Reach

The Works of Melissa Danko

Sweetland Peer Tutoring

A large part of my writing experience (and overall college experience) has involved being a peer tutor for the Sweetland Center for Writing.  When I found out that students could apply to be peer tutors for writing, I was immediately intrigued.  I had always liked helping my peers with writing, and as a newspaper editor in high school, I had experience with feedback.  To be a part of Sweetland’s peer tutoring program, I had to apply.  I’ve included my Application letter, which explains my initial reasons for wanting to be a part of the program based on the little information I knew about it.

Upon my acceptance into the peer tutoring program, I enrolled in Writing 300 (Seminar in Peer Tutoring).  The three essays in this section were written for this class.  The first essay is my very first Why I Write essay, which I titled A Creative Writer.  For this piece, I was asked to focus on one or two memories of defining moments in my life that led me to become the writer I am today.

My second writing assignment was to write a research paper about a peer tutoring issue.  I focused on the relationship that should exist between a tutor and writer during a tutoring session, and Act Like a Peer, Think Like an Expert was born.  This idea actually came to me one night right before bed, and I hurried to type it into a memo in phone before I fell asleep and it was gone forever.  This sudden inspiration was wonderful, as I had struggled to come up with some kind of defining idea for my research paper.

My third essay for Writing 3oo was my Statement of Tutoring Philosophy.  I drew from what I had read about peer tutoring throughout the semester, and I formulated an idea of the kind of tutor I hoped to be.  It was interesting for me to realize the new ideas and peer-oriented focus I had following an entire semester of training.

I am now a staff tutor for Sweetland, and I plan to continue with this wonderful program until I graduate.

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