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The tutoring process is context-bound in many of the same ways writing is. Writing and tutoring writers are organic processes, and neither writing nor tutoring can be effectively negotiated via a set of regimented steps. However, while no one-size-fits-all formula for writing center work exists, the metaphors that follow should help you avoid less effective or even unethical tutoring strategies.

You are not an editor. It is very important to remember that you are not there to "fix" the student's paper. Correcting the paper will not help the student become a better writer, and we are here to help the student become a more effective writer within her current rhetorical situation.  A hard-and-fast rule: If you are writing on the student's paper, you are probably crossing that fine line between tutoring and editing. Don't cross that line.

You are not a lecturer. If you are talking more than the student, then you are talking too much. I'm guilty of this sometimes, too, particularly when I am really excited about the student's topic. Sometimes I need to talk it through to feel out where we should take the session. But that also means I am probably directing the session too much, as well. Share the driving with the student. Don't hog the wheel. Let the student do some of the driving.

You are not their mother. I say this tongue-in-cheek, of course. "Mother" may actually be a good metaphor for what we do in here, but "disciplinarian" is not. When a student brings in a page of handwritten notes on the back of a nightclub flyer and informs you that the paper is due in one hour, you may be tempted to tell her she really should have started the paper earlier. She already knows that starting her paper moments before it is due is a bad idea. Don't waste any time, but don't feed off her freaked-out energy. Just breathe deep and assess the situation. We will talk about how to handle these kinds of situations many times during our weekly tutoring sessions. I'm afraid this happens more than is comfortable.

Looming deadlines, ineffective writing processes, thesis statements that you may not agree with, and bad attitudes happen in here just like they happen elsewhere. We can't shame them into meeting deadlines (darn it!). We can't define the most effective writing process for them. We may think we have the most effective writing process, and we may be tempted to get them to use it. The best we can do is tell them about our own writing process, but our way may not be the best way for them. So we need to listen to their needs and their ways of doing things. They may be able to develop their own writing process from this discussion.  We also have to hold our tongue when we disagree with (or, worse yet, are offended by) a student's argument. This happens, and when it does we have a couple of options, both of which require that we sit on our outrage, sport a poker face, and assess the situation. If you disagree with it (rather than being offended by it), you are in a good position to read her evidence in a more real way to find out if she can convince someone who disagrees. If she cannot, you can point that out. If you are offended by the content, you might address it in the generic audience way. Think long and hard. Is this something that her instructor might find offensive? Why do you think she may have chosen this offensive argument? Does she know it is offensive? Try to feel it out.  You don't need to convince her to change it, but it may be necessary for her to know it offends you. Before you speak with her about the offensiveness, try to make sure it is something others may find offensive as well. If you do let her know, be diplomatic.

And bad attitudes? In "Minimalist Tutoring: Making the Student Do All the Work" (1991), Jeff Brooks argues you should combat bad attitudes by mimicking them. Others argue you should just ignore them and work with them as though the are not acting like jerks.

. I suggest you read bad attitudes as informed by fear (fear this project is going to bomb, fear of the writing process in general, fear of their teacher, fear of sharing their work with a stranger, fear of what you will say about their work, fear brought on by previous experiences with writing). In many ways and for many people, writing is a frightening activity. Just try to figure out a way to treat a resistant writer with as much kindness and respect as you can muster up. They may soften up as the session progresses. They often do. Part of our work in here it to help these writers overcome their fear of writing. We should not expect to make all writers love writing. I can't image anyone can make me love algebra. But with a lot of work, perhaps I won't continue to fear any attempt to calculate numbers beyond simple addition/subtraction. Fear is often justified. Don't discount it. Engage with it. Learn from it. Help the student work through it.

You ARE there to be the "expert" reader, most sympathetic-yet-savvy audience member, fellow conspirator, and expert questioner.  Writing center work is hard work, but I assure you you will learn more about literacy education here than in almost any learning space in which you may be involved.

Here are some things you should be thinking about as you work with a student in the Writing Center.

