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A Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Approach to Tutor Training: Incorporating Linguistic Justice and Anti-Racism Scholarship into Staff Meetings

Ashley M. Beardsley, Western Illinois University

LEARNING OUTCOMES/OBJECTIVES

  • Apply anti-racist writing center pedagogical theories across appointment modalities (face-to-face, online, eTutoring)
  • Understand how students, faculty, and staff perceive writing centers


MATERIALS NEEDED


INSTRUCTIONAL PLAN

This training was a semester-long project to read and incorporate linguistic justice and anti-racist tutoring practices into our sessions. We met once a month to discuss 21 articles, but the reading list can be scaled down and completed in two 30-minute training sessions, as outlined here.

This lesson is set across two staff meetings with a reflection as the tool used to assess consultants’ understanding. The tutor-led reading groups typically occur during the spring semester to ensure that new consultants who began in the fall have some experience and understanding of how to tutor. The meeting format and agenda can be used for each subsequent training to decrease prep time. A simplified outline shows the general materials needed and organization: 

Pre-Meeting Steps & Materials Needed

  • Create meeting schedule
  • Randomly assign consultants a meeting date to lead
  • Choose and assign one text to use during the first meeting
    • Note: The lesson below uses Draxler et al. (2022) as an example reading and annotation.
  • Create a shared document to build the Collaborative Annotated Bibliography 
    • Write a sample annotation for the text to use during the first meeting (access a sample annotation in the Materials list)
  • Create a Text Selection document or spreadsheet where consultants will list their chosen reading (access the sample Text Selection document in the Materials list)

Meeting One

  • Discuss how identity enters a writing session
  • Introduce consultants to the anti-racist and linguistic justice project
  • Choose readings for training

Meeting Two

  • Explain how reading and learning groups work
  • Break into reading groups to discuss the chosen text
  • Move into learning groups to teach peers about what you read

Assessing for Understanding

  • Reflect on the ways learning about linguistic justice and anti-racism has impacted your tutoring sessions

Meeting 1: Lesson Introduction 

The instructor uses their selected text to model the training expectations and introduce (or re-introduce) linguistic justice and anti-racism. The example provided here uses Draxler, Berry, Villada, and Gutierrez (2022) as the guiding text; however, instructors should base the article choice on where they want to start the conversation with their consultants. To prime discussion and create a resource for future consultants, each consultant annotates their reading, adding it to a collaborative annotated bibliography. Here is a sample meeting structure: 

  1. Freewrite based on guiding text
  2. Provide consultants with the project overview 
  3. Share sample annotation and discuss guiding text

    Meeting 1: Body of Lesson 

    Step 1: Freewrite

    The meeting begins with a focused freewrite for consultants to reflect on the guiding text. In their article, Draxler et al. (2022) asked their consultants to complete a think/pair/share activity. 

    Instructions for Consultants: Take seven minutes to begin answering these questions (taken directly from the article). You may start with whichever question you feel like answering first: 

    1. What parts of your identity are most important to you?
    2. What are the ways in which your writing or speaking is an expression of your identity? This could be your race/ethnicity, class, major, gender…Try to think specifically about grammar, syntax, vocabulary as you answer this question.
    3. Do you code switch? When and why?
    4. What are different ways that identity (yours or the writer’s) might enter a writing tutoring session? Try to think specifically about grammar, syntax, vocabulary, etc. as you answer this question.

    Save your freewrite—you’ll return to it during subsequent training sessions. 

    Step 2: Project Overview - Linguistic Justice and Anti-Racism in the UWC

    Next, directors should introduce the structure of the choose-your-own-adventure meeting format and the training goals. The following project overview provides context for a semester-long project; however, the number of training sessions can be decreased to fit one session or repeated until all consultants have served as the discussion leader and all texts are annotated.  

