The Writing Center's Vision of a Tutoring Conference
Characteristics of a Writing Conference
A productive conference should last thirty minutes and should help the student find strategies to accomplish the overall goals of the assignment. Too much conference time will tire both the student as well as the tutor and may indicate that both may be trying to accomplish too much in one session. Therefore, the student needs to work on some suggestions and return with a new draft. At the close of a conference, a tutor might help a student with one of the following matters: understand an assignment, find a thesis, organize a paragraph(s), focus on development, create consistent tone, or help with some patterns of sentence structure, punctuation and usage. Tutors should concentrate on one or two areas of concern per conference. Tutors do not proof or edit papers. NB: all conference materials and discussions are private and confidential.
Seven Phases of the Writing Conference
1) Engagement.
2) Exploration of the problem.
3) Identification of the problem.
4) Agreement on strategy.
5) Task assessment and problem solving.
6) Solution.
7) Closing.
Priorities in a Tutoring Conference
While tutors meet their fellow students and explore the problems of the paper, they have in their heads a list of priorities to help guide them through a typical tutoring conference. They use the following questions to help shape the tutoring confence and set goals for the twenty to thirty minute session.