About the Project
The designers want your experience with this project to be as pleasant as a good peer tutorial, when practice and theory combine. We hope that our suggestions for effective tutorial strategies will not be seen as mandates. Readers should not look for a "fix-it shop" approach here; our Writing Center and WAC Program adhere to North's dictum that peer tutoring should produce better writers, not better papers.

Students in sections of Composition Theory and Pedagogy at the University of Richmond designed this project. The materials here were not meant to replace our face-to-face training in the Writing Center; instead, the exercises simulate the most common "difficult" tutorials we encounter. We hope that the project will enable tutors at Richmond and elsewhere to experience common frustrations of such conferences and to develop workable solutions.

Our Writing Center and WAC program are "sharers" rather than "seclusionists," to use Jane Cogie's terms. Our reports to professors emphasize the collaborative nature of the peer tutorial: tutors and writers meet to discuss a project; the faculty member gets a report--with notes from the tutor and writer--and a chance to ask tutors or me any questions. Through the Web and other methods of publication, WAC and the Writing Center make faculty aware that their peers consider work with a tutor a sign of motivation, not of laziness or lack of ability.

As you use the project, we hope to get your feedback as well. To view the videos, your computer will need a copy of Quicktime for Macintosh or Windows. Both versions may be downloaded free. We have tested all materials on PC & Mac platforms with frame-capable versions of Netscape and Explorer.

For each of the tutorials shown on the left-hand menu, we have a set of videos and a paper from the mock tutorial and an interactive writing exercise. At various points in the tutorial, readers will be asked to make decisions about what they might do at that moment. The Web browser will then show a likely outcome. At every step of the way, readers can review earlier video clips and other materials.

Teachers and tutors might be interested in a "behind the scenes" look at the project. This section of "Training for Tough Tutorials" includes story-boards and other notes from the project scenarios.

We invite your feedback on this project as it grows. If we have acted in the spirit of good computer-assisted pedagogy, these videos and materials will supplement, never replace, the rapport that develops in one-on-one meetings between peers. Please contact me personally if you have questions or concerns or if you want copies of this project on CD-ROM (available in Fall, 2000, after we complete the "low-bandwidth" version of the project).

Joe Essid, Writing Center & WAC Director, University of Richmond (jessid@richmond.edu)

Design Credits:
Julie-Ann McMillan, student technology fellow: video processing.
Matt Perrine, student technology fellow: video camera operation, video processing, graphic and logo designs.