Moving from "she just sits there" to "she's opened my eyes": Evolution of writing tutor roles in conferences with L1 and L2 student-athletes

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2014

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This study took place in a university athletics tutoring facility which provides writing support to “underprepared” freshman student-athletes. Many students who are classified as underprepared students (often ethnic or linguistic minorities, international students, or first-generation college students) would not have the chance to attend a four-year university without their athletic ability and scholarships, making athletics writing support programs unique compared to campus-wide tutoring services. Athletics writing tutors are also subject to stricter National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) restrictions, making writing conferences in this setting a site of conflicting expectations and struggle. Since access to specialized tutoring services is an important factor in underprepared students’ college success, it is necessary to better understand the nature of these writing tutorials. In particular, it is essential to investigate whether and to what degree writing tutors who work with underprepared student-athletes are knowledgeable about the backgrounds, identities, and needs of this population, and how they navigate the NCAA restrictions on writing conferences. This case study charts the evolution of writing tutoring practices over a two-year span in one Division 1 state university’s athletic tutoring center. Through identifying needs and struggles of both underprepared students and writing tutors, I developed and implemented training modules that provided tutors with training in student-athlete identities, language varieties, and tutoring strategies for the process of American English academic writing. Post-training observations of writing conferences show qualitative differences in the ways that writing tutors approach students and their writing. In this paper, key data from observations, interviews, questionnaires, and training materials are utilized to explain how this evolution of tutoring practices took place.

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48 pages

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University of Hawai'I Second Langauge Studies Paper 33(1)

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