Abstract
Emotions impact all aspects of tutoring work, including sessions with clients, tutor responsibilities, and tutoring philosophies. While emotions can make tutoring feel difficult, mindfulness strategies can be taught to tutors so they feel equipped to manage clients’ and their own emotions. While plenty of research on mindfulness theories exists, few studies integrate mindfulness into tutor education and examine the impact of mindfulness on tutoring. My study observes how teaching mindfulness strategies can support the emotional labor of tutoring and build emotional intelligence in tutors over time. I developed an emotional mindfulness training workshop for writing center tutors using mindfulness strategies proposed by scholars in writing center studies. I facilitated a training workshop with UNC Charlotte Writing Resources Center (WRC) tutors during the WRC tutor education course for new tutors and a WRC staff meeting for veteran tutors. Then, I followed the impact of this training on tutoring practices by collecting written journal responses from six tutors. In these journal responses, tutors wrote about client emotions, tutor emotions, and mindfulness strategies they used. Tutors use and evolve the mindfulness strategies outlined in the training to benefit both clients and themselves, while also using mindfulness strategies to reflect upon tutoring practices. As one of the first writing center studies that analyzes the impact of mindfulness training, my research offers a reference to writing center administrators and tutors on the positive effects of implementing mindfulness into regular tutoring practices.
- Journal
- Praxis: A Writing Center Journal
- Published
- 2025
- CompPile
- Search in CompPile ↗
- Open Access
- OA PDF Gold
- Topics
- Export
- BibTeX RIS
Citation Context
Citation data not yet available for this article.
Citation data is not available for Praxis: A Writing Center Journal. This journal's publisher does not deposit reference lists with CrossRef.
Related Articles
-
The Peer Review Sep 2025The Writing Center as a Rebel Space: Stories of Tutoring and Writing with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder ↗Ghada Seifeddine
-
The Peer Review Sep 2025Moving Against the Grain: Combining Writing Center Theory and In-House Editing Services to Create a Graduate Writing Center ↗Brian Harrell; Brook Wyers; Craig Theissen
-
Pedagogy Apr 2025modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism african american rhetorics cultural rhetorics first-year composition writing pedagogy basic writing graduate education two-year college teacher development writing centers technical communication professional writing labor and working conditions digital rhetoric multimodality social media literacy studies race and writing gender and writing community literacy literary studies editorial matter
-
The Peer Review Apr 2025Teaching through Ambiguity: How Students’ Use and Perceptions of GAI Inform a Writing Center’s Response ↗Matthew Fledderjohann; Emily Perkins
-
The Peer Review Apr 2025Teaching and Learning with GenAI: Laying the Groundwork for Faculty Development and Instructor Support in Your Writing Center ↗Felicitas Hartung; Christine Sharp