Grand View University on Group Appointments Part III: Managing Relationships & Interaction
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This series of four collaboratively written blog posts by undergraduate tutors in the Grand View University Writing Center shares experiences of implementing and navigating a new context for Writing Center sessions: group appointments. To read more about the project, as well as previous entries in this series, click here for the first post in the series.
Part III: Managing Relationships & Interaction
Student and Tutor Dynamics
Within the Writing Center, a relationship between tutor and writer can develop into a deeper connection of learning, sharing, and communication. Within the group tutoring sessions at Grand View, establishing this relationship between tutor and writer early on is integral to creating a successful long-term working environment for both parties. A common first assignment within the required group appointments is the writers “interviewing” their tutor to get to know them better. This allows for an understanding of who they will be working with for the semester so a relationship of trust can be built. Each week, for roughly 15 weeks, these students will be with their tutor for an hour. In this hour, they begin to grow more comfortable with the American standards for academic writing. This means that they might be looking at drafts, or brainstorming topics for a presentation, but through all of that, it has been more beneficial to do that with someone the writer is comfortable with.
The article “Tutor-Student Relationship,” emphasizes the importance of the relationship between a student and their tutor. The author, Tony Mirabelli, gave four things that are essential in relationship-building, “(1) building trust, (2) maintaining high and explicit expectations, (3) successfully dealing with resistance and self handicapping behaviors, and (4) preserving boundaries” (Mirabelli). The aspect that seemed most important was building trust. It’s important that the student feels that they can trust their tutor, especially since the tutor will be helping them with academics that they may not be confident in.
Many writers will not voluntarily let other people read their writing. We see this with students in the Writing Center; however, if the student feels that they know their tutor on a more personal level, and not just someone who resembles a teacher, they are more likely to open up and ask for help. Relationships between a writer and a tutor should be more than surface level.
Creating this dynamic between tutor and writer helps to make mandatory visits to the Writing Center seem not as forced. We have found that the best way to build a trusting and comfortable relationship between tutors and writers in group sessions is through getting to know them on their first day of a session. When everyone understands their role, the goal of the appointments, and feels comfortable discussing and being present in the setting, both tutor and writer can learn and grow in immense ways. Because of the emphasis on the group dynamic in the Grand View Writing Center, establishing a good relationship between the tutor and writer is important to creating a level of comfort and trust, but this goes even further when thinking about one of the last relationships established in the group Writing Center dynamic: the relationship between a writer and the other writers present during their group meeting time.
Managing Multiple Personalities within Groups
No two people are the same, and because of that, working in groups can be difficult when the group members’ personalities differ. Just like individual writing tutor appointments, there is no “right” way of conducting a group appointment, or to manage the different personalities within a group. It is the writing tutor’s job to try and adapt how they are going to tutor in order to meet the needs of all group members. The following principles from Working with Adults in Groups by Sheldon Rose are ones we’ve found are especially helpful in facilitating a group appointment.
Cohesion: For any group to be successful, there must be a high sense of cohesion between group members (Rose). Cohesion begins when all members in the session, including tutor and writers, feel like they are comfortable and their voices are heard. When the group has cohesion, it leads to better productivity, participation, and relationships. This can be done by simply asking students about their day and what is going on in their lives and using group activities to make students work together. It is important that, as tutors, we listen to all members within the group (Rose). This can be accomplished by creating open-ended and personal questions that relate to the students and giving each member frequent opportunities, instructions, and rewards within the group. By creating an unbiased culture, students feel free to open up to the group and participate more. Students who go into the Writing Center are also our peers, and a relationship should be built between the tutor writers, as well as a relationship between the writers within the group appointment. We have found that this last part is particularly important--and is a crucial part of what makes group appointments useful and fun.
Dominating Group Members: Sometimes, there will be students who dominate the group discussion. This happens when a student speaks more than their share of available time and does not give others a chance to speak (Rose). The students that dominate group discussions are usually either very outgoing or think that their opinion is always correct. When this happens, the tutor needs to take action so that the group as a whole does not get overrun. One way to prevent members from dominating is to set a time limit on how much each person can talk, so that there is not a bias towards anyone. For example, if students go off on a tangent, ask them to reel it back in to the conversation, or if only one person has talked the entire time, let them know that you want to hear what the rest of the group thinks.
This strategy, though, has to be taken into context. Sometimes it is okay for students to speak for the group and have a dominant presence. For example, if the students are in the same section/class, one can probably describe an assignment/issue better than another. Additionally, some students have to think out loud to process information, so what may seem like overtaking the group is just one writer’s way of understanding. Be sure to allow those students to think this way without distracting the rest of the group. It is important to remember that a student’s dominant behavior should not interfere with other people’s opportunity to learn in the Writing Center.