(1). When the student walks in, you want to be friendly and cordial. The few minutes you spend getting to know the student (what she expects of the session, when her paper is due, how she feels about it, what she is worried about regarding the paper, etc)  will be time will spent. talk of this sort may save you time later, and it will make for a more effective session.

After you have greeted the student, offered her a chair (right next to you), ask her questions like the following: (a) What are we working on today? (b) When is this due? (c) What direction have you chosen to go with this assignment? (d) What led you this way? In other words, why have you chosen to go the direction you've gone with? What is your paper about? (e) How do you feel about it thus far? (f) What are you most concerned about? (g) What do you like best about this? (h) What is the assignment? Do you have the assignment sheet with you? Can I take a look at it before we get started?

These questions are so important because they help you set the agenda for the session, an agenda based on many, many things, including: (a) THE EXTERNAL CONDITIONS of the writing project (the writing assignment itself, the teacher's expectations, and the due date), and (b) THE INTERNAL CONDITIONS of the writer (her assessment of the paper, the assignment, and her needs with respect to this writing project), and (c) YOUR OWN ASSESSMENT of the strengths/weaknesses of this particular paper.

The external conditions of the writing project shape the session in many important ways. When the paper is due in thirty minutes, it may not matter that the paper is lacking in sufficient evidence. In a situation like this, you need to focus the discussion on what can be accomplished in the short time available--a down-and-dirty series of plausible suggestions for the writer that don't send her off crying. But you also need to (gently) help the writer understand how (specifically) you may have been able to help had she come in a bit earlier (a day? a week? a month?).From there, perhaps, you can discuss her upcoming assignments and deadlines and try to make a few appointments for her to work with you as she creates and revises her next assignments.

The internal conditions of the writer are important because it is here that you can read how to best proceed with this particular person. Often they know exactly where their paper needs work, but they may not know the right kinds of questions to ask themselves to make it stronger. Perhaps, like many of us, they have been working on it so long they simply can't "see" it anymore and need another pair of eyeballs. Listen to the writer. Listen very, very closely and carefully. Doing so may often yield important insight into how to proceed. Especially important is to find out how they feel about writing in general. For some (sadly, for many), you may need to proceed very, very cautiously.  Writing can be frightening. But some may need you to be a bit more abrupt in your demeanor, jarring them out of accepting the less successful aspects of their current drafts or arguments as adequate or even quite powerful. scary activity. But some may need you to be a bit more abrupt. No real confrontational judgment is allowed at any point with any writer, but some writers may not want you to sugar-coat your response to their work. Admittedly, this is a much, much smaller portion of the folks we see in here, but there are a few. However, tread lightly until you feel pretty darn confident that you have a strong handle on teh internal conditions of the tutorial session.

Your own assessment is vital. Most often, students will come in wanting us to "look over" a paper. This is vague, but it usually  means, "I'm worried that this isn't what my teacher is looking for. Can you help me figure this out?" But we also often get, "I'd like you to proofread my paper, " or "please look over my grammar and make sure it is all right."

When the student asks you to "look over" or "proofread" her paper, you will have to rely more on your own assessment of her needs than on her assessment of her own needs. This is usually because the student may be (a) relying on the commonsense understanding of the writing process ("good" writing is "correct" writing), (b) buying into the One-Draft myth ("good" writers know exactly what to do in the first draft, and more than one draft indicates failure), and/or (c) asking us to help her in the only way she knows literacy educators offer support--by correcting grammar. You will get better and better at assessing what the student really means (and what she really needs) when she says she wants you to "look over" her paper. This "assessment" is why it is so important you become an "expert reader" in this way (see next section "on expertise"). 

