Re: Tutor internship

[colleen lynch <clynch@prism.santa-fe.cc.nm.us>]

Oops, I forgot to mention it, but we do have our students write a short paper
about their experiences in the center for exactly the reasons you mention.

Colleen Lynch
SFCC

Hatcher, Judy wrote:

> Rebecca,
> That sounds like a great project.  The only thing I would suggest is that
> she write a paper about her experience in the center and what she learned by
> watching and working with tutors.  It will give some documentation of what
> was done in case anyone questions how that work justifies the honors
> component, and it will help her think about just what she is learning and
> how she can apply those skills to her own writing.  I wish both of you luck
> with this project.
>
>                 -----Original Message-----
>                 From:   Rebecca Foster [mailto:FosterB@longview.cc.mo.us]
>                 Sent:   Wednesday, October 13, 1999 12:20 PM
>                 To:     wcenter@ttacs6.ttu.edu
>                 Subject:        Tutor internship
>
>                 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