Tutoring Practices

Justine Mack

In chapter 3 of The Oxford Guide for Writing Tutors, “Tutoring Practices” provides several very meaningful, and realistic pieces of advice for writing tutors. Every piece of advice given is credible because some type of study that proves it right follows it up. Out of the seven suggestions under Foundational Advice for Writing Tutors I believe the most important to be is open to learning as a tutor. This is so important for tutors because like Kenneth A. Bruffee wrote “Peer tutoring made learning a two-way street, since student’s work tended to improve when they got help from peer tutors and tutors learned from the students’ they helped and from the activity of tutoring itself.” Tutoring is like anything in life where there is always room for improvement, so I feel that keeping an open mind to learn new things when tutoring is essential because you can always be better and it is also necessary if you as a tutor don’t understand what the tutee is writing about. Entering this course I thought I was going to have a lot to learn because I don’t really have experience with teaching, or tutoring a peer. However, like the chapter said there are several skills I already have that are extremely beneficial to being a tutor like I am a student and I guess I’m pretty decent at writing, I have interpersonal skills, and I know enough now from feedback I’ve gotten on my writing what is appropriate and when. Throughout all of the sessions I have observed in our writing center our tutors have been nothing but comforting and nice to their tutees and talked them through their issues, asking questions when they aren’t understanding something, making the sessions into conversations. Although, the conversation is supposed to be casual it is important to stay on topic and a bit more serious than one you’d have with a close friend because being a tutor does give you a sense of authority. I am also a big fan of the notion that you should almost immediately ask the tutee the agenda for the session to almost lie out a game plan and prioritize certain things over others in order to be able to help as much as possible in the allotted time you have.