    Instructions for Consultants: Our training will focus on linguistic justice and anti-racism in the writing center this semester. Through reading writing center scholarship and discussing theories and praxis during staff meetings, our goals are to:

    • Apply writing center pedagogical theories across appointment modalities (face-to-face, online, and eTutoring)
    • Understand how students, faculty, and staff perceive writing centers

      For Part I of our work, we'll create an annotated bibliography of texts on linguistic justice and anti-racism in writing centers. Each writing center consultant will:

      • Find one academic source on linguistic justice and/or anti-racism
      • Add the source to our collaborative annotated bibliography and include  
        • Complete bibliographic information (APA)
        • A summative statement (two to three sentences summarizing the author(s) argument)
        • Application (two to three sentences explaining how we can apply this text to face-to-face, online, and eTutoring sessions)
      • Serve as a small group discussion leader to summarize your text during a staff meeting and teach your colleagues how to apply what you learned

            The annotated bibliography will serve as a training tool for future UWC consultants and highlight how we can apply what we’ve read to tutoring sessions. 

            Part II is where we will reflect on what we learned and what we'd like to know more about. What would you like to read? What do we need to continue working on as a writing center? We will complete this reflection toward the end of the project. 

            Step 3: Discussing the Decision Tree

            The instructor should write and share a summative statement and application for the guiding text with the consultants to model what their annotations should look like and begin discussing the guiding text. The “Collaborative Annotated Bibliography Instructions and Example” document provides the sample annotation for Draxler et al. (2022), which includes a decision tree to help consultants work with a client on sentence-level concerns.

            Instructions for Consultants: As a group, discuss Draxler et al. (2022) and how the decision tree relates to the freewrite from the beginning of the training session: 

            • How does using a decision tree ask you to value your identities alongside the writer? 
            • How can we apply the decision tree to our sessions when addressing sentence-level concerns? 

              The discussion questions emphasize applicability, encouraging consultants to consider how texts transfer to tutoring sessions. Make handouts of the decision tree available in the writing center and via digital resources so consultants can revisit it throughout the semester and remind them to refer to our annotations. Additionally, discuss how consultants still need to value the writer's agency despite using a tool that seems prescriptive because it uses a yes or no path. That is to say, place value on getting input from writers and allowing them to lead the session. 

              Meeting 1: Next Steps

              Instructor Steps

              1. Provide consultants with a Google Sheet that lists their names and the date they’ll serve as the discussion leader. 
              2. Prompt consultants to list the article or chapter title, author(s), date, and publication on the Google Sheet. 

                • The “Text Selection” document shows instructors the readings we chose and the date the consultant was assigned to lead the staff meeting. The meeting dates are set in advance by the instructor or administrator so consultants can plan. 

              3. Assign due date for annotations.

              Consultant Steps

              1. Choose a text and add it to the Text Selection Google Sheet by [due date].
              2. Start reading your text and add it to the Collaborative Annotated Bibliography.
              3. Read your assigned text for the next meeting. Google Sheet. 
              • You’ll be assigned one text to read after everyone chooses their text; the assigned text will be listed on the Reading Schedule Google Sheet.

              Meeting 2: Lesson Introduction 

              The second meeting is when the choose-your-own-adventure training approach is implemented. Based on Aronson and Patnoe’s (2011) jigsaw method of cooperative learning, the activity breaks students into “expert” groups where they read a shared text and work together to understand its central meaning, and “home” groups where the “experts” teach the rest of their peers about what they learned (“The Jigsaw Classroom,” n.d.).

              The bulk of the instructor’s prep occurs before the second meeting. After consultants choose their text, the instructor creates the reading schedule and forms reading and discussion groups. 

              1. Determine the reading groups for the semester (or a set number of trainings)

                • The reading group members read the text selected by the consultant(s) responsible for leading that meeting and become “experts.” The number of consultants and texts determines the number of people in the reading group. For instance, our first consultant-led meeting had six reading groups. 
                • Assign each consultant one reading per meeting to distribute texts. 
              2. Determine the learning groups for the semester
                  • Learning groups consist of one or two consultants from each reading group.
                    • The purpose of the learning group is for consultants to share their reading expertise. Consultants practice teaching their peers and active listening to develop anti-racist tutoring skills. 

