Time Management in the Writing Center
Brian Ready
Time management in a tutoring session is extremely important. A Writing Fellow’s ability to organize and time the session appropriately will likely increase the chances of the tutee experiencing a successful appointment. On the other hand, if a tutor fails to adequately manage the beginning, middle, and ending of each session, the tutee may leave the Writing Center with an unsatisfactory feeling. In order to accomplish the former, and not the latter, the tutor must be able to organize a session, and navigate through any problems that may arise during the appointment.
The process by which a Writing Fellow organizes his or her appointment sets the tone for the tutoring session. If a Writing Fellow begins the session with a plan to take a certain amount of time for each session, the session has a better chance of becoming a success. While some might suggest the importance of flexibility in a session, it is equally important to remember the time constraints in a session. A Writing Fellow must recognize that a tutee will not be able to learn a plethora of information during the session; but yet, still teach on more than one issue. To help with this process, most Writing Fellows and I agree that one should develop an estimated time limit for each part of a session.
The beginning of any tutoring session sets the tone for how the rest of the appointment will run. If a tutor takes too long reviewing the assignment or making introductions to the tutee, the rest of the session may be set back, and the tutor may scramble to recover. Conversely, if the tutor hurries through the introductions and does not adequately read over the assignment, then the session runs the risk of being too short, or long-winded. One writing fellow stated in a response to my Writing Center questionnaire on time management, “I spend about five minutes with what I call the ice-breaker time – explain the W.C. (Writing Center) and what we do, ask if they’ve been in before, what the assignment is, what particular problems they are having with the assignment and what they would like to work on (Ready, questionnaire).” Generally, the majority of Writing Fellows who filled out my questionnaire agreed that the five-minute time frame provided ample time to begin a session.
Towards the midway point of a tutoring session, the tutor often has already begun discussing with the tutee ways to improve his or her paper. Generally, though, only about fifteen minutes per session are actually used to tutor students. Most Writing Fellows stated that they give the tutee about five minutes to read over his or her paper, and then begin tutoring the student on specific landmines in his or her paper. However, the tutor should never spend too much time on a single topic. Instead, as I employed different techniques and strategies into my tutoring sessions throughout the year, I found it best to spend about three to five minutes for each of the three to four topics discussed in the session. This will allow the tutee enough time to grasp the material, and yet, the tutor will not give the tutee too much information to digest.
Similar to the beginning of an appointment, around five minutes is often allowed by Writing Fellows to correctly end a session. In the end of a session, it is best to summarize the appointment to make sure that the tutee comprehended what the tutor attempted to teach. If the tutee does not understand, I would always try to re-state my examples as best I could, and if he or she still did not understand, then I would suggest a return visit. Also, one must type out a report form during this time, and should account for any unforeseeable problems with the computer or printer. However, one way to alleviate this problem may be by typing out the report form as the session progresses. This is the plan of action that one Writing Fellow uses. According to the Writing Fellow, “I usually use every minute of the tutoring time because I type as I go on the report form (Ready, questionnaire).”
Unfortunately, problems do occur in a tutoring session and a tutor must know how to navigate through the obstacles. Often times, a tutor must deal with more than a tutee’s paper. If a tutee is unresponsive to help, the tutor may find it difficult to expand the tutoring session, because one often needs feedback to know what he or she should concentrate the session on. Also, if one has a personable and social tutee, it may be difficult to end the session on time and to address all of the points needing attention during the session.
If a session appears to be moving along too quickly, some Writing Fellows find it best to offer a return visit and summarize the appointment as best as possible. One Writing Fellow in particular mentioned, “I indicate to them the appointment time is just about up, quickly go over the few things we did talk about, and suggest another visit with myself or another W.F. to finish going over the rest of the paper (Ready, questionnaire).” The The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Peer Tutoring, by Paula Gillespie and Neal Lerner, also agrees with this Writing Fellow’s method. It states, “It’s often a good idea to offer the writer something such as, ‘We have ten minutes left; do you still want to talk about the five pages we haven’t looked at or is there another priority we should address’ (42)?” By offering these words to the tutee, the tutor remains in control of the session, and shows that he or she will not panic. After all, any mistakes made in the past should be forgotten. There is no point in dwelling on mistakes that occurred earlier in the appointment. Instead, the Writing Fellow should summarize the topics discussed in the session, and offer a return visit.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, if the appointment becomes long-winded, the use of open-ended questions by tutors will often allow the session to reach its appropriate time length. During a conference I had with a Senior Writing Fellow, I noticed this approach used on me. I have a tendency to be quiet, and I may not have given the tutor a lot to work with. So, the tutor asked me questions to find out what parts of my paper I liked or disliked, and what I needed to work on the most (Ready, personal observations). By the tutor doing this, I became more talkative, learned more about my paper, and the session ended on the appropriate time without becoming long-winded.
