Re: Tutor internship

[Barbara Little Liu <liub@ecsuc.ctstateu.edu>]

I would suggest making her "responsible for" the time in the writing center
by having her keep and turn in a journal of her observations.  This would
also help her to make sense of and make the most of her experiences.  It
would also give you even more insight into whether she is, indeed, tutor
material.

Barbara Liu


At 12:19 PM 10/13/99 -0500, you wrote:
>One of my students has just started a project that's a new idea to me, and
I'm wondering whether any of you have experience with something along the
same lines, and can point me toward pitfalls to avoid and ways to make the
project a success. 
>
>We're at a community college, and our tutors are all peer tutors who have
completed English 101 & 102 (the traditional "freshman comp" courses). In
addition to my Writing Center duties, I'm teaching a section of 101, and
one student is taking the course for honors credit. Our honors program
requires student and instructor to define an honors project on a contract
basis; in many courses, this ends up being an additional research paper or
something of the sort. This student, knowing that I direct the WC,
suggested that she could spend 18-20 hours this semester in the Center, as
a kind of intern, observing and working with the tutors. We don't plan to
let her tutor, of course--she's only halfway through her first writing
course--but she'll otherwise be treated as though she were a tutor in
training. I'm excited about the project--no one here has ever done anything
like it. It seems to me that this will be more valuable to her, and she'll
learn more (both about tutoring and writing) than she ever could by writing
yet another paper. (Also, if she's as successful in the 101 course as I
suspect she's going to be, and if she's equally successful in 102, then
she'd be a good tutor candidate next fall. With the high turnover we
necessarily have in a 2-year college, I'm always on the lookout for
potential tutors!)
>
>So...is there a down side to this that I'm missing? Anybody got
suggestions, warnings, similar experiences? Thanks!
>
>Becky Foster
>Longview Community College
>Lee's Summit, MO
>
>
*******************************************************
               Dr. Barbara Little Liu
           Assistant Professor of English
	Eastern Connecticut State University
		    (860)465-4576
*******************************************************  
http://nutmeg.ctstateu.edu/personal/faculty/liub/index.html