(2) The next, most common step is to ask the student to read the paper to you. I suggest you always keep a pen and some paper in front of you. That way, as the student is reading her paper to you, you can jot down notes and come up with the game plan for the session. What you should be doing at this point is trying to figure out at which phase (invention, arrangement, revising, editing) this student needs the most assistance. J

Jot down the thing that stands out as most interesting/effective/promising/provocative ("I love the point you made at the end! I never thought about that before!" etc) and most problematic. It may be that the essay as written does not seem to address the assignment. In this case, you should start by asking the writer questions that will help you determine whether or not the current draft does, indeed, meet the assignment, despite the fact that it does not appear to--at least at first glance. Don't decide that it doesn't meet the assignment without some deep inquiry. Many, many times after deep questioning I've been surprised to learn that though a student's essay may appear to have nothing to do with the assignment at hand, it is actually a very smart, insightful response to it. In cases like those, it would be a mistake for me to spend the session attempting to get the student to understand the assignment. In those cases, the student understands the assignment very, very well. Instead, my goal should be to help the student explore the aspects of hte draft that may have made the connections between the assignment and the essay so unclear to this "expert" reader (and, therefore, likely quite unclear to the professor who will be grading it). A secondary goal of this session should be to help the student develop a revision plan that will help her address those concerns in revision--while she is working with you and after she heads home to work on the revision.

Perhaps the thesis is hard to discern. Again, ask lots of questions. Don't assume the student doesn't know what her thesis is. Even if she can't articulate it right away (or seems uncertain about what you mean by the word "thesis), don't assume she doesn't have one. Ask her a series of questions that may help her articulate her thesis more clearly or discover she doesn't have a central thesis and needs one. If it is the latter, ask her questions and offer invention strategies and other writing techniques that might help her develop one. If she knows exactly what she wants to write about and meant to write about (happens a lot), help her understand why you had some trouble figuring it out. Help her figure out what made it difficult for this reader to determine her insightful thesis. Help her figure out how to clarify it for other readers.

The main thing is to keep this student deeply involved in the session. What I do not want to see is you reading the paper with pen in hand and the student looking around the room waiting for you to finish. She should be working just as hard (or harder) than you are on this. Keep her involved in any and every way possible. There is no enlightenment without application!

(3) Once the student has finished reading her paper and you have your comments ready, you are ready to get into the meat of the session. Keep in mind her due date and her needs. As mentioned earlier, the internal/external conditions pressing against this tutorial session and this writer must be acknowledged and understood. You can't effectively negotiate any tutorial session without figuring them out.

As she read and you noted weaknesses/strengths, you should have also prepared an agenda of some sort. At what phase should this student focus? More prewriting or invention? More work with arrangement? More attention to revision? Do you agree with her assessment of her own needs? If you do not, why not? Do you have a plan for how to address this disagreement diplomatically and productively? Is it necessary to address this disagreement?

As always, you should ask her a lot of questions that she may not have been asking herself. For instance, if you are unable to make out her thesis, complement something in the essay she just read and ask her to tell you (without referring to her essay) what the paper is about--in one sentence. If she stumbles, you might ask her to finish the following sentence, "In this paper, I will prove ___." You might also do this if you are not sure that her paper met the assignment at hand. This is a complicated step in the tutorial session, but very, very important. Observe other tutorial sessions. Talk about this in our meetings. You will get better and better at this.

REMEMBER THIS: You cannot bombard your writer with more than a couple major things to work on. For instance, if the problem with the paper is that it has no strong thesis, does not meet the assignment, is poorly organized, and is lacking in sufficient evidence (and is riddled with grammatical inconsistencies to boot), you cannot work through all of these things. Work on the most pressing problem first (see Higher Order Concerns versus Lower Order Concerns). I would argue in almost every situation like this one, lacking a thesis is the most pressing problem. Deal ONLY with that in a given tutorial session. The thesis alone will eat up an entire session.

(4) Once the session has wound down a bit, RECAP. ALWAYS ask the writer what he will do next. That will allow you and the writer to review some of the most important lessons of the session, and he will have a game plan for later. If at all possible, he should leave with this game plan written down somewhere. Send the writer home with the pink copy of the "Writing Center Report" form. 

ON TUTORING EXPERTISE

Trainees often think they need to be expert proofreaders. They’ve become good at correcting their friends’ papers, so they are often surprised to learn they don’t have to become experts at writing the perfect paper in order to be an effective tutor; they don’t even have to be experts on the rules of grammar, usage, and mechanics. They are also surprised at the expertise they do need.

