Writing Tutoring Values and Practices

What We Believe

If you’re a student writer, we believe in you and your writing.  We’re interested in what you think, what you have to say, and helping you convey and develop those thoughts in written form.  We will do our best to support you in bringing your ideas to fruition. 

We love to discuss ideas, but we’ll never tell you what to write.  We won’t tell you what to write about, because you’re the writer and it’s your paper!  Many decisions are involved in writing even a short paper.  We can point out some of those choices, and discuss ways to move forward, but you’re the one who decides what to do.

Writing tutoring isn’t primarily about “fixing grammar.”   In general, we won’t edit your writing line by line, or proofread for you, because that would take away from your ability to learn to do so on your own.  Instead, we can help you to recognize patterns of error in your writing, so you can edit your own work. 

Writing and thinking are closely intertwined.  This is why, for the most part, we don’t see fixing errors as the most important thing to do in a tutoring session--because writing is about so much more than correctness.  Sometimes sharpening your thesis, or recasting a key sentence or paragraph, can help you clarify your thinking and build a more compelling argument.  That’s something we can definitely work on in a session.

Anatomy of A Writing Tutoring Session

This list of writing tutor practices and values was developed collaboratively by Lehman College writing tutors.

• Listen actively to establish a supportive, collaborative relationship, and to better understand a student’s thought processes 
• Facilitate reflective/metacognitive thinking
• Pose high quality questions to guide and deepen student’s thinking
• Encourage student decision-making to help them develop increasing confidence and self-direction
• Review and reflect on the session with the student throughout and/or at the end of the session
• Encourage and enable students to make connections between and among coursework, assignments, and the student’s experiences
• Explain directly or model when needed
• Guide students to develop effective learning/writing/reading habits
• Analyze assignments carefully with students
• Introduce and model concrete strategies for the different stages of the writing process
• Affirm and draw on students’ multiculturalism, multilingualism, and diversity of experience

Lehman Tutoring Center - Writing is Proudly Multi-Lingual

Like the students they meet with, tutors at the Lehman Tutoring Center speak, read, and write many different languages. ISSP writing tutors understand that multilingualism is an asset and vital resource for writers, not a barrier to be overcome.