Reflections on Week 2 of Mentorship

After my initial meeting with my student, Corey, I was very excited to really get started in helping him develop stronger writing skills, particularly when it came to organizing his ideas to formulate a clear argument. Going into week 2, I had planned to help Corey deconstruct his existing piece and plot his points onto a handout I had prepared in advance of our second meeting in order to help him better organize his arguments and supporting evidence.

It was frustrating, then, to arrive for week 2 and come to find that Corey was not present (even though we had been warned ahead of time that this was likely, it was different once I realized it was true). I had never met Alan, the student I would be working with that day, and had no idea what type of writing he was working on or how to best help him. Luckily, he was working on a fictional story and had the first page for me to look over for him. I was able to help him with some basic editing and formatting problems, as well as with plotting out the rest of his story. The handouts I had prepared were quickly turned over and used to identify the climax of Alan's story, what events would build up to it, and how it would be resolved. Even though I will not be working with Alan again, I will be sending him a graphic organizer to build upon the work we did during our session together (posted as part of the Resources blog entry).

Despite the fact that I was initially frustrated with this change, I am happy that it happened. In teaching, sometimes what you had planned does not work and you have to take your lesson in a different direction with no time to prepare. Despite only having to make the adjustment with one student, I proved to myself that I am capable of doing good work on the fly, a skill that I will most certainly encounter numerous times over my career, and perhaps even in my second practicum.

Photo: The first page of Alan's story, King Jewels and the Stolen Ring, and the work we did together during our session: jot notes of potential plot points to come and a rough plot line for the rest of the story.