That the tutor does not have to be an expert is one of the four principles set out in Training Tutors for Writing Conferences (Urbana: NCTE, 1984): The first three principles are (1) “establish and maintain rapport”; (2) “the writer does the work”; (3) “high order concerns come before low order concerns,” with the last one being (4) “tutors do not have to be experts” (1-2).

                “III.3: Tutor Training.” The Writer Center Resource Manual. 2^nd Ed.

Bobbie Silk, Ed. NWCA P, 2002.

You do need to develop expertise of a sort quite different from what we usually associate with it. We do not need to be experts in the subject matter that is the topic of the papers our writers bring into the writing center, nor do we need to be expert grammarians. However, we do need to develop the expertise necessary to know, among other things, how to “establish and maintain rapport,” help the writer while ensuring that the “writer does the work,” and establish priorities appropriate to the project, writer, and particular situation (including the idea that “high order concerns come before low order concerns”).

Attached, you will find a short discussion of the ways in which “The Tutor Does Not—and Does—Have to Be an Expert” (from Paula Gillespie and Neal Learner’s The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Peer Tutoring, 2000).

TIPS FOR THE FIRST TUTORIAL SESSION

As you begin working with a writer, consider this:

1. Introduce yourself. Establish rapport.

2. Start with questions! Gillespie and Learner suggest these: “(a) What was the assignment? (b) What is your central point or main argument? [Tutor: write this down!] (c) What concerns you, or what do you want me to pay careful attention to? [Tutor: write this down!]” (26).

3. Read the paper.  Don’t read it silently to yourself while the writer waits, twiddling her thumbs and looking around the room. Ask the writer to read it to you. As Gillespie and Learner explain,

When the writer reads the paper, he accomplishes several things, in addition to keeping in control [of the paper]. As you listen, you make a mental note not to interrupt, except to ask him to repeat something you didn’t catch, and you listen to the whole paper. Listening to the whole thing from start to finish and taking notes puts you In the role of the learner, and the writer in the role of the expert. . . .

   You’re taking notes, listening. As we’ve already pointed out, he’s the expert, since it’s his paper. We’ve talked about the editor’s making all the final decisions, but in a good tutorial, the tutor asks questions, and the writer decides what to do with a draft. (26-27, emphasis mine)

4. Decide how to respond. Gillespie and Olson suggest that we “train tutors to couch their comments within certain strategies. Marva Hold collects the following strategies from Peter Elbow, Pat Belanoff, Elaine Avidon, and Sondra Perl, and she discusses them in ‘The Value of Written Peer Criticism’ (CCC 54.6 [1992]: 384-92.

·         Sayback: tutors say back in their own words what they think the writer is getting at.

·         Movies of the Reader’s Mind: tutors describe what happens inside their head as they read the  writer’s words.

·         Pointing: tutors point out which words, phrases, passages, or features stick in their mind.

·         What’s Almost Said or Implied: tutors tell the writer what is almost said, implied—what they’d like to hear more about.

·         Center of Gravity: tutors identify what they sense to be the source of energy, the focal point, the generative center of the piece (not necessarily the main point).

·         Controlling Idea, Organization, Voice, Point of View, Attitude Toward the Reader, Language, Diction, Syntax: tutors describe each of these features or dimensions of the writer.

·         Believing and Doubting Game: tutors believe (or pretend to believe) everything the writer has written—they are the writer’s ally and describe what they see. Then the tutors doubt everything and describe what they see. 

While individual tutors seem to prefer different strategies, particular writers and situations will usually determine which strategies work best. For example, the strategy of pointing to memorable passages might be best suited in sessions where the tutor only heard the paper read aloud and was unable to look at the text. The strategy of playing the believing game and the doubting game is especially effective when an offensive paper makes tutors want to get some distance between their own views and those expressed by the writer. (III.3.9)

5. End the session. Begin wrapping it up 5-10 minutes before the hour (or half hour) is up. Use the form required for all Writing Center sessions to wrap up the key points of the session and devise a revision plan together. Don’t write it for the student, if you can help it. You guys should do this together. You may use questions like these to prompt this summary activity: (a) What are some of the major things we learned about your essay during this session? (b) What do you plan to do next (developing the revision plan together)?

