Let's be honest with ourselves. Can any of us write a perfect paper in one draft, confident that there are absolutely no errors, and turn it in knowing that the reader will understand every word of it? Most likely not. Usually to reach the point where we feel even just a little bit confident, we have to go through many revisions. Still, as many times as writers may go over their papers individually, there is no guarantee that their intended message is being sent. It is important to have some type of outside feedback in writing. This gives writers a better idea of whether or not their thoughts are being communicated clearly, and what sort of reaction their paper generates. It has been acknowledged that some of the best feedback comes from a writer's peers. That is why an increasing number of college writing centers are establishing the practice of using peer tutors. Writing conferences held at the student-to-student level provide a more comfortable and discussion oriented environment than the traditional professor-student conference.

One of the reasons that peer tutoring is less intimidating than a conference with the teacher is that it is a form of collaborative learning. Kenneth Bruffee notes in his article from Composition in Four Keys, "Collaborative learning, it seemed, harnessed the powerful educative force of peer influence that had largely been--and still is ignored and hence wasted by traditional education" (86). The idea in traditional education that writing is an individual activity has stemmed largely from the paranoia over plagiarism. What traditionalists do not see about collaborative learning in the writing center is that it is not a process where the tutor gives ideas to the writer. The peer tutor works with the writer's ideas and helps him or her to express them more clearly.

When a tutor is seen as a collaborator, barriers are immediately broken down; the tutorial takes the form of a conversation. Instead of the tutor dominating the conversation, the writer is also free to develop ideas and concerns. A sense of equality is created between the writer and the tutor, and ideally the writer will be less inhibited about exploring new thoughts. This is important because people with difficulty in writing usually do not realize that it is a form of conversing, just as if the audience was standing in front of them. Sometimes merely by discussing how thoughts were generated, the writer can pinpoint the major elements of his or her paper.

Often the peer tutor takes the role of a sounding-board, so that students can see their writing through the eyes of another. Christina Murphy and Steve Sherwood point out in The St. Martin's Sourcebook for Writing Tutors, "The capacity for reconceptualizing is also one of the most significant means for improving writing skills that [tutors] can offer a student" (4). This is the real benefit of the collaborative tutorial. It should not be a process where the tutor acts as a teacher, fixing every error in the paper; the tutor should help the writer become more sufficient in finding his or her own writing problems. A writer can find comfort in the fact that a paper will not be judged or evaluated in a tutorial as it is when a professor grades it; the tutor is available on the writer's behalf.

Although the professor should not be seen as the "enemy" during the writing process, students often tend to perceive the professor as having unsurmountable standards. They can become overwhelmed at the thought of writing a paper. This is where the peer tutor can become a friend to the writer. Support can be provided in an encouraging way without being condescending. In fact, the peer tutor has many responsibilities and roles to play in order to maximize a working relationship with the student. If a good relationship is established, many times a writer will return to the writing center repeatedly, and this is the ultimate goal in the creation of better writers. It is important that we consider some of numerous duties of a tutor during a writing conference.

It is surprising to learn how much psychology a writing tutor must use in student conferences. "While the teacher's role is primarily informative and focused upon the method of presentation that will best convey instruction to the class as a whole, the tutor's role often is primarily supportive and effective,. . .in a unique one-to-one interpersonal relationship," states Murphy in her article, "Freud in the Writing Center: The Psychoanalytics of Tutoring Well" (43). The one-to-one nature of the tutorial requires that the tutor be receptive to all of the different personalities that come into the writing center. They have to adopt a "participate-observer" technique because each writer is going to have special needs.

Perhaps the golden rule that the tutor must follow in the tutorial is to respect the writers feelings. Never is it appropriate to laugh at any part of a student's paper. This would be a direct breakage of the trust that tutors work so hard to build. There should always be honesty in a tutorial, but as in any other part of life, there are polite ways of being honest. A technique often used in commentary is to start off with a positive observation of the paper. This also works well in a writing conference. Even starting the conference with friendly small-talk can break the ice and avoid making writers feel that their work needs to be defended. The beauty of using peers in the writing center is that the tutor and the writer begin with something in common since they are both students. They both are facing similar academic struggles.

Another good practice for the writing tutor to use is to tell the writer of past problems that they have experienced in writing. It is an enormous benefit to the writer to know that he or she is not alone in having writing problems. In a teacher-student conference writers may often feel embarrassed by their papers. They expect that the teacher must be a flawless writer and will not be able to identify with those who flounder. When tutors show troubled writers that writing is a long process for everyone, requiring many revisions, it is possible for the writer to gain a little more confidence. Another reminder that Murphy makes to peer tutors in her article is that, "A good psychoanalyst and a good tutor both function to awaken individuals to their potentials and to channel their creative energies toward self-enhancing ends" (46). It can motivate the writer to know that the tutor was once in the same position as him or her, but has gone on to actually assist students in the writing center.

