Praxis: A Writing Center Journal • Vol. 22, No. 2 (2025)
Take a Breath: Building an Emotionally Mindful Writing Center Through Mindfulness Education for Tutors
Bree Johnson
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
sjohn386@charlotte.edu
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.
Introduction
When starting as a tutor in the writing center, my original motivation for accepting the position was to speak to others. I did not fully understand what tutoring entailed, other than the technical definition of helping others with their writing. I was incredibly nervous to put my writing ability on display as an “expert,” not sure if I would actually help anyone. With my amateur perspective, I braved this new experience. As I took on my client’s nervousness, stress, and frustration, I began to understand the weight of my position. I was an unbiased ear and an optimistic light for my peers. Even if I did not know the name of a specific grammatical function, if I simply listened to my client’s feelings about their writing and reassured them, I helped. Between helping others find their confidence in their writing and finding my own confidence as a tutor, the weight of the two grew heavy. While I had support from my fellow tutors and writing center directors, I wondered if there was any way to lighten this load. In my tutor education course, I first started researching mental illness in the writing center, specifically anxiety. This led me to the growing field of emotional mindfulness in writing center studies.
Writing center scholarship on emotional mindfulness focuses on either eliciting tutor perspectives or proposing strategies (see Im, Shao, and Chen; McBride, Edwards, Kunter, and Thoms; Giaimo; Driscoll and Wells). Using survey research on tutors’ “engagement in emotional labor and work-related stress” (203), Hohjin Im found that “half of the tutors reported feelings of disappointment or stress during the most recent emotional taxing session” (215) and most tutors cope through these difficult sessions with “social sharing,” or speaking with other tutors about these sessions (Im 216). Maureen McBride et al. conducted a similar study regarding tutors’ emotional and empathetic responses in sessions. McBride created training using therapy approaches developed by Carl Rogers and analyzed how tutors used these strategies by distributing a survey before and after training. Two months after receiving the training, survey responses reported tutors using an empathetic Rogerian approach aligned with the training through “‘active listening,’ ‘attending skills,’ ‘body positioning,’ ‘validating,’ and ‘reflecting’” (McBride et al.). In the introduction of her book Wellness and Care in Writing Center Work, Genie Giaimo provides an overview and critique of theory and proposes research towards emotional mindfulness in the writing center. Giaimo outlines gaps in the literature, concluding that while mindfulness research has become more “empirically rooted” (9), she calls for research on specific lived experiences and the impact of mindfulness on sessions. Driscoll and Wells, in a post-COVID-19 environment, discuss the difficulties in facilitating emotional development alongside writing development. Driscoll and Wells propose strategies from writing center studies and psychology to teach tutors to “tutor the whole person” when supporting writing development (26).
While these studies provide useful theories and data on tutors’ perspectives on emotional sessions, writing center scholars have yet to examine the direct impact of emotional mindfulness training on tutor practice. Building on existing research on emotional mindfulness, particularly Driscoll and Wells’s article, I integrated emotional mindfulness practices in tutor education, then studied how this training impacted tutor and client interactions over an academic semester. In my study, I investigated two research questions:
What mindfulness strategies can be practically integrated into the writing center in order to teach and support the emotional labor of writing center work?
How can integrating mindfulness strategies build emotionally intelligent tutors over time?
In this article, I first outline and elaborate upon the training presentation I created to educate tutors on emotional mindfulness and how I gathered tutor perspectives after this training. Then, I analyze how tutors use these strategies to both aid client emotions during sessions and reflect upon their own tutoring practices and philosophies. Finally, I use tutor insights to inform my updated training presentation and future research for the field.
