One of the more popular ways writing tutors are working with students is through a writing center, tutoring students in an environment that is conducive to creative thought. These places serve to inspire and support, using their tutoring services to make writing less of a solitary endeavor and more of a social communication.
When I think of writing tutors in centers like these, which are common on college campuses and in local public libraries, I often also think about some of the great poets, like Dylan Thomas or the Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who would convene in coffee shops or pubs, reading their works to each other, getting inspired and support.
Good writing tutoring centers have various characteristics in common, including:
You can see how in this type of atmosphere, writer’s block can melt away. It also creates a less threatening setup for a writing tutor to work. Prose and essays often feel very personal to the student. Unlike math or chemistry, when writing students have to express what they feel or believe—not only what is correct. This is often nerve wracking especially for students who do not do too well with words.
Tutoring in a common gathering place can alleviate this kind of shyness and anxiety.
Public places can seem less intimate in a way that relaxes the students. The personal tutors can have authority without appearing as threatening as a teacher or professor.
Often what prevents students from writing well is a fear that what they think is not right. That it is not good enough. In a relaxing environment, these fears can melt away and writing can be what it is at it’s best – a creative thrilling process.
Writing tutors would do well to read up and learn some creativity exercises to help students work through writers block: Come prepared with a list of ice breaking questions to as the student. Have a few different exercises in mind to nudge the writer out of his or her doldrums. Bring works of your favorite authors and read passages to inspire and show the many different ways to use language.
Don’t be afraid to be creative. Great writing tutors demonstrate in living color what they want the student to undertake.
There are numerous writing sites on the web filled with great exercises and suggestions. Great writing tutors evoke sights, sounds, and smells to jog a students’ memory. Exercises using times stream of consciousness can help loosen up a student even if the project he or she needs to address is a dry historical essay. Once language starts to flow, it will be easier to teach the student the mechanics of essay development or factual expression.
Some students do best simply brainstorming or listing a bunch of disparate thoughts about a particular subject. Writing tutors can use the very room a student is in, especially if it is a busy place like a writing center for tutoring.
Other students are more visually oriented and like to draw mind maps to show the relationship between different concepts. A good writing tutor will recognize all these different inclinations, and will be prepared to support the student in the most constructive way.
Whichever side of the writing tutor equation you are on—as student or instructor—never give up until the real gold vein is hit, and language becomes alive with meaning, a vehicle for creative expression and development.
