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Since I began working in the writing center, I have found that it is full of tutors with a variety of experience levels, coming from different backgrounds, and utilizing a variety of techniques to help their students.  While some professions require employees to perform their responsibilities in a uniform way, diversity in approach is essential to an effective writing center--for it is a place that is open to an even larger variety of students, all coming in with different needs.  And so, not only is it important to have diversity between tutors, it is equally important to have flexibility within individual tutors, so that they may best serve the needs of each student.  I've talked to many of the tutors in this writing center, in an attempt to see what types of roles they try to juggle, and how each role is valid at times.

 The tutors in the writing center fall into three experience groups.  There are faculty tutors, graduate student tutors and peer tutors.  Besides differences in length of experience, these different groups of tutors have also received different types of training.  Most faculty and graduate students report no official training for the writing center.  They rely instead on their classroom teaching experience, their interest in writing, and their knowledge of the craft.  These tutors all bring something different to the writing center.  They all gained their writing expertise in different ways, and have read about or developed different techniques for dealing with students.  They learn from trial and error, from each other, and from weekly meetings.  Peer tutors such as myself are in a slightly different situation.  We spent a semester training together--reading the same writing center literature, writing about the same topics, and generally learning the same techniques.  Yet despite our sometimes superior book knowledge, we came to the writing center without practical experience in the teaching of writing--it was collision of theory and practice, and for many of us a reconciliation was needed.  As peer tutors, we find ourselves constantly revising our own strategies, borrowing ideas both from texts and from other tutors.  The development of a tutoring style is an ongoing process for us.  We are trying to learn the best way to do our job, and part of that has been discovering exactly what our job here really is.

 All the tutors I spoke with, faculty, graduate, and undergraduate alike feel that their job is to attempt to address the needs of the students.  But even this isnít as simple a job description as it seems.  Some tutors take a minimalist approach, trying to focus only on what is concerning the student, though some assume a more active role in determining what their student needs help with. One peer tutor tries to discover the balance between what the student thinks he needs and what she, the tutor thinks he needs.  But how are these concerns addressed once they are identified?  At this stage, the tutors tend to view themselves as a resource and guide.  They try to focus on the most glaring errors and address the students' most urgent needs.  They are teachers--not just correcting, but explaining.  One faculty tutor describes her role as a teacher of conventions.  She attempts to illuminate for her students the connection between convention and communication, showing how it is integral to communicating.  But these ideas of responsibility must remain flexible, as tutors tell me that their specific responsibilities change with each and every student.

This flexible attitude seems more than appropriate because the students who come into the writing center also come from different backgrounds.  The writing center tutors undergraduate and graduate students as well as other faculty and staff.  These students bring in papers written for all disciplines, from computer science to philosophy.  Approaching papers written on unfamiliar subject matter has its advantages and disadvantages.  Some tutors find it easier to deal with foreign subjects because it affords them the chance to really assess the clarity of the paper.  Other tutors prefer to work with papers written about things they know more about because it allows them to offer more input on content. 

Another key factor creating variety within students is where they are in the writing process.  All of the tutors I interviewed, faculty, graduate, and peer alike agree that a student who hasnít begun writing requires a different approach from one revising a draft.  Some writers come in feeling utterly defeated and extremely anxious about an assignment.  Others come in with solid ideas but very basic skills and numerous sentence-level problems.  Still others come to the writing center for whom English is a second language, needing still more types of help.  What does this all mean?  It means that writing center tutors need to be ready to adjust their own approach with each student they see.  Leigh Ryan writes of  "the many hats tutors wear."  Tutors need to be agile enough to reach for a new hat every 30 minutes and sometimes make quick costume changes within a single session, for as one graduate tutor described this part of the job, "you have to immediately assess and offer suggestions for improvement."