Methods
Over the Summer 2023 semester, I gained research approval from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte’s (UNC Charlotte) institutional review board (IRB). I conducted my research in accordance with UNC Charlotte’s human research guidelines. With IRB approval, I developed a training presentation using the emotional writing development strategies explained in Driscoll and Wells’ article “Tutoring the Whole Person: Supporting Emotional Development in Writers and Tutors.” Using their practices, I split the presentation into six main sections:
Introduce the training and the presence of emotions in the writing center
Explain what emotions look like in the writing center
Introduce how to navigate emotions in a session
Introduce and practice mindfulness strategies
Introduce tutor self-care strategies
Conclude and reassure tutors
Throughout the training, I incorporated multiple moments to pause and reflect, including written and verbal reflections. Written reflections primarily resided at the start and end of the training. This allowed tutors to reflect on their emotions regarding tutoring in a personal space, both preparing to discuss their emotions and to ease themselves out of emotional discussions. Meanwhile, verbal reflections resided in the middle of the training, usually after interacting directly with a new strategy from the training. Verbal reflections also allowed tutors to directly connect any existing tutoring practices with these new strategies.
When introducing what emotions looked like in the writing center, I used Driscoll and Wells’s three emotional situations: generative, disruptive, and circumstantial (Table 1). I then explained ways that sessions can become emotional, such as a client’s first time coming to the writing center, or frustration towards the assignment or professor. To navigate these emotions, I explained the metacognitive strategies outlined by Driscoll and Wells: metacognitive planning, metacognitive monitoring, metacognitive control, and metacognitive evaluation (Table 2).
Then, I introduced specific metacognitive control strategies from Driscoll and Wells and my own experience that tutors could use during or after sessions to manage their emotions (Table 3). [1] I additionally explained the mindfulness stances listed by Driscoll and Wells: beginner’s mind, self-compassion, and self-reliance (Table 4). Finally, I highlighted the importance of tutor self-care and creating a safe emotional and physical environment in the writing center.
I administered the training to two groups: new tutors and returning tutors. New tutors received the training over two one-hour-and-fifteen-minute class periods in their tutor training course. The new tutors received this education during the first week they began tutoring in the writing center. For homework, the WRC Director and Associate Director (course instructors) assigned the Driscoll and Wells article, the paper I wrote for the tutor training course on emotional mindfulness, and a mock-session video between me and another tutor. This video would later be used in the training presentation to analyze mindfulness strategies. I split the training between sections one through three for the first day and four through six for the second. I began each day by letting tutors reflect on their first week tutoring, with the first day’s reflection being written and the second day’s being verbal. On the first day, tutors completed two additional reflections: a written reflection after introducing emotions, and a verbal reflection after introducing metacognitive strategies. On the second day, tutors completed three additional reflections: one verbal reflection after practicing a metacognitive control strategy, one verbal reflection after watching the mock-session, and one written reflection at the end of training.
For returning tutors, I presented an abridged version of the presentation during a 90-minute staff meeting with less reflection time. Throughout the presentation, I inserted four reflections, allowing tutors to process what they learned. At the beginning of the presentation, tutors completed a brief written reflection on their feelings regarding their tutoring abilities and practices. Tutors completed two additional reflections: one verbal reflection after introducing emotions and metacognitive strategies, and one verbal reflection after practicing a metacognitive control strategy. At the end of the presentation, tutors completed one brief written reflection.
After administering the training, I recruited a total of six tutor participants to complete three journal entries over the course of the Spring 2024 semester. Participants completed journal entries at the beginning, middle, and end of the semester. Each journal entry invited tutors to reflect on the same three questions:
Have you had a session (or sessions) where a client has expressed any particular kind of emotion (ex. Nervousness, uncertainty, relief, happiness, etc.)?
Have you had a session (or sessions) where you as a tutor have felt any particular kind of emotion (ex. Stress, nervousness, motivation, confidence, etc.)?
Do you recall any time during this time period in any of your sessions where you have used any of the emotional mindfulness training (ex. Labeling emotions in a session, metacognitive strategies, mindfulness stances, active listening, etc.)?
