Would you expect an English and Lit tutor to read your texts?

[Lolly]

I have around 30 books which I need to buy/download and then read. I am quite prepared to do this if it means that I can engage more closely with my students and be a better judge of their essays. However I am conscious of the fact that obtaining all of these texts is an investment and a risk. From experience freelance tutoring is relatively unreliable work; is it worthwhile buying, reading and watching so many texts if there's chance of no return from it? I can keep costs down a bit by downloading stuff from the public domain/ torrenting/ buying ebooks and of course there is the obvious enjoyment of reading literature and watching film. Personally I feel that it's much more preferable to read texts-  I wouldn't be doing my job properly otherwise. I just wanted to get a general consensus for what students might expectfrom a tutor and whether it is worthwhile or realistic to read all of my student's texts.

[datfatcat]

Not sure about Lit, but for English tutor, I would expect him/her to know the texts really well and correct me if I make any mistake in my essays.

[pi]

I can't talk for Lit, but I'd like an English tutor I had to know my texts fairly well, especially for Test Response as I feel texts for context are more for ideas than a basis of an essay (if that makes sense).

[psyxwar]

tbh if I did english I wouldn't hire a tutor who didn't study the texts that I did for their VCE. There's plenty of English tutors out there, no need to compromise.

[meganrobyn]

I've always found my students to be really reasonable and understanding about it. If they are willing to commit to weekly, ongoing sessions, then I commit to knowing their texts well. But they've always understood the situation when I've talked to them about it, and that without regular sessions it's not reasonable for me to have and know all their texts.

Keep in mind, also, that the text situation is slightly different for Context studies and depending on the writing form they choose. Some of your external resources do double-duty, triple-duty, etc, and students writing pure creative need more help with integrating themes and discrete symbols into their stories than with text analysis per se.

[Lolly]

I've always found my students to be really reasonable and understanding about it. If they are willing to commit to weekly, ongoing sessions, then I commit to knowing their texts well. But they've always understood the situation when I've talked to them about it, and that without regular sessions it's not reasonable for me to have and know all their texts.

Keep in mind, also, that the text situation is slightly different for Context studies and depending on the writing form they choose. Some of your external resources do double-duty, triple-duty, etc, and students writing pure creative need more help with integrating themes and discrete symbols into their stories than with text analysis per se.

Yes this seems fair. Thanks for the advice. And I'll be sure to ask about which texts are for context

[nerdmmb]

I have around 30 books which I need to buy/download and then read. I am quite prepared to do this if it means that I can engage more closely with my students and be a better judge of their essays. However I am conscious of the fact that obtaining all of these texts is an investment and a risk. From experience freelance tutoring is relatively unreliable work; is it worthwhile buying, reading and watching so many texts if there's chance of no return from it? I can keep costs down a bit by downloading stuff from the public domain/ torrenting/ buying ebooks and of course there is the obvious enjoyment of reading literature and watching film. Personally I feel that it's much more preferable to read texts-  I wouldn't be doing my job properly otherwise. I just wanted to get a general consensus for what students might expectfrom a tutor and whether it is worthwhile or realistic to read all of my student's texts.

YUPP! That's what they are for- to give detailed feedback