On Location: Theory and Practice in Classroom-Based Writing Tutoring

On Location: Theory and Practice in Classroom-Based Writing Tutoring

Language: English

Pages: 262

ISBN: 0874215994

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


Classroom-based writing tutoring is a distinct form of writing support, a hybrid instructional method that engages multiple voices and texts within the college classroom. Tutors work on location in the thick of writing instruction and writing activity.

On Location is the first volume to discuss this emerging practice in a methodical way. The essays in this collection integrate theory and practice to highlight the alliances and connections on-location tutoring offers while suggesting strategies for resolving its conflicts. Contributors examine classroom-based tutoring programs located in composition courses as well as in writing intensive courses across the disciplines.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

that they are comfortable showing her, and they are prepared to talk to her about writing. She reintroduces herself to each student and asks his or her name, often offering her hand to shake. Many students find this formality reassuring; they know what to expect from Mandee. D I F F E R E N T P R I O R I T I E S I N E N G L I S H 1 0 0 P L U S T U TO R I N G Once students begin to feel comfortable with having the tutors around and working in the classroom, they will start to raise their hands

consultant will play in guiding students toward meeting the expectations of the professor (and the discipline). SUGGESTED MODELS Writing Consultant as Participant/Guide In some situations, and especially the first semester a graduate student works with the writing-intensive course for a professor, an effective method for communication and for meeting the needs of students is to have the writing consultant observe the class as a participant for much of the semester. This model serves many

disciplines sharing authority with, and thus empowering, undergraduate writing tutors; and we find in tutors in our own projects and those of our contributors a certain strength that has allowed them to overcome the uncertainties of being on location in order to be effective, to varying degrees, in their new classroom roles. The essays in On Location address the issues (both positive and negative) that we have touched on in this introduction. Overall, we have arranged our chapters into three

from individual authority in one-to-one sessions to shared authority in the classroom-based program directly affects their sense of professional identity. As the tutor responses described above suggest, this change in identity can cause significant confusion and frustration, limiting tutors’ ability to work effectively with faculty across the disciplines. During our work in the Partnership Program, we often misrecognized opportunities for continued reflection and learning with and from our tutors

theory to account for the student mentors’ positionings within their groups, their group members’ constructions of their authority, and their conflicted status in the seminar class they took with me. I will show that in these democratic classroom settings, power was repeatedly resisted, negotiated, and recentered among students in both groups and between the tutors and me. I will argue that, like traditional models, our newer practices are subject to institutional figurations that continue to

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