Of course, if the tutor mishandles these situations, the tutee will face the effects of the tutor’s poor time management skills. Especially early in one’s tutoring career, the time management aspect is often not the tutor’s repertoire. After all, one must incorporate a variety of different tasks in each appointment. The tutor has to introduce himself properly, listen as the paper is read, decide what needs to be changed or tweaked in the paper, and summarize the session. However, even if the tutor is masterful at all of the above tasks, if the tutor does not handle the time correctly in the session, it will all be for naught.
If a session has run too long, often times the tutee is flooded with information on one particular point of interest in the paper, and may not have received enough information about other topics in his or her paper. As one Writing Fellow mentioned in a response to my questionnaire, “Some concerns need more time than others and if you're sitting there focusing on one thing, and not moving on, then there's a problem (Ready, questionnaire).” The majority of students who enter the Writing Center will need help on a variety of topics, and Writing Fellows must be made aware of that. If a tutor spends too much time covering one topic, the tutee may not be able to process all of the information given to him or her on that particular topic, or feel unprepared to tackle the other issues present in the paper.
On the other hand, if a tutoring session has dragged on and the tutor is scrambling to extend the session to its appropriate length, then the tutor may have overloaded the tutee with a variety of information, and not enough detail. Glyn Owen, who wrote “The Tutor’s Role” inside The Management of Peer-Group Learning, has a name for this type of tutor: “Pace-making (97).” Owen describes this particular tutor in a negative light, by stating, “His urgency and impatience pressurize students into a search for ‘answers’ rather than reflective thinking (97).” When I first began tutoring, I often was the “Pace-making” tutor. Often times, I simply would fill the tutee with a lot of different information, and continue to point out different items for the tutee to work on until time expired in the appointment. This made me a poor tutor, and did not allow the tutee to think, or develop his or her paper. However, as I matured as a tutor and began to comprehend the importance of time management, I was able to spread my appointment out in an effective manner and prepare myself in case the situation presented itself again. Because I have learned of different techniques to use to prolong a session without slowing the development of the tutee, I am no longer a “Pace-making” tutor.
Tutor’s have a difficult and strenuous task to complete during every session. Regardless of the day a tutor is having, he or she is expected to provide a cordial welcome into the Writing Center for the tutee and begin the appointment. The tutor them must examine the assignment, listen as the tutee reads his or her paper, make suggestions for the paper, take questions from the tutee, summarize the appointment, and fill out a report form. All of this must be done in thirty minutes. Yet, rarely do people stop and think about how important managing one’s time in a Writing Center appointment can be. Sure, all Writing Fellows must remember the rules and ethics of the Writing Center, how to approach high-order concerns in a paper, and how to cope with the different learning styles that tutee’s may bring to the Writing Center. But, it is equally important to have an estimated time length for each part of a session, and develop strategies to put in place in the event that the appointment may either run over or under the appropriate session length. Without proper time management skills, all of the tasks that must be completed during each appointment might be left unfulfilled, and hundreds of students could be left with an unsatisfactory feeling as they left the Writing Center.
Works Cited
Gillespie, Paula and Neal Lerner. The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Peer Tutoring. 2nd ed. United States: Pearson, 2004.
Owen, Glyn. “The Tutor’s Role.” The Management of Peer-Group Learning., England: Society for Research, 1983.
Personal Observations. Monroe County Community College Writing Center. Apr. 2007.
Ready, Brian. Questionnaire. Apr. 2007.
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