PeerCentered

This is exciting new territory for me, as I’ve spent my adult life as an editor, which is very different from being a tutor. As an editor, my work was not really in service of the writer, but in service of the publication that employed us both. As a tutor, my work will be entirely in service of the writer and his learning process (and my own learning process, too). A tutor’s first role is to help the student writer feel at ease in the tutoring session and feel comfortable with the idea of writing and seeing herself as a writer. Next, the tutor can help the writer clarify her purpose and her audience. If the writer has an assignment with detailed instructions, the tutor can help the writer be sure she understands the instructions and knows how to meet the requirements of the assignment. If the writing assignment is less prescriptive, the tutor can chat with the writer about possibilities for topic, genre and tone. Either way, the tutor can ask friendly, open-ended questions to help the ...

Hello PeerCentered Readers, My name is Cora Thomas. I have been a Peer Writing Consultant for the Writing and Communication Center at the University of Washington Bothell for about two years. I began in September 2011 as I pursued a Master's Degree from the Cultural Studies Graduate Program. The Assistant Director permits a wide range of creative freedom for staff to suggest ideas and initiate projects that would improve the learning and teaching of both students and tutors. In Summer 2012, after I had a significant encounter with a student I was inspired to create a project entitled, “Collecting Tutor Stories Project.” With support from our Assistant Director and Director this project evolved into an anthology that will be published (print) for our writing center this summer. These samples from the anthology below are comprised of a collection of voices from Peer Writing Consultants at UW Bothell Writing and Communication Center.  This idea for a Tutor Story Anthology ar...