Archive for the ‘Working in a class’ Category
October 2nd, 2008 by Mary Ellen Bertolini
CTLR will hold three lunches this fall for faculty teaching first-year seminars. Peer Writing Tutor will be invited along with other members of the resource teams (librarians, ACEs, Educational Technoligists, tech tutors) and commons heads and Deans. Trained PWTS can use this lunch as one of their three training sessions. Both new and trained PWTs will be paid for attendng.
All lunches will take place in CTLR (Lib 225) from 12:15-1:30. Come for any or all of the time.
Lunch dates are as follows:
Friday, October 24–First year seminars in Brainerd and Cook Commons
Friday, October 31–First year seminars in Wonnacott and Atwater Commons
Friday, November 14, Ross Commons and those unable to atend earlier lunches
May 26th, 2008 by Mary Ellen Bertolini
Students are invited to become Peer Writing Tutors if they have been nominated for the Ward Prize(for writing the best First-Year paper) or if they have been specifically requested by a faculty member to work with a first-year seminar or a college writing course.
New Peer Writing Tutors are paid ($8.70 an hour), and the Writing Program provides them with all the training they need. All new tutors attend an organizational meeting and five training sessions. All experienced tutors attend an organizational meeting and three training sessions.
Peer Writing Tutors
provide drop-in tutoring in the Center for Teaching, Learning and Research (room 225) in the New Library.
As a tutor, you may select the areas (depending on availability) in which you would most like to work: classroom, drop-in library tutoring.
Useful links
Peer Writing Tutor Guidelines
Working in a Class
Writing Guides
Working as a CTLR Drop-in Tutor
Getting Paid
Click here if you have questions.
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January 3rd, 2008 by Mary Ellen Bertolini
Contact Mary Ellen Bertolini for a list of Trained Peer Writing Tutors
Just as faculty benefit from having their peers read their work prior to publication, so too, students benefit from having their work read by their peers before it is graded. In both cases, the readers bring their experience as writers of the same sort of works–to their experience as critical readers. Peer writing tutors can continue the conversation professors have with their students about writing. Peer Writing Tutors do not help students with writing in place of the professor but in addition to the professor. Tutors are trained to be the authorized help for students, to ask probing questions about the papers they read, and to make positive suggestions for improvement of those papers.
Sessions work best
- When the tutor has a clear idea of the professor’s writing expectations for students,
- When students in the class see the sessions with the tutor as an important part of the writing process for all students in the class, and
- When the professor emphasizes the importance of those sessions by making them mandatory.
Best Practices
- Meet with your peer writing tutor early in the semester or before the beginning of the semester.
- Give a copy of your class syllabus to your peer writing tutor.
- Make your expectations clear to the writing tutor and to your class.
- Introduce your writing tutor to your class.
- Make at least some sessions with the writing tutor obligatory.
- Encourage your writing tutor to circulate a list of specific appointment times before meetings.
- Allow your writing tutor ample time to meet with your students.
- Stay in contact with your writing tutor through meetings, emails, and phone.
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FYSE & CW Faculty Speak:
I have had the tutor in class for writing workshops and also meeting one-on-one with the students outside the class. The combination works well because the tutor knows what I am looking for, and the students trust the tutor.
I think the one-on one contact was helpful.
The interaction with the writing tutor makes [students] realize the importance of clarity and coherence . . . I discussed this with the tutor at the beginning of the semester.
The tutor was very useful as another voice to provide students with feedback . . . I also think that students were able to talk more candidly about the writing process [with the tutor].
The individual meetings got good feedback from most students.
I think that having an independent relationship between the students and the tutor works best.
The peer writing sessions enable the college writing students to have additional early feedback on an initial draft or key portion of their papers.”
[The writing tutor] can both model a writing process and the importance of giving feedback on writing.
One professor offers advice to her peer writing tutors:CWW’s advice to PWTs. You might find it useful to see how she directs the interaction between her tutors and the students in her class.
(more…)
October 16th, 2007 by Mary Ellen Bertolini
Working as a PWT in a FYSE or CW class
Working with your faculty member:
o By the end of the first week of class, you should have already met with the professor teaching the class you are tutoring and learned his or her writing goals and expectations for the class.
o Ask for a copy of the syllabus. If you are aware of when papers in the class are due and when the professor is most likely to need you, you can better plan getting work down for your own classes.
o Make sure to stay in touch with the professor during the semester—either by meetings, e-mails or phone.
Working with your class:
Meeting your class:
o Early in the semester, make arrangements to introduce yourself to the class. If you are free when the class meets, go to a class meeting. If you are not free then, you could e-mail the class to introduce yourself.
Setting up appointments with your class:
o The best way to arrange sessions with the students is by circulating a list of appointment times for specific appointments with you. We will not pay you to hold open “office hours” and wait for students to drop by. We do not have the budget to pay you for dead time. Waiting for students to just call when they need you often results in a frustrating game of phone tag, and you may find yourself either underutilized or suddenly swamped mid-semester.
o Meet your students in a public place on campus. Feel free to use the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Research (New Library, Room 225). Starting the first week of the semester, CTLR is open weekdays until 5:00. Starting the second week of the semester, the CTLR will be open Sunday-Thursday until midnight. On Friday, it closes at 5:00 p.m., and it will be closed all day Saturday, and will open again at 7:30 p.m. Sunday night. Tutors, also, frequently use the Grille, Juice Bar, and MBH for meetings.
