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- Tutoring (24)
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- Writing (9)
- Writing center (8)
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- Writing centers (4)
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Articles 1 - 30 of 78
Full-Text Articles in English Language and Literature
Tutoring Ell Students In The Digital Age Of Zoom: An Abundance Of Resources, Hannah Lee
Tutoring Ell Students In The Digital Age Of Zoom: An Abundance Of Resources, Hannah Lee
Tutor's Column
Tutoring during Covid has been a challenging adjustment, but it has brought a flood of new resources for ELL tutoring. These resources are what ELL students need to succeed and break previous patterns of ELL struggles. Nontraditional students are now able to attend the writing center more easily than before. Asynchronous tutoring is a powerful resource for language learners who struggle with grammatical concepts and errors.
Effective In The Affective: Cultivating An Emotionally Intelligent Writing Center, Camille Bassett
Effective In The Affective: Cultivating An Emotionally Intelligent Writing Center, Camille Bassett
Tutor's Column
Academic contexts emphasize the cognitive component of writing. However, for tutors to effectively meet students’ needs they must also give attention to the affective, or emotional, component. At times, anxieties about session productivity or a perceived inability to meet students’ needs cause tutors to fall into a defensive mindset in which they attempt to address students’ emotional states as quickly as possible. Rather than allowing this mindset to dominate the session, tutors should practice the empathetic mindset, giving students the space and support to express their emotional needs. Emphatic listening facilitates the empathetic mindset, positioning tutors to act as a …
Changing The Narrative: Proofreading At The Writing Center, Claire Atwood
Changing The Narrative: Proofreading At The Writing Center, Claire Atwood
Tutor's Column
Writing Centers have a golden rule against proofreading. It gives student’s the impression that they can send their paper in to a tutor and they’ll correct all the grammar and semantics errors for them. This does not facilitate learning on the part of the student, and diminishes a tutor’s purpose, to tutor on writing. There needs to be a switch in how we approach a proofreading request, so we don’t refuse services to any students. Tutors can find grammatical errors and use them to teach basic principles.
Every Student Is A Writer: Building Confidence Through Tutoring Sessions, Sandra Edwards
Every Student Is A Writer: Building Confidence Through Tutoring Sessions, Sandra Edwards
Tutor's Column
Students often feel inadequate as a writer when entering a tutoring session. Tutors can instill confidence in the student by praising what they are doing well. They can also let the student express their ideas in the session, then the tutor and student can build off of those ideas together. Overall, the tutor can help the student see themselves as a writer rather than someone who writes, which will give the student conviction beyond the sphere of the classroom.
Let Me Write That Down: Tutoring Session Notes, Emma Lundgreen
Let Me Write That Down: Tutoring Session Notes, Emma Lundgreen
Tutor's Column
This essay reviews the importance of tutor session notes. It examines different note-taking styles, the purpose behind each, and how those factors are correlated. It also investigates session notes as organizational narratives, wherein the appointment is recorded for the benefit of students, tutors, and administrators.
Scaffolding In Online Tutoring: Addressing The Issue Of Productivity, Nathan Franson
Scaffolding In Online Tutoring: Addressing The Issue Of Productivity, Nathan Franson
Tutor's Column
The expanding online tutoring format poses unique challenges when attempting to maximize communication and productivity in a 20–25-minute writing center session. Relatively recent literature has revealed that discontented students have reported in feedback surveys that their sessions felt unhelpful or fruitless. This situation has been termed: "non-productive non-directivity,” and it may be attributed to an over-reliance on open-ended questions. It is of interest to determine whether this is truly helping students in online settings. While tutoring roles have not changed, the impersonal nature of an online session requires a more perceptive approach to tutoring: recognizing that a student may need …
Make Listening Visible, Carson Brown
Make Listening Visible, Carson Brown
Tutor's Column
Online tutoring can make it hard to feel like tutors are engaging with students and actually helping them. Writing consultants can avoid feeling this way by showing the student they are actively listening. This paper will highlight some of the ways one can demonstrate active listening through backchanneling, gaze, and rephrasing student’s words. Improving active listening skills is a great way to foster engagement from the student and have more fulfilling sessions.
