What I Have Learned About Being a Writing Tutor

What I have learned thus far about being a writing tutor is that a tutor is not an editor. It's simply not a matter of "correcting" or "fixing" the errors of grammar, syntax, etc. You are more of a guide, someone whose job is to guide the student through the revision process. There are three main approaches for tutoring writing: student-centered, teacher-centered and collaborative. As a tutor you have to decide which approach best suits the the situation at hand, but as a general rule of thumb, the teacher-centered approach should rarely if ever be used in peer tutoring. the student-centered and collaborative approaches tend to work best since the tuttee is treated as an equal instead of the power dynamic favoring the tutor such as in the authorative teacher-centered approach.

There are also some basic theories on tutoring such as the social constructionist theory, reader response, talk and writing, collaborative learning and feminism. These theories when applied in tutoring writing help to foster improvement and instill confidence in the student while at the same time providing a framework for how the tutor should should approach their sessions.

Additionally, I've also learned that to be a successful tutor one needs to concentrate on what are known as higher order concerns (HOCs) such as thesis, structure, organization, and tone. If the emphasis is placed on HOCs instead of lower order concerns (LOCs) such as grammar, spelling, and punctuation, the tutor can help the student focus in on the greater problems in their writing instead of losing time on minor errors. Since most tutoring sessions are time based, you want to make the most out of each session by addressing the HOCs in an effort to help the student improve their writing in a more efficient manner.

While I still have much to learn about the tutoring process, I believe that what I have learned so far will serve me well and provide a solid foundation for my future tutoring experiences.