doc. Finally, after several overtime (OT) sessions, I realized into which folder the essays were saving. What I learned: I must check the pathway through which the doc is saving and switch that to the folder where I actually want it to be so that I can find it. It will take a few more seconds with every doc at the beginning of a session and save me several minutes of frustrated search for the lost doc at the end of the session. Just to clarify, no doc was lost; I found each one—just went overtime to find it. Overtime I must NOT do.
Even that technology stress is not the most nerve-wracking part of the tutoring process. It’s the human interaction that can be the most stressful.
We tutors come to this job because we want to help students. I was so pleased to find an online channel through which I can work with writers and I can share my years of knowledge, skill and experience. It is a delight to pass all that on to this next generation of writers, always basing what each writer needs on the baseline text they present to me. Usually, the writers are grateful for my help and coaching. They are eager to learn and develop their writing skills. They listen well and can recount what they are learning. Their ratings and reviews bless my heart and help me connect with more students.
My nerves are rattled when a student comes to me, already irritated with tutors. “What’s with the tutors today?” one student quipped in the chat before I’d had a chance to offer him a greeting. I knew at that moment, this session would not end well. Still I tried to help him, without him accepting any piece of advice I suggested. Eventually, I realized the only comment he would find acceptable was for me to say his essay was well-written with no need of any revision, and “Have a nice day!” so he could submit that to his teacher to show he’d fulfilled his obligation to get a tutor review.
After too many minutes, I bowed out, unable to appease his frustration or convince him to try what I, and the previous tutors, had pointed out was what his essay needed to move to the next level. After I ended the session, he gave me a terrible rating, as I’m sure he did the previous tutors. His rating lowered my rating average and in the last few days of the month, kicked me out of receiving a 6% bonus that I had already met. That’s nerve-wracking and costly.
So I learn that my greatest joy—working with one student at a time to help them grow from where they are now—is also my greatest challenge and opportunity for growth—help every writer see what they are doing well and celebrate their current skill level. I must let each writer see that I see them and see the skill they already have developed. I must find a connection with each one. I must breathe deeply when they are frustrated and bring them to calm down and find something good about our work together. If I fail to get them to calm down and see what they have done well and to accept what I can offer them, if I fail to get them to take a break and come back later when they may be able to see a way forward to improve their draft, I must immediately transfer them to another tutor who might be able to help them.
I also learned that if the student writer continues to badger me and make derogatory comments about what I’m trying to tell them, rushing me to answer their questions and comments so much that I can’t focus on the review of their essay, I must report that student so that they will be removed from the platform and not allowed to belittle or verbally attack the next tutor.
When I learn from these experiences with difficult student writers a strategy for the next session, I relax with renewed hope and find my own path to walk away from my stressed nerves.