WriteAway Standards of Practice: Effective Tutor-Student Interaction
The following standards of practice guide WriteAway tutors in their online responses to students. Tutors are expected to meet the standards of practice.
Responding to Submissions
- Response follows the WriteAway Structure. The required elements are organized as follows and can be seen in this link to an example submission:
- Greeting
- Strengths
- Issues to Consider
- Embedded Comments in the Students Essay
- Next Steps
- Closing
- Response reflects a broad reading of the essay, providing a clearly crafted and cohesive reply.
- Response considers and responds to student concerns.
- Response identifies some strengths within the writing.
- For second and third submissions, the response considers previous tutors’ responses (which involves reviewing earlier drafts of paper).
- Response explains why something is “good” or “needs work” and makes recommendations for improvements.
- Response prioritizes Higher Order Concerns. For example,
- Does the assignment meet the assignment guidelines?
- What is the controlling idea (eg. thesis)?
- Is the controlling idea (eg. thesis) supported/developed?
- In terms of organization and transition, do the ideas flow?
- Is the essay logical (or is the thinking clear)?
- Are the introduction and conclusion sufficient?
- If there are no Higher Order Concerns, response acknowledges Lower Order Concerns. For example,
- Are sources used correctly, effectively, and ethically?
- Is the language appropriate?
- Are there recurring errors in grammar and mechanics?
- Response clearly details student’s next steps for addressing issues identified by the tutor.
- Response avoids evaluative feedback and/or statements that judge the overall quality of the work or predicts grades (eg. This paper is great! Excellent essay! You should get an A on this!).
Responses Elicit Student Participation
- Response uses open-ended questions to prompt student reflection and action.
- Response explains why something needs correction/improvement and provides strategies for addressing issues. (Refer to Customizable Response Scripts [Direct Link] and/or personal responses scripts.)
- Embedded response identifies recurring problems a few times and encourages student to find and correct others.
- Embedded comments do not make sentence-level editorial or proofreading corrections (eg. no strikethroughs, added words or phrases).
- Response recognizes effort to communicate ideas.
Response Message Etiquette
- Response addresses student by name, particularly in the beginning and the end.
- Overall tone of response is supportive.
- Embedded response uses [bolding and brackets], does not use all caps, highlighted text, or strikethroughs.
- Response is reviewed for tone, clarity, grammar, and mechanics.
- Response thanks student and encourages the student to return for assistance.
Managing Student Expectations
- If assignment requirements are unclear, encourage the student to include the instructor’s description of the assignment or the assignment file.
- If a student asks for a tutor’s value judgement on their interpretation or analysis, the tutor can clarify the type of feedback possible
- If a student asks for a tutor to speculate on a potential grade or mark, explain to the student that tutors are unable to say what grade they might receive on an assignment and remind them that the tutor’s role is to help students develop their writing skills.
