Summary, Scope, and Responsibilities
Summary of Position
Writing & Language Center (WLC) writing tutors are empathetic listeners, self-reflective learners, and adaptive communicators and collaborators drawn to helping others. Writing tutors support their peers and each other with any and all writing assignments at Bates College with curiosity, care, and respect for linguistic diversity. It’s important to know that anyone with the desire and willingness to work on their writing and teaching skills can be a writing tutor; the professional staff of Writing@Bates offers the training and support new tutors need to succeed and grow, while more experienced writing tutors offer peer mentoring and encouragement. We are particularly interested in hiring and supporting students from diverse backgrounds and linguistic traditions, or students who speak multiple languages and/or dialects of English. Please consider joining our team!
Writing@Bates professional staff and experienced writing tutors help all new writing tutors develop and hone the pedagogical tools, self-reflective capacity, and time management skills they need to effectively support the writing goals and voices of a diverse student body. All writing tutors should be prepared to engage in ongoing professional development and training at the beginning of and throughout the school year in which they learn to engage in and model effective writing practices so they can support students at any stage of the writing process. For example, writing tutors learn how to help students decode assignment instructions, brainstorm ideas, write or revise a draft, incorporate instructor feedback, incorporate citations and sources, and proofread or edit. Further, tutors learn how to engage in antiracist and anti-oppressive tutoring approaches, as well as how to support their peers’ neurodiversity, mental health, and varied languaging practices. These trainings help tutors build student writers’ confidence, draw out students’ unique voices, experiences, and ideas, and challenge oppressive language and linguistic hierarchy. In this way, writing tutors play an important role in providing more equitable footing for students in any course at Bates that uses writing as a tool for learning and as a means of access to knowledge and knowledge creation.
The Basics
Department:Writing and Language Center
Supervisor:
Bridget Fullerton
Office Location:
Coram 221
Email:
bfullert@bates.edu
Pay Grade:
Hours:
5
Workers:
25
Qualifications, Requirements, and Responsibilities
Responsibilities
Requirements
WLC writing tutors must be rising sophomores, juniors, or seniors who are
--> empathetic listeners interested in talking to other students about their ideas and writing;
--> effective communicators willing to improve their writing and communication skills;
--> curious about teaching and tutoring;
--> interested in collaboration, self-reflection, and life-long learning;
--> open to engaging with antiracist and linguistic justice-minded tutoring practices; and
--> willing to take and integrate feedback from professors, supervisors, fellow tutors, and clients/tutees in order to grow and develop as writers, as tutors, as working professionals.
Before they begin work in the fall semester, writing tutors will have
--> worked to improve their own writing process and writing skills;
--> earned a final grade of B or higher in an FYS/W1 course;
--> met with a writing tutor in the Writing & Language Center for at least one tutoring session (if you haven’t done this yet, please do so before you apply!); and
--> completed (or be enrolled in) an upper-level writing-attentive course (i.e. a W2 or W3) and earned a final grade of B in that course. NOTE: The short term course EDU s19 Theory & Practice of Writing & Tutoring is a W2
Reporting
Writing tutors must treat their tutees/clients with respect, anonymity, and care. Tutors must be prepared to participate as peer equals in the collaborative community of writing and language tutors who work in the Writing & Language Center (WLC) during scheduled shifts and in pre-semester and weekly staff meetings and professional development workshops. They must also be willing to enthusiastically and respectfully engage with the many other tutors and staff who work in the Academic Resource Commons (ARC) and Math-Stats Workshop (MSW), as well as the professional staff who lead ARC and MSW. Writing tutors are hired, trained, and supervised by the professional staff of Writing@Bates; Student Managers also provide leadership in the peer tutoring centers at Bates. All WLC tutors report to the people in these roles and are expected to communicate with them regularly and efficiently.
Working Conditions