1. Tutoring the Academic Essay in the Disciplines: Can We Be Generalists?
PWR 195/295
Writing Tutor Training Course

2. Week 5: Tutoring the Academic Essay in the Disciplines: Can We Be Generalists?
Discourse Community Analysis Interviews
Takeover Protocol
Terrific Tutoring Tips
What do we offer specialist writers as generalist tutors?
(Quick) review of scholarship
Mock Tutoring
Takeaways

3. Multimodal Strategies of Invention and Arrangement
For next week
Multimodal Strategies of Invention and Arrangement
Jackie Grutch McKinney, “New Media Matters: Tutoring in the Late Age of Print”
Due: Notes on reading. Reflection on observations/takeovers.
. . . from PWR 195/295 blog

4. Questions to ask in interviews for DCA
How did you learn to write in your discipline?
How important is writing in the discipline? What elements of writing does the discipline most value?
What do you think are the important elements of writing in the discipline that students need to learn? What are good ways to teach students to learn how to write in the discipline?
What do those new to the discipline most struggle with in their writing? What advice would you give them?
What are the key writing genres in the discipline?
What are some samples of writing in the discipline that effectively convey the discipline’s values?

5. Terrific Tutoring Tips
Take-over protocol
Clarifying questions
What do they do while we read?
Mid-session – meta moment – how is the session going?

6. What do we offer specialist writers as generalist tutors?
Reflection on observations
Review of scholarship
Mock tutoring
Reflection in big group: what strategies worked best with specialist writing?

7. Specialist Tutoring PROS
    more knowledgeable about disciplinary conventions -- e.g., peer tutors are often trained to tutor writing in specific courses; they become partners with faculty in initiating writers into the disciplines
    writers learn to think about writing as a product of a discourse community
more able than non-specialist tutors to engage higher-order issues
CONS
    tutor may think of writing as a product to be fixed rather than as a process
    tutor may function more as a teacher and become directive, rather than tutoring as a peer/collaborator

8. Generalist Tutoring PROS links writing with learning
not to be confused with a TA or grader -- divorces evaluation from the writing process
models the value of collaboration in both writing and learning
provides new perspectives for thinking about writing
facilitates learning to write (in the disciplines)
CONS
more likely to stick with surface-level writing issues when confronted with specialist writing
may “dangerously mislead,” in the words of one of my sources

9. Transdisciplinary Writing Features
well-reasoned arguments supported by peer reviewed sources
critical thinking and problem solving
creation of new knowledge/ addressing gap in literature
logical organization
formal language
grammatical correctness
Dan Melzer, “Training Tutors to Work with Assignments across the Curriculum,” Workshop at Northern California Writing Centers Association, March 2015 (citing Carter 2007; Sullivan and Tinberg 2006; Swales 1990; Thaiss and Zawacki 2006; Waldo 2003).

10. Disciplinary Writing Features
specific genres
organizational pattern (e.g. title, abstract of the text, key vocabulary, and subheadings)
argument or logic expectations
conventions of evidence (e.g. charts, graphs, quotations of experts, facts, statistics, examples, anecdotes, etc.)
stylistic or grammatical structures (voice [passive v. active], tense, and modality [degree of certainty])
linguistic features (register and technical words)

11. Working with Genre
Walker
Savini
Tutors tell clients what conventions to use and create a space to critique and discuss conventions
Tutors need to understand that genres are localized and different professors have different expectations
Tutors learn about different disciplines and pass knowledge along
Tutor acknowledges own familiarity with genre
Tutor assesses student’s own genre awareness in five domains (discourse community, writing process, rhetorical-, genre-,and subject matter knowledge)
Tutor and student work with a model
Tutors guide students toward independent knowledge of discourse community

12. Mock Tutoring 25 mins each – All-group discussion
Use the anatomy of a tutoring session
Respond to your peer’s writing goals
All-group discussion
What tutoring strategies most effectively helped you address specialist writing?

13. A Discourse Community …
has a broadly agreed set of public goals
has mechanisms for intercommunication among its members
uses its participatory mechanisms to provide information and feedback
uses and possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims
has acquired specific lexis
has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and expertise

14. John Bean’s hierarchy of questions
Does the draft follow the assignment?
Does the draft address a problem or question and does it have a thesis?
What is the overall quality of the writer’s ideas and argument?
Is the draft effectively organized?
Then, finally, does the writer need to work on grammar, punctuation, or spelling?
-Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom

15. Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing
Curiosity: the desire to know more about the world.
Openness: the willingness to consider new ways of being and thinking in the world.
Engagement: a sense of investment and involvement in learning.
Creativity: the ability to use novel approaches for generating, investigating, and representing ideas.
Persistence: the ability to sustain interest in and attention to short- and long-term projects.
Responsibility: the ability to take ownership of one’s actions and understand the consequences of those actions for oneself and others.
Flexibility: the ability to adapt to situations, expectations, or demands.
Metacognition: the ability to reflect on one’s own thinking as well as on the individual and cultural processes used to structure knowledge.

16. What does this mean for writing instruction?
Current traditional rhetoric
Focuses on text (product) and formal dimensions of grammatical correctness.
Tutors correct.
Expressivism (Peter Elbow, Donald Murray, Ken Macrorie)
Writing as means of self discovery – goal is to develop an “authentic voice”
Tutors help writers understand their process; tutors ask question to get the student to discover and think about ideas.
Social constructionism (Kenneth Bruffee, Patricia Bizzell)
Focuses on sociocultural and historical settings in which writers develop their understanding of language and knowledge.
Tutor is one of a number of peers contributing to the writer’s development.