Group Withdrawal: While some students may dominate the discussion, some students may withdraw from interacting with the group (Rose). Some examples include: students being on their phones, looking up unrelated content on the internet, talking with other group members about unrelated topics, etc. If the tutor lets off-task behavior happen, the group tutor session will not be productive. When distractions continue to be a problem in a group tutoring session, tutors should address these distractions so that the group session can be productive for them.
Students who withdraw from the group may also be shy and feel that their opinions will be heavily judged. In any group session, it is important that all members, including the tutor, are mutually supportive of all ideas and work. If a student seems afraid to open up to the group, then, as tutors, we should ask for their opinions. To perceive students in these various ways requires that tutors be intuitive and adaptive.
Training Tutors in Emotional Intelligence: Toward a Pedagogy of Empathy
In order to be intuitive and adaptive as mentioned above, it is very important that tutors are trained in emotional intelligence. When the tutors know about emotional intelligence, they are able to empathize better with the writers, and when there are more writers in a session, this becomes even more necessary. When it comes to working with students that are less than enthused to be in the Writing Center (as some of our group appointment writers are) a tutor may feel like they are at a loss at what to do. One tutor recalls having a session where one of the students tuned out, became bored and started talking about something else. A distraction such as this creates a domino effect within the other students involved and could lead to nothing getting finished throughout the short time a tutor has with them. Additionally, this pattern could establish itself and be the modus operandi of that group. While it is important to remember that tutors are not counselors, we believe they should know how to deal with conflicting emotions, good or bad, within the Writing Center, so that the session can operate in the best way possible.
In her article “Training Tutors in Emotional Intelligence: Toward a Pedagogy of Empathy” Noreen Lape explains that this process of detecting emotions begins with the tutors themselves: “As a first step, the tutor learns to identify feelings: both her own and the writer’s. Then she must label those feelings correctly” (3). It may seem that as tutors we must first inspect the feelings of those students coming into the center, but in fact, we must also understand how we are coming into the situation. Tutors must be able to describe how they approach others’ emotions, before they can properly address the writers’ concerns. However, when you have multiple students in your care, how could you possibly pay attention to several mood patterns at once?
As tutors in the Writing Center, we interact with a variety of different students that bring different baggage with them as they enter the room. In particular, one tutor shares that their first group appointment included a writer who often had a lot of emotional toil happening within her family throughout the semester. As the group met together each week, sometimes the tutor was greeted with spite or anger. The tutor first saw this as irrational and was frustrated with the writer’s mood and didn’t want this to affect the development of the group. However, the tutor was able to turn this around by asking the writer questions about family in relation to an assignment she was working on. When the writer was able to connect what she dealt with on a daily basis to a project she needed to finish, the tutor found that the writer was much more receptive to talking constructively and much less likely to overtake the focus of the group.
Lape also suggests that tutors counter unproductive tendencies by dissecting how to address body language, tone and feelings that they may encounter in the Writing Center. Lape goes on to explain that if tutors can hone in on specific personality traits of the students they are tutoring by monitoring their demeanors and characteristics, then tutors will be able to serve them better during their tutoring sessions (5). In group appointments, we have to implement these training methods with more than one student, so that the tutor is not only trying to decipher one student’s emotions, but how multiple emotions impact a single session.
Lape suggests the idea of role-playing for student-tutors within the classroom in order to better understand the nuances expressed by students within the classroom. This role-playing includes “The trainees observing the role-play then analyz[ing] the body posture, eye contact, and vocal tone of the tutor. Afterwards, the class, including the experienced tutors, critiques the demonstration and discusses the nuances of self-presentation” (Lape 1). Through this role play, new tutors are able to view and critique specific situations that could be viewed within the Writing Center. By encouraging this exercise at the beginning of the semester, as tutors begin to start the new group formatted appointments, experienced tutors can help new tutors decipher how to monitor and engage with emotions in the Writing Center.
By collecting input from current discussions within the Writing Center, tutors can also continue to grow within their emotional intelligence. As they continue to process how to address emotions within groups, tutors can engage in dialogue that will help writers feel more comfortable in the Writing Center environment. “Empathy builds trust and both empathy and trust, as Frey and Wlodowski contend, motivate learning. The skillful tutor moves from understanding to action, building on genuine and accurate empathy by helping to strengthen the writer's self-efficacy or sense of agency” (Lape 6). By understanding a writer’s emotions that they bring to the Writing Center, we as tutors can not only engage as empathetic guides, but also encourage writers to trust that we care about their well-being and improve their ability to work on their academic processes throughout Writing Center sessions.
Unengaged Writers within a Session
Tutoring an unengaged writer is frustrating in any setting, especially when multiple students are being tutored. We consulted an article by Muriel Harris to help us understand why the writer may be unengaged, and proposes strategies to engage them. While these strategies are useful in any tutoring session, they become even more so to ensure all members or our group appointments are engaged and participatory in the session.
