Stanford - Sydney Peer Writing Tutor Linkup
October 31 / November 1, 2011
Context and Aim:
At Sydney, the Writing Hub has brought together fifteen students to form the first cohort of peer
writing tutors at the University. Our peer tutors are the first to discover what Australian students
need from writing consultations, and the first to test what Australian writing tutors need from
their training. The Coordinator, Ben, is keen to connect his students with existing programs in
the US and is keen to learn from the experiences of Sydney’s pilot writing tutors.
Stanford’s Hume Writing Center, now in its tenth year, has a cohort of 35-40 undergraduate
peer tutors, tutoring in the Center, in various locations across campus, and in many of the
residential dorms. The peer tutor training course is taught each spring and this year’s instructor,
Julia (also the Center’s associate director), looks forward to hearing ideas and suggestions for
the course’s continual improvement.
This link-up will provide ongoing support for existing peer tutors and provide valuable
feedback to improve the peer writing programs on both sides of the Pacific.
PART ONE: ‘Icebreaker’ (15 mins)
Jump in and introduce yourself. Respond to one or two of the following questions:
What does an average day at University involve for you?
What subjects do you enjoy most?
How long have you been a writing tutor and why did you start tutoring?
How do you normally celebrate Halloween and/or the Melbourne Cup?
At Stanford, it’s Halloween; at Sydney, it’s the Melbourne Cup. As a group, discuss the
similarities/differences in how these two ‘events’ are celebrated, and chat about why these
events have achieved national significance.
PART TWO: ‘Design a Training Course’ (25 mins)
During the next 25 minutes of the link-up, work through the following questions with your
groups. Draw on your experiences as tutors to answer the questions: think about common
questions you hear, things that students or fellow tutors talk to you about, things you wish you’d
been trained to handle, etc. Record notes from your conversation in your group’s Google doc.
1. What do you think students need from a tutoring conference/consultation? What
challenges for students do you see?
Do student lifestyles affect access to tutoring?
Stanford - Sydney Peer Writing Tutor Linkup
October 31 / November 1, 2011
What attitudes (negative/ positive) do students have toward peer tutoring?
What are the most common questions/concerns about writing?
Are there differences between the needs of Stanford and Sydney students?
2. Now that you’ve been tutoring for a while, what resources/training are required to
prepare and support peer tutors?
How would you describe the style of tutoring you practice?
What resources/training helped prepare and support you for tutoring?
What other kinds of support might improve your tutoring?
Are there differences between the needs of Stanford and Sydney tutors?
3. Based on your conversations and notes, craft a brief proposal for what a tutor
training course could look like.
Your proposal should describe a style of tutoring that is preferred by your group,
as well any resources and activities that could be used in the training and
ongoing support of tutors. You could aim to create a training course that works at
both Stanford and Sydney, or you could create a course for just one University
and include notes about why the course wouldn’t work in a different context.
PART THREE: ‘Reflection’ (10 mins)
In the final 10 minutes of the linkup, one member from your group (Sydney and Stanford
combined) should take the role of scribe and post a proposed training course and a reflective
statement as a comment below the following blog post:
http://crossculturalrhetoric.wordpress.com/2011/10/24/sydney-stanford-peer-tutors-linkup/
Your group should come up with a group name (something related to writing or tutoring or both),
and include it along with the first names of your group members in the post. Paste your
proposed training course into the comment box and add a few sentences commenting on
whether, and why / why not, your course could work in both universities.