                The second meeting is the first time consultants break into their reading and discussion groups, so account for the extra time it takes to locate and move between groups. 

                Meeting 2: Body of Lesson 

                Meeting Format

                Our staff meetings combine training and general operational business (e.g., timecard reminders, policy updates, etc.). The linguistic justice and anti-racism portion of each meeting is 30 minutes. You’ll need at least 30 minutes for the activity; however, instructors can extend the conversations beyond the suggested time to account for more tutors or follow-up questions. The sample agenda below demonstrates one potential meeting structure. 

                Agenda

                1. Explain how our reading and learning groups work [5 min]

                2. Linguistic Justice & Anti-Racism in the UWC Activity [30 min]

                  • Part I [15 min]: 

                    Get into Reading Groups and discuss your assigned text
                    • Work together to answer the following discussion questions on the Group Discussion tab of the Reading Schedule Google Sheet. 
                    • Discussion Leader: It’s your responsibility to document your group’s answers.

                  • Part II [15 min]: 

                    Get into learning groups

                    • Take turns explaining your reading to your learning group. 
                    • Share key terms, the central argument, and the actionable items your reading group created. 
                    • Repeat until each person has shared what they learned. 
                3. General UWC Business & Announcements [10 min]
                4. To-Do [10 min]

                Discussion Questions

                1. What key terms or concepts do the authors define? Identify and explain them in a way that makes sense to you. Write them down.
                2. What is the main argument? Explain it in two to three sentences.
                3. How can we take what the author(s) said and implement it at the UWC? Create a list of two to five actionable items.


                    Meeting 2: Next Steps

                    From here, instructors can continue running reading groups until all texts are read or move into the project wrap-up. Throughout the semester, refer to the actionable items groups identified. Incorporate the items into training sessions, discussions, and consultant reviews to reinforce the importance of linguistic justice and anti-racist tutoring practices. 

                    Instructor Steps
                    1. Continue running reading groups until all texts are read or move into the project wrap-up (Assessing for Understanding)
                    2. Refer to the actionable items groups identified throughout the semester to reinforce linguistic justice and anti-racist tutoring concepts
                    3. Incorporate the actionable items into future training sessions, discussions, and consultant reviews to continue building anti-racist tutoring practices 



                        ASSESSING FOR UNDERSTANDING

                        After your staff has worked through the reading list, finish the project by reflecting on the ways learning about linguistic justice and anti-racism has impacted consultants’ tutoring. The reflection can be held as a meeting where consultants freewrite and share, conducted via a discussion board asynchronously or a combination of modalities. 

                        Reflection

                        During our first meeting, we began with a guided freewrite using the questions from Draxler et al.’s (2022) think/pair/share activity.

                        1. What parts of your identity are most important to you?
                        2. What are the ways in which your writing or speaking is an expression of your identity? This could be your race/ethnicity, class, major, gender…Try to think specifically about grammar, syntax, vocabulary as you answer this question.
                        3. Do you code switch? When and why?
                        4. What are different ways that identity (yours or the writer’s) might enter a writing tutoring session? Try to think specifically about grammar, syntax, vocabulary, etc. as you answer this question.

                        To conclude our initial work on linguistic justice and anti-racism, write a short response (at least 200 words) about your identity and writing. Answer the four original questions from Draxler et al. (2022)  again, then compare your freewrite from today to the previous one. 

                        1. What is different or similar between the freewrite you did at the first meeting and now? 
                        2. What have you learned about your identity and writing since our first meeting? 


                          EXTENSIONS AND ADAPTATIONS

                          As writing center director, I’m always interested in updating training materials; however, keeping up with new scholarship on my own can be challenging. Therefore, I’ve implemented the choose-your-own-adventure meeting format where consultants select a reading and lead the discussion as our spring training model. We used the model to learn as much as possible about generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and writing in spring 2024. Now, readings from both spring training sessions are incorporated into the fall 2025 orientation and staff training materials. Ultimately, running writing center training as reading groups creates a collaborative learning environment where we learn from one another. 



                          REFERENCES

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