Shows how tutorial encounters enact gradations and extremes in the manner of Ernst Cassirer's concept of "word magic." Argues that tutorials in which students try to find the "right words" illustrate the need to make written language commensurate with human thought. Narrates several case studies illustrating these insights. (HB)

Considers the evolution of writing-tutor pedagogies, from the job-specific training of tutorial-centered "practical" manuals to the professionalizing approach that establishes awareness of the specialized discourse of writing-center scholarship. Suggests that the latter approach also writes tutors into the field's most painful and…

It is often assumed that engaging in a one-on-one dialogue with a tutor is more effective than listening to a lecture or reading a text. Although earlier experiments have not always supported this hypothesis, this may be due in part to allowing the tutors to cover different content than the noninteractive instruction. In 7 experiments, we tested…

This research examined the effect of tutoring on student success at an open enrollment community college, controlling for gender, age, race/ethnicity, highest level of education, and reading, writing and mathematics competency. Student success was defined three ways: term grade point average (GPA), success in courses, and persistence from the fall…

This paper presents the seven assessment instruments used by the Student Literacy Corps project at Fitchburg State College, Massachusetts, to document tutee progress and tutor assessment. The paper includes: (1) the Flippo Interest Inventory (for assessing tutee's attitudes toward reading); (2) instructions for the tutor to give to students on how…

The importance of writing centers as places where process-centered, student-centered teaching takes place is emphasized in this paper. To illustrate this point, the paper provides profiles of four tutors--two males and two females--and discusses ways to improve tutor-student conferences, including having the tutor focus the conference on the…

The paper describes a program developed at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf in which hearing impaired students in the academic mainstream receive tutoring/notetaking support services. A notetaking system is employed in which the notetaker writes from four to six readable copies of notes at one time. The notetaker, a trained normally…

The Learning Assistance Center's peer tutoring program at Stanford University is described in this paper. Ways are suggested to register students as tutees, match them with tutors, operate tutoring sessions, account for and control tutoring hours, evaluate tutoring performance, and train peer tutors. In this program, tutors are Stanford students…

The usefulness of teaching advanced composition in a writing tutorial program has been demonstrated at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst with students who have passed college freshman English and who feel they still need some work in their writing. Justification for using the tutorial method is based on the premise that a teacher cannot say…

A field test of "Guiding Older Children As Tutors," one of the four motivational-instructional procedures of Individually Guided Motivation (IGM), was used in two Milwaukee, Wisconsin schools. A total of 34 tutees, 22 tutors, and 24 adults participated in the field test during the 1972-73 school year. The field test objectives sought an increase…

A generative computer-assisted instruction system is being developed to tutor students in analytical geometry. The basis of this development is the thesis that a generative teaching system can be developed by establishing and then stimulating a simplified, explicit model of the human tutor. The goal attempted is that of a computer environment…

The first half of this report reviews four major projects which are training tutors for cross-age and peer tutoring, and the second half outlines a model for training and using tutors in either elementary or secondary schools. The four projects reviewed are 1) Youth Tutoring Youth, operated by the National Commission on Resources for Youth in New…

One of the main purposes of the program reported herein was to reduce the academic and attitudinal problems of the underachieving high school pupils and to give them the responsibility for producing similar changes in the elementary pupils. The purpose of this evaluation was to determine to what extent the program had been successful. Because of…

The purpose of this handbook, which was developed by the National Reading Center, is to bring to each child who is having trouble learning to read a trained tutor to give him the right kind of help. Sections are given to explaining some characteristics of children who have reading problems, outlining some general principles of successful tutoring,…