These questions drew out the tutors’ individual session experiences, including their personal observations on their clients’ emotions. Tutors wrote as needed when completing their journal entries, though most entries averaged around 50–200 words per question. Tutors completed their journal entries while working in the writing center. Any session details were recalled from the memory of the tutors.
I used Cheryl Geisler and Jason Swarts’s methods outlined in Coding Streams of Language to segment, code, and analyze my data. Geisler and Swarts’s methodology allowed me to break apart and categorize the specific emotional moves being made and resolved throughout segments, rather than analyzing whole journal entries. I broke down the journal responses from each tutor into individual t-units—a group of words used to make a move in language consisting of a principal clause and any subordinate clauses (Geisler and Swarts 73). I used t-units as my unit of segmenting to easily separate tutor and client emotions as well as individual mindfulness strategies. I additionally split some t-units due to having two emotions or strategies in one t-unit. After segmenting, I gathered a total of 280 t-units between the six tutors’ journal entries, with some examples listed here:
“Yes, I have had a client express to me that they were uncertain and nervous about their paper, due to their professor’s lack of instruction on the assignment.”
“I don’t believe anyone explicitly stated any strong emotions.”
“I definitely had a few clients who seemed a bit frantic and stressed coming into the appointment.”
I first created three initial coding schemes: one for client emotions, one for tutor emotions, and one for mindfulness strategies. I then coded for specific emotional situations in clients and tutors, as well as specific mindfulness strategies used by tutors. This nested coding scheme allowed me to first analyze emotions and mindfulness strategies more generally, then specifically through the second layer of the coding scheme. I revised the coding schemes with my writing center director to reach inter-rater reliability. The emotions coding scheme achieved a Cohen’s Kappa of 0.844 and the mindfulness strategies coding scheme achieved a Cohen’s Kappa of 0.877 on a scale of 0–1, indicating strong reliability for each scheme. In the next section, I will include brief descriptions of each coding scheme and provide the complete coding scheme in Appendix A. I will provide my results and discussion for each coding scheme individually.
Results and Discussion: Emotions
Coding Scheme
I created two nested coding schemes to unpack and categorize both tutor and client emotions using Driscoll and Wells’ emotional situations (Table 5). [2] The nested coding scheme for clients has three codes. Similarly, I created another nested coding scheme for tutor emotions (Table 6). I expected that disruptive emotions would appear in both clients and tutors during sessions, as well as be the most frequent emotion experienced. I also expected that any generative emotions exhibited by clients would appear during sessions. However, I was unsure when tutors would record any generative emotions.
eMOTION Results
Out of the 280 t-units, 147 t-units included an emotional response, whether it was from a client or the tutor (Table 7). I categorized sessions into three stages: the opening stage, the tutor assistance stage, and the closing stage (Mackiewicz and Thompson 15-16). The opening stage consists of the tutor introducing themselves to the client, building rapport, and creating an agenda for the session. The tutor assistance stage consists of the tutor and client working together, filling the majority of the session time. Finally, the closing stage involves any closing remarks and feedback from the tutor to the client. With these session identifiers, I identify in which stage these emotions fall. Additionally, I include a fourth option: outside of sessions, if emotions exist prior to or after sessions take place.
Client Emotion (C)
General client emotions only made up 2% (3 t-units) of the emotion data. These t-units primarily consisted of a statement that a client did not show a particular emotion, a hard-to-label emotion, or an emotion that could be interpreted as either generative or disruptive. One example of this is a tutor recounting a client “who ended up crying by the end of a session” or another tutor noticing that a client’s “prior experiences with writing and teachers impacted her emotions towards the session and her writing.”
Client Generative Emotion (CG)
Client generative emotions made up 13% (19 t-units) of the emotion data. Out of this 13%, 84% (16 t-units) of the generative emotions arose in the tutor assistance and closing stages. Words that came up in these situations were “relief,” “calm,” or “confident.” One tutor stated that “a lot of my clients have said to me that they are relieved to know I have been there to help them,” while another tutor explained that through their tutoring practices, “the student is less self–critical and more conscious and confident in their ability to make decisions as a writer.”
