Becoming a Tutor: Teachers as Tutors in One-on-One Conferences

University Writing Centers are valuable tools for university students of any level: first-year undergraduates through doctoral candidates. Peer reviews and edits help students recognize possible flaws in their writing that they otherwise would not have seen. The climate of the Writing Center allows students to review their writing in a low-stakes, comfortable environment where their concerns are heard and addressed by an understanding peer instead of an all-knowing professor. Techniques used in the Writing Center such as making immediate connections with students, allowing students to drive the tutoring session, and continually asking about and focusing on student’s concerns with their writing, can and should be applied to one-on-one meetings between students and instructors. Cultivating a Writing Center climate during one-on-one paper conferences can help instructors provide students with the opportunity to identify problems in their writing and come up with their own solutions to address those problems. It will also allow instructors to provide their students with tools they can use in the future to write and edit their drafts on their own