Soft Skills: The Importance Of Empathy In An Online Writing Center Appointment, Halli Bleak
Soft Skills: The Importance Of Empathy In An Online Writing Center Appointment, Halli Bleak
Tutor's Column
Writing center tutors must practice being empathetic with the students they work with. Students tend to feel their writing is a representation of their worth. As tutors, especially in the online setting, we must find ways to connect with students as collaborators, learners, and fellow writers. This requires that we remember that the student and their wellbeing are more important than the writing. This also means that we should focus on the writer and their development over the expectations we or their professors may hold. Empathy is an important soft skill that we must practice, develop, and put to use …
Pick Your Poison: Fall Down A Flight Of Stairs Or Have Your Qualifications Questioned, Aubrey Hampton
Pick Your Poison: Fall Down A Flight Of Stairs Or Have Your Qualifications Questioned, Aubrey Hampton
Tutor's Column
In the writing center, self-confidence is essential. Students respect and trust the advice of a tutor who can exhibit confidence in themselves. Self-confidence in tutoring can be derived from personal experience as well as from observations of the methods of other fellow tutors. Peer observations provide an opportunity for tutors to learn additional skills, and to gain confidence in themselves.
Independence And Interdependence In The Writing Center, Candace Heki
Independence And Interdependence In The Writing Center, Candace Heki
Tutor's Column
The writing center should be a space where we, as tutors, promote both independence and interdependence. We should strive to help students improve their skills, so they have the confidence to move forward with their paper and future papers on their own. We should also encourage interdependence through collaboration with the writing center. Students can benefit from their tutor offering unique perspectives and a place where the writer can talk through their ideas. Tutors need to be available to meet students’ individual needs by offering a balance between our focuses on self-sufficiency and collaboration.
The Empathetic Tutor, Kristina Carter
The Empathetic Tutor, Kristina Carter
Tutor's Column
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, writing center tutoring moved online, and fewer social interactions occurred. This issue led to researching how to empathize with people, and specifically students in a virtual setting. Many people have emphasized the importance of focusing on the student and their individual needs. There has also been a shift in the focus of being a compassionate listener and ally to students. This essay compiles research from various academic journals, websites that list essential job skills, and news articles on empathy. This paper also researches standard methods used to implement empathy and how this looks in the …
Praise As A Learned Behaviour, Rebekah Jensen
Praise As A Learned Behaviour, Rebekah Jensen
Tutor's Column
Writing Centers should teach tutors how to praise to create a better experience for students and tutors alike. Tutors are often encouraged to give praise in their comments and conversations with students, but are rarely instructed on how to do so effectively. This article examines the purpose of praise in tutoring, why it is important for tutors to learn how to praise, and what strategies may be used to teach praise to tutors.
Covering The Basics: The Importance Of A Good Layout And Strong Thesis, Adam Robinson
Covering The Basics: The Importance Of A Good Layout And Strong Thesis, Adam Robinson
Tutor's Column
Thesis writing is key to tutoring. A strong thesis performs numerous functions: covering smaller concerns, teaching writers how to structure their paper, and giving a strong layout. Using a focus on thesis teaching makes the tutoring session easier and more efficient for both the tutor and client too.
Revision: Overcoming A Paralyzing Fear, Kennan Thompson
Revision: Overcoming A Paralyzing Fear, Kennan Thompson
Tutor's Column
Revision is a difficult task to undertake. In many cases, it is a fear that paralyzes students. There are many benefits to revision that students may not understand. This may be one reason why it is so intimidating for students to revise a paper. Tutors should help students recognize that revision allows them to see where they can improve content organization, notice grammatical errors, and be more confident in their writing. Tutors should also give students specific tips to make the revision process easier.
