PeerCentered

        Our tutoring centre is a medium-sized room filled with round tables and sunlight, which pours in through four windows on the eastern-facing wall. On your average day, it is noisy— marked both by the chatter of math tutors working with groups and one-on-one conversations between writing tutor and tutee. I rather enjoy working in this space, but it serves as a reminder of the conceptual space in which I find myself— a space that bears a daunting truth.          As a writing tutor at the University of Winnipeg, I am situated within contrasting forces. Our Canadian value of multiculturalism plays largely on my heart: I feel all should have equal say and opportunities whilst maintaining cultural roots. The university’s diverse student body may represent such multiculturalism, but the practices of the institution do not. And this is not to criticize my beloved university itself, but to point to a larg...

During the year of working as a Writing Consultant at the American University of Kuwait, almost all of our training sessions consisted of questions along the lines of "What are some of the problems or challenges that you face during sessions?" or "How do you deal with different personalities or characters during sessions?" Well, the most problematic situation that I personally faced was holding sessions with unresponsive, passive and inactive students. At first, it was extremely difficult to lure them in the session and make them realise that their participation is needed, but later on, as a writing consultant, I soon realised the necessary techniques to get the student engaged in the session. Ask them to read. Ask them to write and take notes. Ask them to suggest synonyms. Not only is this helpful, but I noticed that the consultant's body language is very vital in a session. The readings that our staff assigned us helped me recognise its true importance. S...

I began working at the American University of Kuwait's Writing Centre (WRC) in my junior year. However, I had been well acquainted with the WRC's work for far longer since I had frequently scheduled appointments to have my own written work reviewed. As a student consultant, this understanding of being on the other side of the table-- for lack of a better phrase-- has been extremely useful as I constantly try to ensure that students gain the most out of my sessions, particularly when it comes to body language. Just as a dialogue necessarily works both ways, body language is also a two-way street. As a consultant, there can’t be a worse start to a session than one in which the student lazily drags themselves in, slops onto the chair, slides his or her paper carelessly across the table and then proceeds to fidget with their cellphone. As a student, you know things aren’t going to go very well as soon as the tutor forgets to greet you, grabs your paper and begins dismantling ...

A problem we encounter too often as writing consultants comes up whenever we find ourselves trying to get passive students to become more engaged during our sessions. I am sure we are all familiar with the reclusive kind of students, the kind that would, once greeted into a session, promptly slide a draft across the table, hand you a pen, and give you full rein to go buck wild on their paper while they wait for you to finish, sometimes with a phone in their hands. Not only does students being unengaged during sessions make it difficult for us to gauge the problems they are facing in their papers so that we can quickly address them, but it also discourages them from learning how to independently address these problems in the future, without having to rely on the Writing Center as a form of a pit stop. There are many techniques that can be utilized to prevent this, and the best ones usually involve body and oral communication. Exemplary peer tutor Alexandria Janney discusses some o...

Hello fellow consultants and tutors! Having been a Writing Centre student consultant for 3 years at AUK, it surprises me that there are many techniques and skills that I can still learn in order to become a better consultant. Having read the material provided to student consultants by the Writing Centre staff members as part of our training, I chose to highlight upon the importance of nonverbal communication. Jennifer Arnold's piece of writing enabled me to stop and think about my body language during appointments with students. Arnold mentions the negative message that crossing arms communicates to the student by stating that crossing arms "is a defensive gesture...feeling defensive is extremely unpleasant." I realized that I often sit with my arms crossed when the students I am consulting are doing the talking or reading their work. Although it is tempting to cross my arms since they are left unoccupied while I am not talking, it communicates the wrong message to the ...

Who’s a Writer?                   “I’m not a writer.” These four words have regularly gone through my head throughout this whole journey as a COMP fellow at Nova Southeastern University. They first made an appearance when I was checking my e-mail one day in the summer. As I scrolled down a list of unread e-mails, one in particular caught my eye. The subject heading was “NSU Writing Fellows.” It described the program and asked if I wanted to become a peer tutor for the upcoming semester. This caught my attention because writing was something I never considered myself good at. I’ve always thought of myself as more of a mathematics person as opposed to writing. Despite thinking this, I replied to the e-mail and decided to take this opportunity to help myself grow as a writer.                   Walking into our first...

Note: The following reflection also appears on my SLCC e-portfolio . I chose the  Salt Lake Teens Write  (SLTW) program as my Service Learning project for English 1810, Mentoring Writers, Fall Semester 2014. SLTW is co-sponsored by the Salt Lake City Public Library and Salt Lake Community College’s Community Writing Center (CWC) and is modeled after New York City’s  Girls Write Now  program. SLTW pairs an adult mentor who use writing in everyday life, for personal or professional purposes, with high school junior from an underrepresented group. The mentor-teen pairs work together from September through May, meeting for about an hour each to work together on whatever genre of writing they choose. Mentors are encouraged to write along with their teens, and SLTW publishes an anthology of teen and mentor writing at the culmination of the program. Mentors report online to SLTW after every writing session and group activity, and the program has a Facebook page  to ...

  Ever since my first semester at the Salt Lake Community College, I found myself enamored with the Writing Center. I so admired the tutors with all their writing skill and ability--mostly, though, I admired their confidence. I'd go to the Writing Center for help and advice on my writing assignments and end up fantasizing  that some day I would own what I knew about writing and feel that kind of sureness. Little did I know at the time that I would be a Writing Center tutor before leaving college. The Mentoring Writers course covers so much information, I think my head might explode from all the information. I'm sure this feeling is intensified by my eagerness to be an immediate expert of all the information we're being presented with. I put this course off 'till my last semester, while I built up my confidence. In hindsight, I wonder if I would have benefited from taking it sooner. I never would have guessed I'd learn so much about my own ...

In late October I coached a 17-year-old friend, Alex, on writing his essays for the Common Application, an online admissions application used by more than 500 universities and colleges around the nation. Alex wanted to apply Early Decision to Brown University and had a Nov. 1 deadline. I first met with Alex on Oct. 21. I'm a family friend, so we met at Alex's house, something I wouldn't do if I were mentoring a writer with whom I wasn't personally acquainted. I had recently attended a workshop about college scholarship application essays, hosted by the Salt Lake Teens Write program, so I had good information to share with Alex about what to do vs. what to avoid doing in writing his essays. We began this first session by reviewing the requirements of the Common App and the 650-word Personal Essay. There were five writing prompts to choose from, and through conversation and questions, I helped Alex quickly eliminate three of the five prompts. More conversation and bra...

I posted this video because I agree with the first myth. I'm not sure if I understand the second one. Often, in my service learning, I have had a student come in and expect me to fix everything with the paper, then hold me accountable for the grade. I think this is a dangerous misconception of writing centers. So I learned to open a session saying that I am here to offer feedback and suggestions.

Many of the same methods used for native English speakers also work for non-native speakers; after all, both are English language learners. It’s important in all writing sessions that some time is spent breaking the ice, getting to know each other and a bit about what the writer is working on. It’s essential that the tutor and writer make a plan, and that the writer has a chance to make their most pressing needs known from the get go. This is the stage when both parties can negotiate and clarify the terms pertaining to what they’ll spend the next 30 minutes collaborating on together. The tutor can find out what the writer already knows about the writing center and what he or she might need to know. It’s also the time when the tutor can question the writer about their assignment. Gillespie and Lerner, authors of The Longman Guide to Peer Tutoring, suggest asking three questions: 1.    What is the assignment? 2.    What is your central point or main argum...