Olivia Castro
Tutoring Philosophy
I chose to become a writing center tutor because as a Writing Intensive English and
Secondary Education major, I want the experience of looking at papers not from a teacher. I
want the chance of working with different writers and different styles of writing. Being a
tutor will give me the skills to be a better educator. I also chose to be a writing center tutor
because I had a positive experience taking my papers there as a writer. I always felt more
confident about my papers after a writing center appointment. I also always had a game
plan about how I was going to approach the paper after the appointment. As an educator, I
want my students to feel successful, but still have the ability to complete the task on their
own. I always want my students to have a sense of independence when writing their
papers. This still applies to me as tutor as well. My mission is:
1) Writers during and after my appointment feeling comfortable with their work.
2) Writers have steps to continue the writing process.
Part of my mission is to find out the comfort levels about the assignment. I always
ask my writers what they want to work on, but its important to ask how they feel about the
assignment as well. I found in my appointments with writers through my internship last
semester and my experience so far it is important to ask first how they are doing in general
at the start of the appointment to gage specifically where to take the appointment. For
instance, I usually ask my writers how they are doing in general or how their day is going. If
I notice there is a stress, this allows me to steer the appointment a certain way compared to
someone who was coming in feeling positive overall. Tutors need to see writers beyond
their paper and see them as human beings. We as tutors must understand our writers and
their feelings towards a paper in order to have a successful appointment. During the
appointment, I always make sure to ask my writers if this okay when I make a suggestion
for change in the paper. It can be hard when someone tries to take over your paper, and I
always want the writer to be in control of their assignment and where the paper goes. As
tutors, we are more of a guide for their paper. Towards the end of the appointment, I
always make sure there isn’t any other questions or that I always try to answer their
questions at the beginning of the appointment.
The next part of my mission as a tutor is something I am still working on. As a tutor,
my goal is that writers can continue what we accomplish after the appointment. A way I
have been doing this in appointments is towards the end I usually verbalize what we’ve
done so far and I usually mention again something we talked about that we wanted to
change. I usually tie this into my transition to make sure writers are feeling comfortable
with the appointment. A way I am hoping to expand on this is by when I take notes, writing
down what the writer hopes to accomplish after the appointment. This will allow the writer
to have something physical to look at after our appointment. It also allows me as the tutor
to make sure I answered all the questions they had at the beginning of the appointment.
Overall, as a writing center tutor, I always hope my writers come out of my appointment
feeling successful with their paper, and are able to work on their paper independently after
our appointment.