Jennifer Burke Reifman
In March of 2020, the Graduate Writing Fellows at U.C. Davis, a group of peer writing tutors from across the disciplines transitioned their writing consultation practices to an online space. As of winter 2020, the Graduate Writing Fellows have been utilizing Zoom to construct synchronous writing consultations for the better part of a year. Recently, I spoke with three Fellows who had previously consulted fellow graduate students in-person about the transition and how they handled what they saw as an emotional disconnect to their tutees in digital sessions. These conversations revealed how experienced tutors found new ways to emotionally connect and empathize with their students; moreover, the interviews revealed the extent to which empathy is possible during a time of crisis.
Writing Center scholarship strongly acknowledges the emotional dimensions of tutoring. Perry argued that writing sessions are inherently emotional and built tutor training that fosters “empathetic engagement with clients’ emotional states” (n.p.). In their pilot study of tutor perceptions of emotion, Oweidat and McDermott found that tutors believe that empathy is part of their jobs. Recently, Driscoll and Wells made a case for developing the emotional intelligence of tutors in “recognition of the importance of tending to both cognitive and emotional domains in writing center tutorials” (20). What scholarship hasn’t begun to explore is how tutors, despite the distance experienced in digitally mediated sessions, may be developing tools for building connection. Further, we also often neglect to consider the ways in which empathy may be out of our reach.
Tools for Connection
As one tutor expressed: “Writing can be really personal and can sometimes get emotional and that’s a lot harder to handle virtually”. This tutor described a session where a consultee started crying because of the pressure they were facing with their writing. As the internet dropped in and out, the tutor waited for a moment to connect with the tutee, but it never came. The tutor was left feeling helpless to comfort the person. This experience was difficult for both tutor and tutee; it highlighted the painful loneliness of quarantine and captured what the writing fellows described as the “disconnected”, “transactional” experience of tutoring over Zoom.
Over time, the tutors realized they could begin to build emotional connection with their consultees despite the limitations they experienced. First, introductory emails, which were a necessity of setting up Zoom consultations, brought humanity to sessions. Tutors used these emails to welcome their future tutees and express excitement about the session. These communications also allowed tutors to learn more about the person and their goals before the session, unlike in-person sessions. For some tutors, this set a positive tone for the consultation that they and their tutees benefitted from. The emails also served to set up the priorities for each session, which tutors felt allowed for more time to work on the writing in the consultation. During sessions, tutors began using Google Docs in tandem with their tutees as a preferred method of working through texts. While there were concerns about ownership of the text in this space, working simultaneously within the same document seemed to better connect the tutors to tutees and their writing. The tutors regarded the Google Doc space as a “collaborative”, “shared” space with their tutee, unlike a static Word Document or a shared screen.
Overall, while the tutors at U.C. Davis found creative ways to leverage technology to connect and humanize their time with tutees, the time spent online made each tutor realize that much of their work as a tutor was emotional work— work that was made more difficult and more distant by their own fatigue. As one said, “I realize now that like 25% of this work is coaching and connecting with the person”. However, their capacity to connect and coach in the disconnected world of Zoom was dwindling.
You can’t draw water from an empty well.
My conversations with the Graduate Writing Fellows also revealed the ways in which emotional fatigue impacted their time as tutors. As one said, by the end of the fall quarter they had “nothing left to give” and the others spoke eagerly of a return to “normalcy” where they might feel re-energized.
Educational research has begun to recognize the existence of compassion fatigue in teaching communities (Hoffman, Palladino, and Barnett), a concept long recognized in frontline health workers, and the ways in which teacher self-care is crucial to prevent fatigue and inevitable burnout (Skovholt and Trotter-Mathison). In writing center scholarship, Driscoll and Wells’ most recent article offering strategies for emotional management in tutoring sessions ends with a helpful reminder of tools for tutors to avoid fatigue and burnout (26). There is also recent writing center research on mindfulness tactics or setting boundaries as self-care (See Giaimo et al.’s exhaustive literature review), amplifying the need for self-care in writing tutoring work. The scholarship clearly recognizes that tutoring is inherently emotional work and that self-care is required to maintain this work, but what does it look like when tutors have no emotional bandwidth left? What happens when you have nothing left to give?
A recent study measured cortisol levels in tutors throughout a consultation, revealing that tutors felt less stressed toward the end of a consultation; the authors of this study hypothesized that it was the social aspect of connecting and relating to tutees was actually stress-reducing (Simmons, et al.). Perhaps the tools that the Graduate Fellows at UCD developed were stress-relieving methods of self-care as much as they were ways to achieve that connection. Nonetheless, as we begin to adjust our sights back to some sense of normalcy, we must acknowledge what reaching the edge of empathy looks like in an inherently emotional role and continue to document the ways that tutors have connected despite the very real distance they have experienced.
Works Cited
Driscoll, Dana Lynn, and Jennifer Wells. “Tutoring the Whole Person: Supporting Emotional Development in Writers and Tutors.” Praxis, vol. 17, no. 3, 2020.
Giaimo, Genie Nicole. “A Matter of Method: Wellness and Care Research in Writing Center Studies.” Wellness and Care in Writing Center Work, edited by Genie Nicole. Giaimo et. al, PressBooks, 2021.
Hoffman, Shari, John M. Palladino, and Jeffery Barnett. “Compassion Fatigue as a Theoretical Framework to Help Understand Burnout among Special Education Teachers.” Online Submission, vol. 2, no.1, 2007, pp. 15-22.
Oweidat, Lana, and Lydia McDermott. “Neither brave nor safe: Interventions in empathy for tutor training.” The Peer Review, vol. 1, no. 2, 2017.
Perry, Alison. “Training for Triggers: Helping Writing Center Consultants Navigate Emotional Sessions.” Composition Forum, vol. 34, Summer 2016.
Simmons, Erik, Miller, Laura K., Prendergast, Caroline, and McGuigan, Christiana. “Is Tutoring Stressful?: Measuring Tutors’ Cortisol Levels.” WLN: A Journal of Writing Center Scholarship, vol. 44, no. 5-6, 2020, pp. 18-26.
Skovholt, Thomas M., and Michelle Trotter-Mathison. The resilient practitioner: Burnout prevention and self-care strategies for counselors, therapists, teachers, and health professionals. Routledge, 2014.
About the Author
Jennifer Burke Reifman is a third year Ph.D. Student at U.C. Davis in the school of Education with an emphasis in Writing, Rhetoric, and Composition Studies. Jennifer has been a writing instructor and tutor for almost 10 years, and her research currently focuses on student placement in undergraduate writing courses and the use of technology in writing courses.