Emma Zumbro
Challenging times usually bring out either the best or the worst in people, but the sudden shift to virtual tutoring due to the COVID-19 pandemic has brought out both the best and the worst in writing center sessions. Realizing the collaborative goals of the writing center, the best sessions begin an intellectually energizing dialogue between the writer and the tutor – a dialogue which can “challenge hierarchies and traditional ways of producing knowledge” (Lunsford and Ede 12). The worst sessions, on the other hand, close down that conversation, often feeling like a one-sided display of effort on the tutor’s part. Since my university shifted to distance learning in March, I have noticed that tutoring online during the pandemic has polarized synchronous writing center sessions, increasing the number of productively collaborative interactions as well as the number of discouragingly one-sided consultations.
By nature, online interactions tend to be brief, convenient, and impersonal. Students turn to the internet for easy feedback – to run to their papers through platforms like Turnitin or Grammarly before submitting them to their professors. The writing center risks becoming another of these impersonal services. Since the shift to virtual tutoring, I have met with more and more students who seem to treat the writing center like a “fix-it shop,” to borrow the famous phrase from Stephen North (North 435). They copy and paste their papers onto the online whiteboard, ask for feedback on grammar, and sometimes even start silently scrolling through their phones as I try to engage them in a conversation about their writing. Such behavior would seem rude in a shared physical space, but it becomes more acceptable behind the barrier of a computer screen. As Joanna Wolfe and Jo Ann Griffin note regarding online writing consultations, “Video collaboration has proven disappointing partly because video captures many distracting movements and background information without communicating the entire environment in which these movements take place” (64). Tutoring online increases the difficulty of reading writers’ nonverbal cues and assessing how they interact with their surroundings. Hence, in a virtual space, tutors might struggle to determine why students are staying silent during sessions. Does the writer truly want to use the center as another online “fix-it” service? Are they, like many of us, just having a hard day in the midst of an extremely stressful year? Or is the student feeling overwhelmed by the writing process and perhaps even by this writing center session?
To begin to answer these questions and increase comfortable communication with writers, I have started to consciously implement a triad of tutoring strategies during my online consultations: let the writer set the pace, narrate tutoring practices, and reassess the session at the halfway point. Pacing is easy to overlook in an online tutoring session, but moving too fast can lead to writers feeling overwhelmed. I have noticed that students often go quiet as they try to take notes or process feedback. Working online, tutors cannot always see writers typing up those notes or making changes to their documents as they would in person, and the writers’ silence might seem like indifference – like the students are not putting forth the effort to collaborate. To place the pacing of sessions in the writers’ hands, I always begin consultations by saying, “As we talk about your paper, let me know if you feel like we are moving too fast or if you want to return to a specific point.” I also remind myself to pause after discussing every paragraph and wait for writers to express their readiness to continue. Just as I might not see the writer taking notes during a session, the writer might not be able to see what I am doing during our appointment. To promote open communication, I narrate my tutoring practices to writers, explaining that I am taking a few minutes to reread a section of their paper or that I am reviewing the assignment sheet again. In person, such verbal communication might not be necessary, but online, it is a crucial part of creating a collaborative environment in which silence aids productivity rather than evinces disinterest. I try to further foster productive collaboration by pausing every session at the halfway point to reassess the goals I set with the writer at the beginning of the appointment and to provide another opportunity for writers to share any lingering concerns about their work. When I ask how they are feeling about their paper and what they want to do with our remaining time together, writers often admit that they are still overwhelmed by some particular aspect of their essay – a concern they might never have expressed without that halfway check-in!
This triad of strategies helps to stabilize those online sessions that lean toward the non-collaborative side of the spectrum, but equally worthy of acknowledgment are the many invigorating, conversation-driven sessions on the opposite end. Though virtual tutoring might increase the number of writers staying silent behind their computer screens, the extraordinary circumstances in which we are living also leave many of us craving the type of collaborative connection available in the writing center. With numerous universities offering courses solely or mostly online, students do not have the same opportunities to discuss their writing projects with their peers or professors as they normally would in class. The disruption of in-person classes leaves many writers facing a collaborative void which tutoring sessions can partially fill. Since the switch to virtual tutoring, I have noticed more and more writers making appointments at the early stages of their writing process in order to brainstorm ideas and discuss outlines. Hence, online tutoring during the pandemic has reaffirmed the value of the writing center’s collaborative goals – has reaffirmed that the center is more than a “fix-it shop.” For tutors, the challenge is to depolarize sessions by infusing the one-sided consultations with the collaborative energy of the conversation-driven ones.
Works Cited
Lunsford, Andrea and Lisa Ede. “Reflections on Contemporary Currents in Writing Center Work.” The Writing Center Journal, Vol. 31, No. 1, 2011, pp. 11-24.
North, Stephen M. “The Idea of a Writing Center.” College English, Vol. 46, No. 5, National Council of Teachers of English, 1984, pp. 433-46.
Wolfe, Joanna and Jo Ann Griffin. “Comparing Technologies for Online Writing Conferences: Effects of Medium on Conversation.” The Writing Center Journal, Vol. 32, No.2, 2012, pp. 60-92.
About the Author
Emma Zumbro is a graduate student in English at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where she began tutoring in the Writing and Learning Center as a third-year undergraduate. Though American literature is Emma’s main academic focus, she enjoys exploring writing center scholarship and discussing tutoring strategies with other writing center enthusiasts. She recently co-presented her
research, “Here’s My Heart on a Piece of Paper: The Tension between Equitable Strategies and ‘Successful’ Writing,” at the Southern California Writing Centers Association Tutor Conference.