Your role in CTLR and the Peer Writing Tutor Program:
o Peer Writing Tutors assigned to classes come to Thursday afternoon training sessions and/or makeup sessions to enhance their skills, to discuss problems that arise, and to share their hands-on experience with new tutors. All PWTs attend the Organizational Meeting. New Tutors attend five MORE training sessions. Trained tutors attend THREE MORE training sessions (one of which must be session 1 or two or makeup 1 or 2).
o Please fill out and return the mid-semester electronic survey
I will send you.
o Feel free to call (x3182), drop by (CTLR Lib 225E), or e-mail me with questions, or to suggest that one of your tutees may need to meet with a faculty tutor. The professional staff of CTLR is here to help you and your tutees.
• Have a wonderful semester working with your class and thanks for your work at CTLR!
September 27th, 2007 by Mary Ellen Bertolini
Learning to Write College Papers
This is a site I created for one of my classes. It has helpful handouts about structure, thesis development, grammar issues, integration of quotations and more.
Feel free to use these links and handouts with the students you tutor.
Norton Writing Guide
January 18th, 2007 by Mary Ellen Bertolini
Working with your faculty member:
- By the end of the first week of class, you should have already met with the professor teaching the class you are tutoring and learned his or her writing goals and expectations for the class.
- Ask for a copy of the syllabus. If you are aware of when papers in the class are due and when the professor is most likely to need you, you can better plan getting work down for your own classes.
- Make sure to stay in touch with the professor during the semester—either by meetings, e-mails or phone.
Meeting your class:
- Early in the semester, make arrangements to introduce yourself to the class. If you are free when the class meets, go to a class meeting. If you are not free then, you could e-mail the class to introduce yourself.
Setting up appointments with your class:
- The best way to arrange sessions with the students is by circulating a list of appointment times for specific appointments with you. We will not pay you to hold open “office hours” and wait for students to drop by. We do not have the budget to pay you for dead time. Waiting for students to just call when they need you often results in a frustrating game of phone tag, and you may find yourself either underutilized or suddenly swamped mid-semester.
- Meet your students in a public place on campus. Feel free to use the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Research (New Library, Room 225). Starting the first week of the semester, CTLR is open weekdays until 5:00. Starting the second week of the semester, the CTLR will be open Sunday-Thursday until midnight. On Friday, it closes at 5:00 p.m., and it will be closed all day Saturday, and will open again at 7:00 p.m. Sunday night. Tutors, also, frequently use the Grille, Juice Bar, and MBH for meetings.
Your role in CTLR and the Peer Writing Tutor Program:
- Peer Writing Tutors assigned to classes come to Thursday afternoon training sessions and/or makeup sessions to enhance their skills, to discuss problems that arise, and to share their hands-on experience with new tutors.
- Please fill out and return the mid-semester electronic survey I will send you.
- Feel free to call (x3182), drop by (CTLR Lib 225E), or e-mail me with questions, or to suggest that one of your tutees may need to meet with a faculty tutor. The professional staff of CTLR is here to help you and your tutees.
- Check our weblog.
Have a wonderful semester working with your class and thanks for your work at CTLR!
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May 17th, 2006 by Mary Ellen Bertolini
Thanks to all of you for a job well done this year!
 Congratulations to our graduating seniors!
We will be entertaining our graduating seniors (and our almost-graduating Feb seniors) at a lovely lunch in CTLR Wednesday during senior week at noon. Update: See pictures from this event here.
I met Monday with many of next year’s FYSE instructors, and I’ve begun placing Peer Writing Tutors in next year’s classes. Next week, I’ll start e-mailng you your assignments. If you never filled out the Future Plans form and you want a class next year, you can still download the form and e-mail it to me.
Tomorrow, I’m off to Bates College to discuss our Peer Writing Turor Program here at Middlebury, but I’ll be back in my office next week if you want to come by and say goodbye for the summer.
meb
July 19th, 2005 by Mary Ellen Bertolini
- By the end of the first week of class, you should have already met with the professor teaching the class you are tutoring and learned his or her writing goals and expectations for the class. Also, if you are aware of when papers in the class are due and when the professor is most likely to need you, you can better plan getting work down for your own classes.
- Make sure to stay in touch with the professor during the semester
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June 1st, 2004 by Mary Ellen Bertolini
GUIDELINES FOR USING PEER WRITING TUTORS IN FIRST-YEAR SEMINARS AND COLLEGE WRITING COURSES
- Peer tutors assigned to writing intensive courses may work up to 60 hours during the semester. Those hours may be distributed among the following paid activities: attending classes, attending scheduled meetings with the instructor (scheduled Writing Program meetings are also paid but do not count in the 60-hour limit), conferring with students on their writing outside of class time.
It is the responsibility of the writing tutor to keep a record of hours worked and to submit time on Banner and log sheets every two weeks to the Head Peer Writing Tutor (Sophia Reljanovic).
The instructor and the tutor should meet regularly to share insights and to coordinate their roles and their expectations. Before the tutor meets with students to confer on writing, both the instructor and the tutor should agree on the tutor
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