Friday, January 12, 2007

The Virtues of a Writing Centre Tutor

I have a powerpoint slide entitled "The Virtues of a Writing Centre Tutor" which I show over and over again to our writing mentors. It contains the following bullet points.

•Listening
•Patience
•Spontaneity / Reacting to the present situation
•“Only connect”
•Think of the student more than yourself

These are the essential qualities that a writing mentor needs to bring to every tutorial. There is the danger that as the mentor becomes more experienced and more knowledgeable about teaching and writing, he or she may forget these basics. If so, the experience of both the student and the mentor is likely to be diminished. Beginner's mind - again!

4 comments:

cybercarter said...

Thought you might be interested in this: SlideShare
(my tutor pointed me in the right direction last week)

Pete said...

Thanks - that looks useful. And thanks for my first ever comment (even if I know who you are...)

cybercarter said...

It was my photo that gave me away, wasn't it?

Pete said...

what can I say? you have a certain style...