By Meghan O’Leary, Staff Editor
Being a writing tutor isn’t your typical on-campus job. Generally, when you tell people about working as a peer tutor in writing, they have some questions about how it all works. Below you’ll find how I answer some of these questions. I encourage you to comment with your own answers!
How do you even tutor people in writing?
The idea of tutoring automatically brings to mind equations on whiteboards or highlighting science textbooks. Tutoring writing is definitely different than some more concrete forms of study. It’s flexible and subjective, and therefore requires more collaboration than traditional teaching.
How can you tutor people for classes you haven’t taken?
My job isn’t really to evaluate the actual content of a paper, just the quality and format of the information. Without any knowledge on a particular subject, I can still get an idea of how an argument should be formulated and supported. While I may not be quite as comfortable with a lab report as an argument paper, I am able to help them (hopefully) write more effectively than they could on their own.
Is it weird working with people who are the same age, or even older, than you?
I was surprised when someone asked me this question, but upon reflection it does make sense. A high school tutor might be a teacher or someone your parents hired, but I’m tutoring people of all college levels. I rarely even try to guess a person’s age, unless it becomes clear in something they say or specifics of a class they’re working on. As long as there is mutual respect between the tutor and the writer, age/experience in college doesn’t seem to affect a tutorial.
What do you do for people who are just bad writers?
Sometimes when I come home from a shift, my friends will ask me if there were any bad writers. It can be hard to explain to people who aren’t tutors that we don’t consider writers good bad or otherwise. There’s room for improvement for everyone, and anyone who comes into the Writing Center has already proved that they are willing (even if grudgingly) to seek help. That’s all you need to have an effect as a tutor.
I hope this provoked some thoughts! Have you gotten any weird, repetitive, or insightful questions about tutoring? How did you answer? Share them with us!