Making Tutoring Strange: The Pedagogical Aims of Tutor Training

Abstract

"I don’t think that we even need this class. Tutoring is really intuitive and the class is pointless.” These were the words of a student whose poor performance in our tutor training course meant that she was not invited to serve as a Writing Fellow after the course. As the three-credit course over our 15week semester was coming to a close and I made my way through annotated bibliographies and research proposals from the other students in the course, I wondered if she was right. Had the course been pointless? As I walked into the Writing Center during a particularly busy time of day and witnessed a dozen small gestures and phrases that made me proud, I thought again of the student’s assessment. Was she right?