 The first role that Ryan suggests is the ally.  Ryan describes the ally tutor as "sympathetic, empathetic, encouraging, and, best of allÖ supportive and helpful."  This role is especially important with the "anxious students."  One faculty tutor said, "I look at the assignment as a common challenge that we work through together."  It is important, particularly for tutors who also teach writing in a classroom setting, to resist the urge to be nothing more than a critical authority.  The writing tutorial should be a chance to embrace the opportunity to abandon the role of strict critic.  Tutors should try to approach a student paper not searching for fault, but instead looking for the best way to improve the writer of that paper through collaboration.  Some tutors like to make jokes with the students and admit to difficulty they themselves have with certain aspects of writing.  The goal of the ally then is to be a resource without adopting the role of a stern authority--without becoming yet another person grading the studentís work.

Another role the tutor adopts from time to time is that of the commentator.  Tutors not only possess knowledge of conventions but also knowledge of readership.  This role allows tutors to use their unique perspective to "give them just what the students lacked: new eyes to 're-view' their work" (Sommers 183).  A main function of a writing tutor should be to act as these new eyes.  A study performed by Sommers revealed that experienced writers can act as these "new eyes" for themselves, but that the student writers, the writers we aim to help, have more difficulty removing themselves from the piece.  We can be the detached perspectives that experience writers create for themselves.  This can most easily be accomplished by giving the students feedback about how their messages are being received, and how their words could be misunderstood by their readers.  The same tutor who spoke of his role as an ally told me that tutors "show them [the students] how their writing appears to someone else, if itís clear to their readers.  Provide an ear, a detached perspective."

Another role that tutors must attempt to juggle is that of the collaborator.  Many tutors begin their sessions by finding out exactly what problems concern the student.  They then go on to prioritize the session based upon those concerns.  Writing tutorials are, perhaps more so than classroom teaching, a team endeavor.  The student brings to the table knowledge of the subject matter and what message they want to convey in their writing.  The tutor brings to the table knowledge of the craft of writing and how the studentís writing might be perceived by other readers.  Without contribution from both of these parties, a tutorial could not be truly effective.  One peer tutor says that he tries to utilize real collaboration in at least 75 percent of his tutorials.  And all tutors seem to find collaboration useful, particularly while brainstorming for a new paper.  However, some tutors still struggle to keep from running the tutorial.  It can be easy to talk at a student for 25 minutes, but tutors must keep their ultimate goals in mind, and remember their responsibilities to this student.  The differences between talking with a student and talking at a student are especially important here.  Discussion and explanation must occur without boring a student by lecturing.  Surely, one cannot function as a true facilitator or guide without extensive student involvement.

Many tutors reject the theories of minimalist tutoring when it comes to another role, that of the expert.  Most tutors seem to agree that there are times when what a student really needs is to be shown how to correct their writing.  Some tutors write frequently on students' papers, while others try to make the student do all of the writing, but regardless of this preference, it is important that tutors understand how to function while donning their expert hat.  An important part of being an effective "expert" in the writing center is realizing that you donít have to know everything and remembering that the handbook is always a valuable resource.  Like the collaborator, even the expert needs to strike a balance between providing knowledge to the student and listening to the studentís needs.  The role of the expert is one of the most important to master because it is perhaps the role that students most often expect their tutor to adopt. 

What is most important to remember is that no one role is appropriate for every student.  Even tutors who encourage students to write everything themselves will often break that self-imposed rule when dealing with an ESL student who has different needs.  Tutors must struggle to be an expert resource without ignoring the concerns of the student.  Tutors must be willing and able to illustrate conventions without neglecting the importance of collaboration.  Those tutors who find that they cling to one hat need to begin to assess each student and determine if it might be appropriate to try on a new role.  A writing tutorial is an intense balancing act with, what one graduate tutor calls "an exhausting immediacy"--one that becomes easier only with practice and flexibility.
 
 

Works Cited

Ryan, Leigh. The Bedford Guide for Writing Tutors. 3rd ed. Boston: St. Martin's Press, 2002.

Sommers, Nancy.  "Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers."  The Harcourt Brace Guide to Peer Tutoring.  Ed. Toni-Lee Capossela.  Fort Worth,TX: Harcourt Brace, 1998.

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