Questions

My first question concerns online tutoring. In the guide, it mentions doing tutoring while you are free at the Writing Center (a student has no-showed, etc.) Is there an accumulation of such requests toward the end of the semester? Will our online workload ever increase?

The reading emphasizes the importance of not writing students' papers for them. However, what if they directly ask us to rephrase their words or to directly articulate how to formulate their theses? Do we ever strictly tell them no, that they have to write the paper, or do we try to gently avoid the subject?


Comments

  1. Carol SeverinoJanuary 23, 2019 at 10:29 AM

    Online drafts come in steadily throughout the semester, but as you suggest, the traffic is heavier at midterm and the last weeks of the semester. Most 6.6-hour-a week and 13.2-hour-a-week tutors have an online tutoring obligation built into their workload (.6 hour a week and 1.2 hours a week) apart from when their students don't show. Tutors not on the payroll would only tutor online if their one-hour student is no-show and when after Deirdre formally trains us, everyone tutors a draft for homework.

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  2. Carol SeverinoJanuary 23, 2019 at 10:34 AM

    As you suggest, there's a response in between rephrasing or rewriting for the student and saying "I won't write the paper for you." I wouldn't say the latter because it could ruin rapport, but I would ask questions, give hints, supply the start of a thesis statement that they can fill in; help them make a list of the elements they want their thesis to have. It's all about scaffolding a task for the student so that they can eventually do it themselves.

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