The other 16% (3 t-units) of generative emotions appeared from clients beginning a session with an excited or eager demeanor. One tutor stated that they had a session “where [their] client was really excited to talk to [them] about the subject material, as both of [them] had good knowledge of the topic.” [3]
Client Disruptive Emotion (CD)
Client disruptive Emotions made up 33% (48 t-units) of the emotion data. Out of this 33%, 88% (42 t-units) of disruptive emotions arose in the tutor assistance stage. Words that appeared in these situations were “nervous,” “uncertain,” “stressed,” “indifferent,” “annoyed,” or “frustrated.” One tutor stated that “I also had one client who seemed utterly indifferent or maybe even annoyed to be in the appointment,” while another tutor stated that “she [client] tended to be apprehensive in our conversations and overall uncertain about their writing.”
The other 12% (6 t-units) of disruptive emotions appeared during the opening stage. One tutor stated, “I’ve had students who express their nerves right away.” No disruptive emotions appeared at the end of a session. If a session did not end well because of a disruptive emotion, it was due to an emotion that appeared in the opening or tutor assistance stages.
I also examined client disruptive emotions to see which emotions got resolved (disruptive emotions turning into circumstantial) in the duration of the session and which ones did not. In this situation, I defined circumstantial emotions as disruptive emotions that changed to generative emotions as the session or proceeding responses progressed. I sought to find these circumstantial emotions to capture the full scope of how emotions change throughout a session rather than limit this ever-changing emotion to a single code. Out of the 33% of client disruptive emotions, 54% (26 t-units) were resolved, 10% (5 t-units) were not resolved, and 36% (17 t-units) were unclear how the session ended emotionally for the client.
Tutor Emotion (T)
General tutor emotions only made up 1% (2 t-units) of the emotion data. This mainly consisted of tutors either speaking about how they feel emotions during a session or taking care of their emotions without explicitly naming those emotions.
Tutor Generative Emotion (TG)
Tutor generative emotions made up 11% (16 t-units) of the emotion data. Out of this 11%, 63% (10 t-units) surrounded a session. Words that appeared in these situations were “calmer,” “confident,” “proud,” “motivating,” and “better.” One tutor reflected that “a client and I just had decent chemistry for some reason,” while another tutor stated that after practicing metacognitive strategies at the end of a session, they “felt considerably better.” The other 37% (6 t-units) came from tutors reflecting upon their tutoring practices or experiences in sessions. One tutor reflected on their tutoring practices by explaining “This got better with time and an increased awareness that none of our tutors are all-knowing or experts, and that’s not something that our clients necessarily expect from us.”
Tutor Disruptive Emotion (TD)
Tutor disruptive emotions made up 40% (59 t-units) of the emotion data. Out of this 40%, 66% (39 t-units) came from session-specific circumstances. From this 66%, 92% (36 t-units) appeared in the tutor assistance stage, 5% (2 t-units) appeared in the opening stage, and 3% (1 t-unit) appeared after a session. Some of the words that came up in these situations were “nervous,” “frustrated,” “overwhelming,” “embarrassed,” and “anxious.” One tutor stated, “I had been nervous from not understanding their paper’s topic very well due to being an English major,” while another tutor explained that “I get nervous before a session begins.”
The other 34% (20 t-units) came from anxieties regarding tutoring practices. One tutor reflected on their practices by stating “I still read up and practice my skills as a writing tutor but I just feel it is not enough sometimes.” Another tutor expressed concern about meeting the needs of their client: “I get really scared about the possibility of knocking [down] these student’s confidence with any possible corrections I might need to make.”
