Tutor’s Guide 3: “A (Non)Meeting of the Minds” by Nicole Kraemer

Main Points:

Writers and coaches often have very different ideas about how a session should go, which leads to problems. Writers may believe that coaches are just there for quick proofreading, or may believe that coaches will not be able to help them due to level in school or major. Coaches may focus too much on the bad points, believing that that’s the best way to effect change. No matter what is wrong in these sessions, they always end with the writer unhappy.

What I Got:

I really, honestly didn’t get much out of this. If I wanted to know what a bad, hostile session was like, I’d just spend a session with one of the more aggravating people who come into this center. Nothing was explained and I have no clue what I was meant to take out of this that I didn’t already know.

Questions:

-How should Sally have worked with Portia? From what I see, the problem was entirely with Portia in this scenario and the article barely explains anything.

A Beginning Coach Should Know:

Since this doesn’t explain a single thing clearly, it’s probably not very useful to a beginning coach, as they will not have the experience with these kind of sessions to really be able to sit and analyze it.

Best For:

People who can understand it, which I can’t and I don’t think a beginning coach would either.

A Tutor’s Guide 2: “What Line? I Didn’t See Any Line” by Molly Wingate

Main Points:

There is an invisible line between productive, useful sessions and sessions where the writer gets nothing useful and ends up relying on or overpowered b y the coach. This article talks about two kinds of line crossing that might not seem as obvious as the ones that most tutors immediately recognize, brainstorming line crosses, and “over” sessions. In “brainstorming” sessions gone wrong, a coach gets too involved in helping a writer develop ideas, and ends up generating ideas along with the writer. This usurps ownership of the paper from the writer and takes away his/her control over the paper. There are also a number of “over” sessions that should be avoided, overempathizing, overwhelming, and taking over the session. When a coach overempathizes, he/she gets too caught up in the writer’s personal problems and does not keep the focus of the session on writing. Sometimes writers need to talk to someone, but a writing coach should be a sympathetic ear without getting too involved. When a coach overwhelms a writer, he/she points out ever mistake in the paper and leaves the writer feeling like his/her paper is useless. When a writer takes over a session or a writer’s work, they get too involved in the subject matter and focuses on product rather than process. When this happens, the coach becomes like a coauthor or editor, trying to wrest control from the writer rather than empowering the writer.

What I Got:

Coaches need to be constantly vigilant against crossing a line that is always different depending on the writer and the situation. In order to do this, a coach must be adept at reading body language, vocal tone, and other social cues in order to tell when the writer is starting to tune out of the session.

Questions:

I have problems reading body language and vocal tone, does that completely hinder my ability to keep from crossing the line while still pushing just enough for the session to be productive, or is it better just to stick to safe ground?

What about the writers who won’t talk at all? It’s hard not to cross the line with a writer like that or it’ll be an hour of awkward silence.

Beginning Coach Needs:

Sessions should always be about the writer and his/her ideas. If it is becoming about the coach, or the coach feels that the writer is starting to tune out or become overdependant, it’s time to reevaluate the way they are going about the session. To a beginning coach, that kind of flexibility may seem strange, and this article emphasizes flexibility heavily.

Best For:

This article was written especially with experienced coaches in mind, and so it assumes that coaches are already good at getting a feel for how a writing session is going. They don’t talk about the kinds of things that show that a session is starting to take a turn for the worse. This also only covers the more covert ways that a tutor can cross the line, rather than the obvious ones, like writing on a student’s paper.

McAndrews and Reigstad Chapter 3: "What Tutoring Writing Isn't"

Main Points:

There are many things that writing tutors may appear to be that they are not. Writing tutors are not editors, cheerleaders, nitpickers, therapists or experts. A tutor is not like an editor because contrary to popular belief, the relationship between and editor and writer can often be adversarial, and editors at times take over control of the text from the writer. This is something that tutors should never do, and McAndrews and Reigstad make the argument that the writer/editor relationship should be seen as an “anti-model” for writing tutors.

A tutor is also not supposed to be a cheerleader, offering empty praise to a writer. This is not productive in the slightest, though legitimate praise is a good thing, just talking about good points will not help a writer improve, and praise should never be used to soften the blow, because most people will see right through you. On the other hand, a tutor should not immediately dig in and nitpick every little problem in the essay, as this can offend and demoralize a writer. The goal is to make the writer aware of their issues, help them develop strategies to work on those issues, and have them leave feeling like they’ve accomplished something. Neither cheerleading nor nitpicking will accomplish this.

Tutors also should not act as therapists to writers. Tutors do not have to, and shouldn’t, get involved in the writer’s problems that have nothing to do with writing. This is true even if the piece being worked on contains a lot of personal content. Tutors are not trained therapists and should not act like them.

Just like tutors aren’t experts in psychotherapy, they don’t have to be experts in anything. Tutors sometimes can be the most helpful when they don’t know the answers, because then they can direct the writer towards finding the answers for themselves.

There are also things that a tutor should never do, such as take control of the writer’s work. Just because a tutor feels that they could just fix the essay and make it better, they should resist that temptation. Writing sessions should be about the writer’s ideas and the tutor should just be there in order to help the writer question and expand their own ideas.

Tutoring is also ineffective after the fact, when the piece has been finished. Writers who bring in pieces that they are finished with (we saw that a lot here with the T2K students who brought their high school essays in last semester) are going to miss out on a lot of the helpful aspects of tutoring, having someone there to read a work in progress and act as a proxy audience to give the writer more awareness of what is confusing to others, or what might not be working. This is difficult with a piece that is already finished, because the writer doesn’t particularly need that awareness at that point.

What I got:

Tutors need to focus on the student, not get involved, and not introduce their own ideas into the writer’s work. Ideally, tutors should work as hands-off facilitators of the writer’s own ideas.

Questions:

How exactly does one help someone change the way that they look at writing and think about their own writing while being completely hands off?

I know the answer to the question up there is “talk,” but getting some writers to talk is like pulling teeth, and getting them to find their own mistakes, even with guiding questions, is even worse. How do I help writers like this while still staying hands off?

I occasionally get students that have a lot of the same problems I had at one point during my academic career (Test anxiety, time management problems, problems handling stress), can I address these and give the student tips/resources that I had to find on my own, or would that be too much like a therapist?

What a beginning coach would need:

This chapter gives a good understanding of things to avoid during a session, especially the concept of ownership and how to not usurp that ownership from the writer. The only problem is that this falls in the beginning of the book, before the new coach would even know what their job is.

Best For:

For once, I think that this chapter is fantastic for beginning tutors; my big issue is where it is in the book. I think a beginning coach should probably have an idea of what their job is before going in and telling them what their job isn’t.

Bedford Guide, Chapter One: “The Writing Center as Workplace”

Main Points:

This chapter is all about ethical behavior in a professional setting, which a writing center is. This chapter discusses how a person should behave towards writers, other coaches and teachers. The most important thing they stress is that a coach should respect the others that they encounter while working at the center.

What I Got:

I understood that coaches should behave in a professional manner and never say or do anything that could be taken as disrespectful towards either writers or faculty.

What a Beginning Coach Needs:

This whole chapter is geared towards beginning coaches, as it deals with professionalism and how to act while at work.

Best for:

I doubt that an experienced tutor would get much out of this chapter, since it is basic information about professionalism. The exercises at the back of the chapter also work very well for beginners, although there is a lot that wouldn’t work for our writing center (such as learning the history of our particular center, since we are a new center and are making the history).