Effective Writing Center Tutoring Strategies...

Based on the principles and assumptions of teacher-student conferencing, writing center training guides suggest certain elements are critical to a successful session. Although the activities and suggestions for training may vary, writing center researchers have established four main areas of concern for consultants to be aware of as they conference with clients. In order to achieve the desired goals with student writers, consultants are encouraged to develop rapport with the client, set an agenda for the session, provide feedback, and assess student understanding.

Establishing Rapport ...

Rapport is essential for the success of a writing center conference. In order for any goal to be achieved the client and consultant need to be able to engage in meaningful conversation. Students invest time and emotion into their writing and many feel uneasy and vulnerable about giving a paper to a consultant for a response. Others are embarrassed or discouraged that a teacher sent them to the center for extra help. It is imperative that students feel welcome and comfortable in the writing center. As Donald Murray does with his students, the writing center consultant needs to convey the attitude that the writing and ideas of the client are valued.

Although researchers agree that rapport is an important element of a writing conference the ways and time frames in which they suggest that it be achieved differ. Emily Meyers and Louis Smith view rapport as critical to a successful writing conference; "students learn more easily when they feel confident than when they feel threatened" (11). In The Practical Tutor they suggest that consultants must establish rapport before proceeding with the session.

Meyers and Smith suggest that rapport is best developed through the consultant's ability to ask questions and to sympathize with students. They suggest asking students questions about their teachers, their class load, and what they do in their spare time, in order to discover the students' attitudes about school and writing, as well as provide a door through which the consultant is able to use sympathy to create a common understanding. The consultant can appear supportive by making statements such as "I understand how hard that is" or "I struggle to balance work and classes too."

The Bedford Guide to Writing Tutors suggests that a combination of personal and physical aspects are necessary to create rapport with a student. The appearance and layout of the center itself go a long way toward determining the tone of the session. The center should look cheerful in its decor. Well-kept work areas should allow the client and consultant to sit side-by-side, creating a tangible image that the client is a fellow writer, not an authority figure seated at a distance, or separate from the client across the desk.

The way in which the client is met at the door of the center is an important aspect of rapport developing as well. Leigh Ryan suggests that "a casual but interested greeting and smile can immediately make students feel less apprehensive about the prospect of sharing their writing with someone else" (Ryan 15). She then proposes that consultants introduce themselves and begin to ask general questions about the writing assignment. Ryan believes that rapport begins in the first moments of the writing conference, but continues to develop throughout the stages of the conference as the consultant works with the client.

In Teaching One-to-One, Muriel Harris emphasizes the importance of developing a relationship with the student writer; Harris suggests that "early conferences need to focus on getting acquainted, on breaking the ice so that future interaction is informal and comfortable" (41). She agrees that writers need to feel comfortable in the conference before they will enter into meaningful dialog.

Like Ryan, Harris stresses that physical positioning of the client and student is important in rapport. She also suggests that the tutor sit next to the client if possible. This suggests a more friendly role of equality as opposed to seating arrangements which create the view point of the tutor as teacher or authority, for instance, sitting on the opposite side of the work space.

Harris addresses the different roles that the tutor may play in the writing center. At times the tutor is an "ally," supporting and emphathizing with the writers. Other times the tutor is a "coach," standing on the sidelines calling out suggestions, or a "commentator" providing a play-by-play analysis of what took place in the paper. A consultant can even take on the role of a "counselor" or "listener," hearing the students' frustrations and feelings about an assignment or their personal lives (35-39). A multitude of situations arise in the writing center which require a consultant to take on different titles or roles. All of Harris's suggested roles imply a relationship or degree of rapport between the student and consultant.

Christina Murphy compares the relationship between the student and consultant in the writing center to that of the client/therapist. She believes that just as clients go to a therapist for help, students come to the writing conference with needs and concerns. Before the therapist, or consultant, can assist the client, a trust must be developed. She quotes Truax and Carkhuff in their book, Toward Effective Counseling and Psychotherapy: "the person who is better able to communicate warmth, genuineness, and accurate empathy is more effective in interpersonal relationships no matter what the goal of the interaction is" (45). Murphy feels that the success of the conference is directly related to the type of rapport that develops between client and consultant. Interpersonal skills need to be at the top of the list of qualities writing consultants need to possess. She states that "tutoring takes place within a number of socio-cultural and interpersonal contexts that lend richness and complexity to the tutors' roles. An understanding of these contexts extends the tutors' technical skill" (46). Teachers and consultants must attempt to understand students and try to make them feel comfortable.

