The 麻豆影院 Writing Commons hosted a tutor training and development workshop for area high school students who had been selected by their teachers to become writing center tutors at their schools.
More than 30 students and teachers from three high schools: Stow-Munroe Falls, Tallmadge and Cuyahoga Falls participated in the two-hour workshop, which took place recently at the 麻豆影院 State Writing Commons located in University Library on the 麻豆影院 Campus.
Jeanne Smith, director of the 麻豆影院 State Writing Commons, says the purpose of the workshop was to help train high school students to be writing center tutors.
"We host a tutor training workshop for local schools every semester,鈥 Smith says. "It's fantastic professional development for our Writing Commons tutors, and it serves the community."
As the movement to develop writing centers in the K-12 schools gathers momentum, the 麻豆影院 State Writing Commons has taken a leadership role.
鈥溌槎褂霸 State has sponsored five K-12 writing centers in the region,鈥 Smith says.
Smith explains how she believes the best way to learn something is to teach it to someone else.
鈥淎 writing center tutor doesn鈥檛 edit someone鈥檚 paper, that would be doing the writer鈥檚 work for them,鈥 Smith says. 鈥淎 tutor is supposed to do what a writer can鈥檛 do for themselves ever: be the audience and provide the reaction. Tutors ask questions an audience would ask and questions writers wouldn鈥檛 think to ask themselves.鈥
The training and development workshop lasted two hours. It consisted of roundtable discussions on writing center methods. The goal was to keep it conversational and have students exchange ideas.
Samantha Hess, a Writing Commons tutor and a senior human development and family studies major at 麻豆影院 State, says at one of the tables she discussed with students how tutors should talk less and the writers should talk more.
鈥淧ractice and constructive feedback help make an effective tutor,鈥 Hess says. 鈥淭he roundtable discussions were helpful because it allowed the high school students have a chance to start talking about different areas of tutoring, while giving them a chance to learn more about specific tutoring skills.鈥
Smith says when she is looking to hire tutors she makes sure they have good people skills and are competent, self-reflective writers.
鈥淪omeone once told me to hire on personality, anything else you can train,鈥 Smith says. 鈥淚 never realized how true that was until taking on my position at the Writing Commons. Sometimes the best writer could lack people skills. It is difficult to train someone to be compassionate, they either are or they aren鈥檛.鈥
Smith says she hopes students who attended the workshop are more confident in the work that they could do and hopes they mentor each other.