Constructive Criticism: Analyzing And Implementing Student Feedback As A Tutor, Gracie Jo Averett
Constructive Criticism: Analyzing And Implementing Student Feedback As A Tutor, Gracie Jo Averett
Tutor's Column
Writing centers are subject to student feedback as they operate, collecting both negative and positive comments through exit surveys after appointments. This essay analyzes these types of feedback and how tutors and writing centers can use both types of feedback to their advantage when serving their students. Being able to analyze the feedback that they receive can allow a tutor to make adjustments, when needed, to their tutoring process.
Mindfulness: Solution For Stumbling Students, Kylee Zimmerman
Mindfulness: Solution For Stumbling Students, Kylee Zimmerman
Tutor's Column
Students who come to the Writing Center are often stressed, anxious, and very concerned about their essay’s health, even those who procrastinate. Learning to understand procrastination as a sign of stress rather than laziness betters us as tutors; this is done through developing mindfulness. Mindfulness can be applied to those struggling with procrastination by accepting the student’s stress and setting small goals. Mindfulness is defined as being aware of emotions without judgment. Procrastination is defined as submitting work inconsistently, ignoring homework, and denying feelings of stress.
Improving Global Flow With The Known-New Contract, Ben Ladner
Improving Global Flow With The Known-New Contract, Ben Ladner
Tutor's Column
Large-scale flow of ideas is the key to effective scientific and argumentative writing. This tutor’s column discusses the Known-New Contract as a teaching tool for global flow. It also discusses the outlining and discussion techniques that can be practically used in appointments with students who struggle with the structure of their papers.
Bad Puns: It’S How Eye Roll: Humor Writing As A Technique To Engage And Strengthen Writers, Hala Louviere
Bad Puns: It’S How Eye Roll: Humor Writing As A Technique To Engage And Strengthen Writers, Hala Louviere
Tutor's Column
Much research has been done on why to use humor writing, but a lack of research on when to use humor writing exists. The researcher argues that when humor writing is used in scholarly and analytical writing, it can engage uninterested students and improve their writing through authorial voice. Previous studies support the researcher’s thesis; young adults, who frequently consume humor through social media and other modes, can appreciate writing more by combining it with a technique they are familiar with and enjoy. This appreciation also motivates students to insert more of their voice, which then improves their writing.
Questioning Our Questions, Makenzie Vance
Questioning Our Questions, Makenzie Vance
Tutor's Column
A tutor’s effectiveness relies heavily on the questions they ask. Being able to properly address a student’s concerns is almost exclusively done through effective questioning. Looking into how folklorists interview provides a wealth of tactics commonly used to gather information from informants. Transitioning these tactics into tutoring can help tutors ask questions more intentionally.
The Place Of Procrastination, Grace Taylor
The Place Of Procrastination, Grace Taylor
Tutor's Column
Understanding a student’s writing process can help to diffuse some confusion between the tutor and the student. Sometimes in a student's process, they procrastinate due to hesitation from past experience with writing. Knowing how to address this can help further the student’s confidence in their own future writing.
Editing Is Easy; Tutoring Is Hard: Helping Writers With Learning Disabilities, Mikenna Debruin
Editing Is Easy; Tutoring Is Hard: Helping Writers With Learning Disabilities, Mikenna Debruin
Tutor's Column
Tutors often feel uncomfortable in unfamiliar tutoring sessions. For new tutors in particular, tutoring students with learning disabilities proves to be a daunting task and may lead to panic-based tutoring decisions during sessions. Ultimately, there are two notions for tutors to keep in mind when tutoring those with learning disabilities: 1) work on what the student wants to work on in a session, and 2) don’t abandon standard tutoring practices (e.g. asking questions) simply because of panic in an unfamiliar circumstance.
Branding The Writing Center, Courtney Akagi
Branding The Writing Center, Courtney Akagi
Tutor's Column
Brand identity affects student’s perceptions of the writing center. Referencing an article on the seven key elements of brand identity design, this article goes through a step-by-step analysis of how writing centers can create a brand to establish trust between students and tutors.
Being The Tutor Students Need, Clayton Lords
Being The Tutor Students Need, Clayton Lords
Tutor's Column
In writing center culture, there is a prevailing idea that there is one ideal way to tutor students. However, in reality it becomes increasingly clear that each writer’s needs are unique and that tutors need to be much more malleable in their approach to tutoring. In this paper, we explore the reasons we hold back from being flexible, and specific things we can do to change this.