Setting an Agenda ...

A second important element in the success of the writing center consultation is planning what will take place during the given time. For a writing conference to run smoothly an agenda and specific goals need to be set. Without a set agenda for the session, the conversation may meander meaninglessly. Tutor guidebooks suggest that student input is important to creating an agenda. Goal setting needs to be the product of a collaborative effort between the student and consultant. Students can feel frustrated and unmotivated if they feel that they have lost control of their paper to a consultant. It is important to ask clients what their concerns about the writing are since chances are greater that revision will occur when students are able to make changes in areas that concern them (Meyers and Smith 11).

Muriel Harris agrees that collaboration on goals is essential. Harris says,

We have to realize that students come to sessions seeking help, feedback, answers to questions or even reassurance matters that are on their mental agenda and therefore require attendance. We cannot proceed in one direction when the student is only waiting for a lull in order to turn the conversation down a different road. (33)

Questioning is one of the most powerful tools for doing so. Often, when asked the right question, students will come to their own conclusions about what needs to be revised in a paper. A combination of open-ended and closed questions can lead the writer and consultant to a point where the session may begin. Closed-ended questions can help the consultant gain information about the given assignment, due date, and requirements. Open-ended questions are helpful in establishing the writers' attitude, understanding of the assignment, of frustration with the writing, and progress through the stages in the writing process (Ryan 22).

Questioning students to set an agenda is only effective if the consultant combines it with active listening skills. Active listening involves hearing what students have to say, and at times what they haven't said. Ryan talks about the silence and wait time that need to be allowed for students to formulate questions and responses, suggesting that a wait time of 15 second be established before a consultant rephrases the question or moves on (22).

Questioning and collaboration during agenda setting is important because of the learning which can take place while doing so. Students are able to watch and be a part of the critical analysis of their drafts as the consultant models what they need to do on their own. Harris calls this the "framework" for learning (46). Student writers need to be informed of the agenda prior to beginning the session and have the agenda recapped at the end of the session so that they are able to view both where the conference was going to head and how it got there.

The agenda also needs to be something that can be done in the time allotted for the conference. Every detail of the paper cannot and should not be dealt with during that time. Harris suggests that since independence is the ultimate goal of the writing conference, the agenda should include only one or two main concerns. If the session covers more than that, the student is apt to forget much of what was discussed within minutes of leaving the center (75).

Providing Feedback ...

The type of response that the students receive in the writing center is another factor important to the success of the session. As they do in Murray and Carnicelli's conferences, high level or global concerns take precedence in the writing conference over low, sentence-level concerns. If the content of the paper does not satisfactorily fulfill an assignment, reaching a particular audience or communicating its intended purpose, then there is little need for correcting sentence-level errors. Consultants are directed to begin with issues of audience, topic, content and structure before moving on to stylistic or grammatical concerns (Ryan 35). Jeff Brooks, in his article "Showing Students How to Assess," claims that when consultants merely help students "fix" the minor errors in drafts they are not moving the student toward autonomy (128).

Questioning plays a significant role in the ways consultants respond to student writing. Questions help to guide students toward a critical view of their writing. Writing center researchers agree that a minimalist approach to responding is the most appropriate way of leading students toward the goal of independence since it asks them to talk about their own writing and find their own answers. This theory of conferencing suggests that writers are capable of answering their own questions if prompted in the right way (Ryan 33).

Harris refers to Linda Flower and John Hayes' research when she says that students generally come into the writing center with a sense that something is amiss in their writing. However, they are unable to diagnose what the problem is. Frequently, all students need is conversation time with a consultant, full of open-ended questions before they are able to articulate what the problem is (61). This questioning also usually guides the writer away from sentence level issues to matters that are more important (63).

Assessing...

The final element necessary in an effective session is assessing the session itself in order to determine whether the student has understood what has been discussed. A writing conference progresses forward or backward according to whether the student understands the suggestions and what has been talked about (Harris 71). Assessing this can be done in a variety of ways. The simplest ways are, again, to employ the use of questions, asking students if a suggestion made sense or how they will proceed to revise a paper (Ryan 19).

Body language also reveals a student's understanding. Effective consultants assess whether a student is confused, bored, frustrated, or understanding by such things as posture, eye contact, and facial expressions throughout the writing conference. Harris suggests that tutors constantly monitor the body language of a client. These non-verbal cues, looking at the clock, tapping the table, leaning toward or away from the tutor, are all signals of how the student views what is taking place, and can be helpful in assessing the effectiveness of the session (19).