Similarly to the client disruptive emotions, I examined tutor disruptive emotions to see which emotions were resolved and turned into circumstantial emotions and which were not. Out of the 40% of tutor disruptive emotions, 76% (45 t-units) were resolved, 7% (4 t-units) were unresolved, and 17% (10 t-units) were unclear if the emotion was resolved.
eMOTION Discussion
The results display the wide range of emotions and emotional processing that takes place during sessions, as 82% of emotions occurred during sessions, as opposed to prior to or after a session. More specifically, 63% (93 t-units) of emotions in both clients and tutors appeared during the tutor assistance stage, and client and tutor disruptive emotions appeared more often than any other type (42 t-units and 36 t-units respectively).
This finding supports the inherent emotional nature of sessions in the tutor assistance stage as emotions from the client or tutor about the writing tend to appear during the majority of a session. Additionally, this finding also stresses how addressing and discussing these emotions (with or without mindfulness strategies) will bring resolution to them. The results revealed that generative emotions not only involve tutors feeling good about their work but that these types of emotions can provide resolutions to problems that arise in sessions; for instance, during one tough session, a tutor and their client “[settled] into our emotions with sharing a needed laugh to the issues we were having.” Regarding disruptive emotions, the results suggest that mindfulness education had a positive impact on both clients and tutors (54% of resolved disruptive emotions in clients and 76% of resolved disruptive emotions in tutors were resolved). How specifically disruptive emotions were resolved and how emotions impact mindfulness strategies will be further examined in the next section.
Results and Discussion: Mindfulness Strategies
Coding Scheme
I created a nested coding scheme covering the mindfulness strategies that appeared in the data (Table 8). I decided to separate active listening from metacognitive control as active listening is taught outside of emotional mindfulness. Any other mindfulness strategy, specifically those associated with metacognitive control, will be analyzed below.
Mindfulness Strategies Results
Out of the 280 t-units, 143 t-units involved mindfulness strategies that the tutor used to calm either a client or themselves (Table 9).
Mindfulness Strategy (M)
General mindfulness strategies consisted of 2% (3 t-units) of the mindfulness strategies data. These t-units included tutors mentioning they used mindfulness strategies without naming specifics: “I did a few metacognitive strategies to help prepare me before the session and found that they really helped me feel focused at the time of the actual appointment.”
Metacognitive Monitoring (MM)
Metacognitive monitoring made up 19% (27 t-units) of the mindfulness strategies data. I analyzed the language of how metacognitive monitoring was being used, first if the metacognitive monitoring was being used in reference to the client or to the tutor. Out of the 19% of metacognitive monitoring, 56% (15 t-units) was language labeling the clients’ emotions, while 44% (12 t-units) was language labeling their own emotions.
Next, I looked at the context of metacognitive monitoring, either in a session or with a tutor discussing their tutoring practices. I found that 52% (14 t-units) were employed during sessions, while 48% (13 t-units) were employed when discussing tutoring practices. Then, I examined if the tutor consciously used metacognitive monitoring by stating that they labeled their emotions, or if they simply “realized” or “noticed” how they were feeling. I found that 56% (15 t-units) of the time tutors were unconsciously using metacognitive monitoring, while 44% (12 t-units) of the time tutors were consciously using metacognitive monitoring.
Metacognitive Control (MC)
Metacognitive control made up 47% (67 t-units) of the mindfulness strategies data. The metacognitive control strategies tutors used were metacognitive control itself, beginner’s mind, self-compassion, showing kindness, breathing techniques, and self-reliance. Similar to metacognitive monitoring, I analyzed the language to see if the metacognitive control was used for the tutor or the client. I found that 55% (37 t-units) was language about the client, while 45% (30 t-units) was language about the tutors.
I then analyzed the kind of mindfulness strategies used for metacognitive control based on what I introduced in the training presentation. I found that 60% (40 t-units) of the time tutors used simple metacognitive control by combining their own strategies with controlling the situation by focusing on either the task or on the emotion at hand (further elaborated in the mindfulness strategies discussion).