Writing Center Space The First Frontier, J. Benjamin Howell
Writing Center Space The First Frontier, J. Benjamin Howell
Tutor's Column
This paper discusses the influence of writing center spaces on the impressions of tutors and students. First, the importance of creating a “homey” space is introduced, then followed by an example of a writing center thought by its denizens to be particularly welcoming and effective. An analysis of another writing center’s evolution and subsequent changes in impressions and use is included. Finally, scale is introduced as a foundational principle in the architectural field with particular application in creating a desired impression.
The Intricacies Of Tutoring Personal Narratives, Hailey Hunt
The Intricacies Of Tutoring Personal Narratives, Hailey Hunt
Tutor's Column
In order to effectively tutor personal narratives, tutors must be aware of the different tutoring strategies for academic papers and personal narratives. This essay offers several different tutoring strategies that remain the same for academic papers and personal narratives, and several that are different. These strategies prepare the tutor to empower, educate, and validate the student’s unique and vulnerable personal histories, while also being sensitive to each individual student’s needs.
Pictures Of Words: The Importance Of Visual Strategies In Tutoring Writing, Kylie Smith
Pictures Of Words: The Importance Of Visual Strategies In Tutoring Writing, Kylie Smith
Tutor's Column
An estimated 65% of people are visual learners. Additionally, research suggests that most people are more likely to remember learned concepts when those concepts are attached to visual aids. Unfortunately, Writing Center tutors often forget the importance of using visual strategies when tutoring writing concepts. The implementation of quick and simple visual strategies in tutoring sessions will help students retain information and help them become independent writers for life.
On The Right Note, Carolyn Baird
On The Right Note, Carolyn Baird
Tutor's Column
This is a cross-disciplinary comparison of violin playing and tutoring writing. As a violinist and a tutor, I have found that my mindset and way of tutoring is greatly influenced by my experience as a violinist. There are many valuable parallels from the violin world that can be used as tutors in how we approach students, how we critique their writing, and how we think about tutoring in general. I hope to pull out those similarities to provide some insights on how to improve giving feedback in a tutoring situation.
Becoming A Goat: Leaving Mediocracy To The Sheep, Heidi Bonkemeyer Roskelley
Becoming A Goat: Leaving Mediocracy To The Sheep, Heidi Bonkemeyer Roskelley
Tutor's Column
Many new tutors can become quickly overwhelmed by their lack of experience coupled with a driving desire to perform well in the tutoring session. This dream to become a great tutor can be quickly snuffed out by lacking the confidence and the knowledge of how to achieve our full potential as tutors. In this essay, I will discuss two specific ways that we, as tutors, can go from “good” to “great” and ultimately become the tutors we strive to be. Through adaptability and positivity, we can leave behind the anxiety-stricken herd of aimless sheep and strike out on our own …
What's Another Name For Bull****?, Nicole Hurst
What's Another Name For Bull****?, Nicole Hurst
Tutor's Column
Pretension is present in almost every aspect of academic writing. The desire to sound “smart” or professional is a normal reaction that appears when students try to mimic a style that they don’t fully understand. Dealing with academic BS in high-level writing is as much a part of tutoring as flow and conventions. Oftentimes, students need help to recognize the importance of personal voice and author’s intent in “good” writing, as well as the role the audience plays in crafting academic writing.
Writer Empowerment: Seeing Through The Veil Of Disinterest, Jay Paine
Writer Empowerment: Seeing Through The Veil Of Disinterest, Jay Paine
Tutor's Column
Students sometimes come to the writing center uninterested in their writing, however, a student’s disinterest may be indicative of not knowing how to proceed with their writing. A solution to help combat a writer’s disinterest entails asking open-ended questions. Sometimes the phrasing of open-ended questions does not resonate with the student, however, simply rephrasing an open-ended question can help the writer understand where and how they can continue writing their paper which ultimately empowers the student.