Harris gives seven reasons as to why a writer may be unengaged. First, because they are forced to be there (Harris 25). Some classes require students to visit the Writing Center to fulfill a grade (as our group appointments are), and unfortunately some writers may express their frustration toward us tutors and refuse to participate or cooperate. Harris proposes that tutors empathize with the writers and be honest with them (28). We have found it helpful to acknowledge the session it is a requirement writers may not want to be there for, but that they might as well make the most of their time in order to satisfy the requirement. In our Center, explaining to writers that tutors are required to send a synopsis of the appointment and their unengaged time spent at the appointment will be recorded goes a long way.
Harris’s second reason for a lack of engagement in writers is because they do not see the value behind writing. Harris recommends that tutors recognize this disinterest and discuss it with the writer(s) (28-29) alongside instances where the student will use writing, whether it be in their current stage of life or their future. If discussion does not seem to be influencing the writer to value writing, tutors can make smaller goals to try to accomplish during the appointment to generate some success and productivity throughout the time. By talking through small examples and scenarios where writing is necessary in the unengaged writers’ lives, we can gradually help reluctant writers see the importance of writing.
Tutors know that appointments and tutors themselves are not scary and judgmental, but not all writers may know that. There are writers who fear sharing their work with tutors because they believe that they are poor writers and do not want tutors to judge them (Harris 26). They may try to avoid potential embarrassment by staying quiet and keeping to themselves. In order to help these types of writers, we try to win over their trust by being friendly and explaining to them that as a tutor, you are more of a peer than an authority figure (Harris 29). Tutors can talk to the writer about their fears and form strategies to cast the fears aside. One tutor found that talking to the writer as a friend and telling them their own struggles with writing--as a tutor--helps writers see that even tutors are vulnerable and not perfect. This can be especially important in a group setting to establish that the tutor is simply the facilitator of the group, not the expert and that all members have something valuable to contribute.
Another type of unengaged writer is one who honestly does not know what they specifically need help with or feedback on (Harris 26-27). They may be a beginning writer or one who simply does not yet have the knowledge to help them move forward with their writing. So, they may sit there in hopes that you will find aspects of their paper to “fix” or to tell them what exactly to do. As is the case with any writer, the best way to help is by asking questions (Harris 30). Questions may spark thoughts within the writer and clarify what they would like done with their paper. Often in the group appointments, tutors have writers who come in to fulfill the session requirement for their class, but they do not know what they need help with; they are just there because they have to be. In these situations, the tutors find asking questions is the most beneficial tool because it facilitates all of the students’ thinking in the group.
The last type of unengaged writer that Harris mentions is the writer that knows that if they remain quiet, the tutor will eventually do all of the work (27). This type of situations occurs in classrooms all the time. The teacher asks a question, but none of the students answer, so after an awkward pause the teacher answers their own question so that they can move forward. However, this is not encouraged in the Writing Center because we want writers to do their own work and have their own ideas. It is especially dangerous to do within a group setting, as it then establishes the tutor as the teacher rather than a facilitator. The teacher, however, is an integral part of the group appointment even if he/she is not present, as discussed in what follows.
Works Cited in this Series
Bitzel, Alanna. “Who Are ‘We?’ Examining Identity Using the Multiple Dimensions of Identity Model.” Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, www.praxisuwc.com/bitzel-111/?rq.
Carpenter, Russell, et al. “Guest Editor Introduction: Revisiting and Revising Course-Embedded Tutoring Facilitated by Writing Centers.” Praxis: A Writing CenterJournal.
Geller, Anne Ellen. The Everyday Writing Center: a Community of Practice. Utah State University Press, 2007.
Grego, Rhonda C. and Nancy S. Thompson. "Institutional Critique and Studio as Thirdspace." Teaching/Writing in Thirdspaces: The Studio Approach. Southern Illinois University Press, 2008. pp. 59-96.
Harris, Muriel. “Talk to Me: Engaging Reluctant Writers.” A Tutors Guide: Helping Writers One to One, Ed. Ben Rafoth. 2nd ed. Heinemann, August 2005. 24-32
Jones Royster, Jacqueline. “Academic Discourses or Small Boats on a Big Sea.” ALT DIS: Alternative Discourses and the Academy, Boynton/Cook - Heinemann, 2002. pp. 23-30.
Lape, Noreen."Training tutors in emotional intelligence: toward a pedagogy of empathy." Writing Lab Newsletter, October 2008, https://wlnjournal.org/archives/v33/33.2.pdf, pp. 1-6.
Mirabelli, Tony. “Tutor-Student Relationship.” Berkley, Jan. 2015, bcourses.berkeley.edu/files/54211423/download?download_frd=1..
Rose, Sheldon. Working with Adults in Groups. Jossey-Bass, 1989.
Steinert, Yvonne. “Student Perceptions of Effective Small Group Teaching.” Medical Education, vol. 38, no. 3, 2004, pp. 286–293.