As for the other mindfulness stances outlined by Driscoll and Wells, 16% (10 t-units) of the time tutors used beginner’s mind (putting themselves in their client’s shoes) as metacognitive control. One tutor did this by “reminding myself that all clients are different.” Another client calmed their frustration with a client by reminding themselves “I’ve been more behind on more important assignments.” 13% (9 t-units) involved tutors used self-compassion (being kind to their client or themselves) as metacognitive control. One tutor showed kindness to their client by explaining “I have a chance to let them know that this is a very okay, commonly [sic] experience, and best battled in a safe and comfortable space like the WRC.” 9% (6 t-units) involved tutors who used breathing techniques as metacognitive control. One tutor in particular used the three deep breaths technique multiple times, such as this instance: “In the session I felt sick, I utilized the three deep breaths technique as a way to center myself and continue the session.” 1% (1 t-unit) involved tutors who used self-reliance (trusting themselves) as metacognitive control. Finally, 1% (1 t-unit) involved tutors who used grounding techniques as metacognitive control.
Metacognitive Evaluation
Metacognitive evaluation made up 26% (37 t-units) of the mindfulness strategies data. I analyzed when metacognitive evaluation involved reflecting directly on a session versus when a tutor is reflecting on their tutoring practices. I found that 84% (31 t-units) involved metacognitive evaluation of their tutoring practices, while 16% (6 t-units) involved metacognitive evaluation directly about a session. Some tutors reflected on their past tutoring practices: “When I started tutoring in 2020, I fully doubted my ability to help clients during all of my sessions.” Some tutors reflected on their current position as a tutor: “My role as a tutor is to make clients feel worthy of being cared for.” Some tutors reflected on the importance of representing the writing center: “The importance of the session is the association you are creating to represent the WRC among peers.”
Active Listening (AL)
Active listening made up 6% (9 t-units) of the mindfulness strategies data. Any mention of active listening is a tutor stating they actively use it: “To me, I feel there’s an importance to active listening, as a person can get caught up into their own thoughts and completely miss what another person is saying.” A tutor also related their usage of active listening to their clients and tutoring practices: “I attribute a fair part of my success as a tutor to my ability to make most clients feel comfortable and heart.”
Mindfulness strategies Discussion
For clarity, these results will be further analyzed in order of the percentage breakdown from greatest to least of each metacognitive strategy.
Metacognitive Control
The results emphasize the usefulness of metacognitive control strategies to resolve client disruptive emotions. A combined 84% of resolved client disruptive emotions involved metacognitive control as the resolution method, such as one tutor reflecting how they use metacognitive control to let clients release their emotions: “Letting clients express their frustration of anxiety is something that helps, and I try to find ways I can alleviate that.” Another tutor uses metacognitive control to gauge a client’s feelings at the end of a session: “At the end of these sessions, I try to spend a minute or two asking about how the client feels about what we worked on.” In these situations, this same tutor additionally offers campus resources, and notes that as a result, “I remember a few [sessions] where the student came back with gradually increasing confidence in future sessions.” With a tutor directing metacognitive control, clients feel at ease by knowing their tutor listens to and supports them.
The results also explain that metacognitive control strategies can be both taught through formal training and modified through a tutor’s learned experience. The results provide additional metacognitive control strategies combined with technical tutor practices that can be taught to tutors. In the 60% of metacognitive control t-units, tutors used existing practices and related them to an emotional context. Tutors used what I defined as “task-related” or “emotion-related” practices. Task-related practices involve focusing on the task at hand, which is the written work, using more logical strategies to break down one larger task into several smaller tasks. Emotion-related practices are more nuanced, as they pull away from the task to focus on the emotions instead. I observed two emotion-related practices: a tutor focuses on their own emotions to ground themselves while a client works, or they speak with their client about the emotions at hand to ground both of them. I further broke down these strategies with example segments from tutor journal entries (Table 10).