6. Finish up the paperwork, and get ready for the next session. If you have time between sessions, write in your journal in response to this session. What happened? What’d you learn about tutoring and yourself as a tutor from this session? What do you plan to do next time?

Another Way to Shape a Tutorial Session is via this "Tutoring Cycle" (from Purdue OWL):

THE TUTORING CYCLE

Step 1: Greeting

___1a.    Welcome the student and greet her by name. If you don't know her name, learn it right away.

___1b.    Introduce yourself.

___1c.     Display friendliness--smile, gesture, small talk, etc.

___1d.    Provide efficient seating arrangements (next to, not across from each other)

Step 2: Identifying Task

___2a.    Find out how you can help them today. Often folks simply ask, "What are we working on today?"

___2b.    Find out about the "internal concerns" of the assignment. Some possible questions: How do you feel about it thus far? What are you most concerned about? What do you like best about it thus far? What are you struggling with? Where are you with it? (just getting started? trying to pull ideas together? just finishing up?)

___2c.     Find out about the "external concerns" of the assignment. Some possible questions: When is the paper due? What is the assignment? Do you have an assignment sheet with you? Can I take a look at it before we get started? What is the paper about? What has your instructor stressed? Have you written for this instructor before? If so, what sorts of things has she stressed in your previous writing projects?

___2d.    Show empathy, especially if the student seems reluctant to be there. Just help her understand that you've been there too. You know how hard writing can be, especially complex writing projects like the one she is tackling. Let her know all writers struggle. Let her know you struggle (if you feel comfortable doing so). Let her know any new writing task can be a challenge.

Step 3: Setting the Agenda

___3a.    Ask the student if she is comfortable with reading the draft aloud. If she hesitates, ask her if she minds if you read it aloud. Ask her to interrupt you if she has a question or a concern or hears something she would like to rework, but make sure she understands that you will be dealing with the whole text together as soon as you read it.

___3b.    "Assess" her needs by weighing the "internal concerns" and the "external concerns" and determining the stage at which this paper needs the most assistance (prewriting? drafting? revising? editing?), most often giving priority to Higher-Order Concerns (HOCs) over Lower-Order Concerns (LOCs).

___3c.     Always find at least two meaningful and specific ways to compliment the current draft ("Great title!" or "I never thought about __ in that way before! How interesting!" or "You must have lots of experience with __. I'd love to hear more about that!"). In each case, these compliments will help the student feel better about the task at hand (it is not futile!) and help you gather more information that you can use to better determine the agenda for the session. You should always believe any compliment you offer. "Nice font!" is probably not the way to go with this. The student will see through you. J

___3d.    Determine the most effective path to achieve the task at hand. If the student's draft does not seem to address the assignment ("external concerns"), she has had some difficulty addressing the assignment in the past and this scares her ("internal concerns"), her past writing experiences have been less than successful (at least school writing projects), and the paper is due in two days ("external concerns"), then you will probably determine that the task at hand is to (1) help her read the demands of the writing assignment more effectively, (2) help her determine ways to reshape some of the issues she raised in her current draft in order to more effectively address the assignment, yet (3) do so without feeding into her fear, without making her feel as though she has to start over, and without making her too dependent upon you (without taking over the session).

___3e.    Make sure the agenda you have set is one that can be easily accomplished in thirty minutes or an hour.

Step 4: Recap

___4a.    As the session draws to a close (or about 10 minutes are left), try to summarize the session (with the student): "We are about out of time. After working today, what are your plans for tackling a revision of this essay?' If they just answer "work on adding more evidence" or "sharpen up the thesis," ask them how they plan on doing so. If it seems like they can't walk away with a specific plan for revising this essay, see if you can summarize the session for them a bit and try to talk them into making an appointment with you to work through another phase of this essay together. For example, if during the session you guys figured out ways to add more evidence but the student still needs much more evidence, talk to him about integrating the evidence into the draft and finding other evidence in much the same way the two of you gathered it before. There may not be time for this today, so make another appointment during which you can work through this together.

___4b.    ALWAYS invite them back, and thank them for coming in. Ask them about upcoming projects, and remind them that we can help at any stage of the writing process.