Re: tutor training discussion

[Anne Mullin <mullanne@isu.edu>]

I'm late chiming in -- Muriel's "case" is such a provocative one.  A
couple of things my tutors read that get us to open up discussion on
tutor roles and responsitibilities include Meyer and Smith's Chapter One
(even though the dialogues may seem a teeny bit dated/stiff, perhaps,
they still get into issues of motivation, responsibility and reactions)
-- also this fall we read Jeff Brooks' "Minimalist Tutoring: Making
Students Do All the Work" and Irene Clark's "Collaboration and Ethics in
Writing Center Pedagogy" -- both in the St. Martin's Sourcebook (Murphy
and Sherwood.) These make a nice contrasting pair.  My undergrad
tutor-trainees more than held their own in a joint discussion with the
graduate TA's in their seminar on teaching composition as a result of
these readings and their experience -- like Sara's set-up, they did
these three readings during the first two weeks of the semester, when
they were observing and, maybe, having their first clients.