Tutor Training Midterm, Part II

Part II: Read the following partial transcript of a tutoring session, and answer the questions that follow.

1. T: What can I help you with today?
2. S: Well, my teacher gave back my draft and said that it needs better organization.
3. T: What’s the assignment?
4. S: An essay
5. T: Yeah
6. S: explaining how to do something.
7. T: OK
8. S: I decided to write mine on bathing a cat.
9. T: (laughs) A challenging task!
10. S: (smiles) Yes.
11. T: The bath, I mean. (laughs)
12. S: OK (laughs)
13. T: So what do you know about organizing this kind of essay?
14. S: Um, I
15. T: What is this kind of essay is called?
16. S: Um, a, uh,
17. T: Is it comparison/contrast?
18. S: No.
19. T: Is it a description?
20. S: Well, it’s describing something.
21. T: What is it describing?
22. S: How to bathe a cat.
23. T: Which is a . . . ?
24. S: Hard thing to do? I don’t know. I’m stuck. (laughs)
25. T: Okay, it’s a process essay.
26. S: Oh. Okay.
27. T: That means the essay is explaining the steps in a process.
28. S: Yeah, I remember. We’re supposed
29. T: So you have to make sure the steps are in order, or your reader will get lost.
30. S: That part is kind of hard because
31. T: The first thing you should do is make an outline (tutor grabs a piece of paper and pen and begins an outline).
32. S: (pause)
33. T: These are instructions, so you can’t assume that your reader knows what you’re talking about. You should use chronological order.
34. S: Chrono-what?
35. T: What’s the first step?
36. S: Well . . .
37. T: What’s the first thing you gotta do? (tutor has pen posed in the air)
38. S: Get your supplies ready.
39. T: (pause)
40. S: You know, the shampoo, the towel . . .
41. T: OK. Good. (hands pen to student) Write that down. Then what?
42. S: Then you should run the water until it’s lukewarm. . . .