Peer tutors also have the responsibility to keep grade discussion out of student conferences. The writer should feel free to come to the writing center without the burden of judgement being placed on his or her paper. In fact, it would go against all writing center theory to try to determine a grade that a paper will receive. Focusing only on the achievement of the paper would ignore the process of trying to build stronger skills in a writer. Besides, no one but the professor who assigned the paper can grade it. The tutor may not be told about everything that a professor expects from the assignment, nor will he or she know what types of things are important to the professor in student writing. A tutor may feel that a student has written an excellent paper, but if the student did not have the assignment correct when explaining it to the tutor, the paper may not fare very well in terms of grading.

In his article, "Intimacy and Audience: The Relationship Between Revision and the Social Dimension of Peer Tutoring," Thom Hawkins explains how the competitiveness within most universities can discourage writers. Writers often feel that the distance between what they have to say and the knowledgeable language of the academic world is too wide to ever cross. Hawkins says that part of the "tutor's technique is to break down the distance between persons, a distance students perceive as between language systems" (28). The writers often need motivation to help them feel that they have the ability to excel in the academic community. However, finding motivation within individual writers is rarely something that professors can accomplish since there are hundreds of students and minimal time. This role, the motivator, is often unique to the peer tutor, but can definitely be the hardest to fulfill.

Peer tutors must always consider the possibility of a nonchalant writer coming into the writing center who is not interested in getting anything out of the conference. Trying to motivate this type of tutee can be a daunting task. Jeff Brooks explores different conferencing strategies in his article, "Minimalist Tutoring: Making the Students do all the Work." Although his article brought up many good points for tutors such as concentrating on the success of the paper instead of the failure and to avoid writing comments for a writer during the conference, it is interesting to note a few disagreements with his article. The University of Richmond's English 376 class, Introduction to Composition Theory and Pedagogy, agreed that a few of Brook's suggestions are questionable.

One suggestion that Brooks made was, "If you find a student pushing you too hard into editing his[/her] paper, physically move away from it slump back into your chair or scoot away." He also says, "If a student is making a productive session impossible with his[/her] demands, yawn, look at the clock, rearrange your things. (87). Through these ideas Brooks is implying that by using body language similar to the students', tutors can show the writer how negative their behavior is and motivate them into doing better. Our English 376 class did not feel that this technique would help the writers to realize that their behavior was degenerative to the tutorial. We felt instead that this would create a road-block in the tutor student relationship. We thought that the writer most likely would feel that the tutor was "mocking" him or her rather than trying to give motivation.

The writing tutorial between peers can be a touchy subject, and their are numerous views on what the agenda should be. Above all they should be less formal then the teacher-student conference, and less rushed. Hawkins makes an important point in his article when he says, "The nature of a classroom teacher's job is generally such that he[/she] can only examine and judge the product of a student's work, not the process the student uses to achieve that product" (30). Professors cannot directly view the improvement of the writing process, they can only view it indirectly by seeing improvement in the writer's products. This is unfortunate because watching a student gain confidence in his or her writing ability is often the most exciting part.

In all of the tutorials that I have been a part of, the writers were new to the University of Richmond's writing center. In most cases the writers would come in expecting the tutor to be yet another teacher who corrects grammar and sentence structure. The tutees would always react with surprise when the peer tutors spent the session discussing the paper's ideas and structure without even marking the paper in red ink. In one case a student came in feeling that her ideas were fine, but that her grammar needed some work. Her paper had many beautiful parts to it, however there were gaps in what she was trying to say. In the beginning of the tutorial the girl repeatedly mentioned that all she wanted to know was if the grammar was sufficient. The tutor did not remark on the paper's grammar, but did ask a few questions about logic. The writer seemed taken aback at first, before realizing the value of what the tutor was telling her. Later in the tutorial the writer seemed to be enjoying the laid back discussion of her paper. She mentioned that it gave her writing focus.

In fact, in each of the tutorials I've either witnessed or carried out, the writers seemed to leave with a new view on the process of writing. I have been lucky so far; all of these writers have been highly interested in actively collaborating with the tutor to generate ideas. Still, I'm sure that someday I will experience a writer who is not as eager to work with me. Perhaps these types of writers feel that they can get away with this type of behavior since the tutor is not a professor. It is important to let these students know that they can only get out of a writing tutorial the amount of work that they put into it. Maybe they do not understand that a peer tutor is not meant to be merely a critic. In this case, peer tutors should focus on developing the student-to-student intimacy which can only occur among those with shared experiences. As Hawkins mentions, "the social dimension of peer tutoring is precisely what allows the work to get done, particulary the work on written language" (29). If the relationship between the writer and the tutor is tense, then collaboration will be inhibited.

It is surprising to realize that peer tutors often are not selected for their superiority in writing. There is another quality that is more important in the writing center. This is the ability to interact well with all types of people. The peer tutor is someone who is willing to search for the foundation of a writer's meaning; from there the writer and tutor work together on the expression of ideas. This type of individualized attention is essential to the developing writer, but something that cannot be found in the professor-student conference. Writers receive the best help from someone who is sympathetic to the struggles they are experiencing, and who can form a personal bond with them. Fortunately, a peer tutor is someone who can embody all of these things.




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