One tutor uses a combination of these practices, starting with an emotion-related practice and then following with a task-related practice: “I took some time from our appointment, but I spoke to them about the nerves they seemed to be feeling and worked to break down the huge task they had built up into smaller, more manageable tasks.” Ultimately, these adaptive metacognitive control practices focus directly on the matters of the session and are situational to the needs of the tutor and the client.
In addition to these practices, the other 40% of metacognitive control strategies included Driscoll and Wells’s mindfulness stances (Table 4). For example, one tutor used beginner’s mind (considering the client’s perspective) to fully understand their client’s emotions: “I was frustrated but I reminded myself that this is what the writing center is for, and that I’ve been more behind on more important assignments.” Another tutor reported that, when using breathing techniques, “I was able to calm myself and my emotions to continue the session.” Tutors used these mindfulness stances towards understanding a client’s perspective or giving themselves time to process their own emotions, rather than progressing the session. These stances can also be used with the tutor-created mindfulness strategies, giving tutors a wide range of tools to address emotions.
Metacognitive Evaluation
Metacognitive evaluation is important for tutors to reflect on their tutoring practices and not only sessions (as 84% of metacognitive evaluation involves tutoring practices). Metacognitive evaluation allows tutors to give themselves compassion and understand that they did their best regardless of how the session ends, especially regarding resolved tutor disruptive emotions. One tutor reflects on the outcome of one session with their relationship to working in the writing center: “You aren’t ever going to hit every point that’s needed on a paper, but the importance of the session is the association you are creating to represent the WRC among your peers.” One tutor reflects on their perspective of the nature of their sessions: “These 45-minute sessions I get with clients are a secret dialogue of shame. What differentiates my shame from the client’s is that I actively work on conquering that shame and have come up with strategies to help. My role as a tutor is to help my clients do the same.” This tutor also reflects on struggling with their self-confidence as a tutor: “Tutors who lack confidence will doubt their skills and focus on local issues which is a key difference between specialized tutors and general tutors. So, even if I don’t believe it, I tell myself I am a good tutor and I pretend as if I believe I am.” By reflecting on and processing their nervousness regarding sessions or their tutoring practices, tutors understand their ideologies as tutors and how these ideologies pertain to helping their clients. This finding highlights the importance of implementing reflection, particularly emotional reflection, in tutoring practices through journal entries or building a culture of reflection in the writing center, written or verbal.
Metacognitive Monitoring
The results display that mindfulness education can be used to emphasize unconscious and conscious processes regarding metacognitive monitoring. While metacognitive monitoring was the least used out of the three metacognitive strategies (19%), tutors still actively labeled both theirs and their client’s emotions. Furthermore, the process of metacognitive monitoring (or “labeling emotions”) is explicitly mentioned 44% of the time, such as one tutor here: “I find myself attempting to label emotions more often when speaking with clients, both to gauge how we’re feeling about their writing before and after appointments, and also to acknowledge how emotions can slip into writing.” The other 56% is tutors simply writing what they observe in clients and themselves, such as one tutor reflecting on their self-doubt when tutoring: “I recognize that when I am feeling nervous and acknowledge it comes from my fears of being an insufficient tutor.” One tutor uses metacognitive monitoring at the end of an appointment, when, after creating a “judgment-free zone” for the client, they “notice the clients feeling much more comfortable, confident, and express relief by the end of the appointment.” Training can be used to turn this unconscious process of labeling emotions in themselves and others into a conscious one, especially with a process that tutors already actively do. Further emphasis on metacognitive monitoring can create more relaxed tutors that monitor what they or their clients are feeling at a given moment.
Active Listening
The results support the already effective nature of active listening as a tool commonly taught to tutors. However, the results also support the emotional implication of active listening to make a client feel seen and heard in their words. Whether related to emotional mindfulness or not, active listening is a strategy tutors already actively employ: “Active listening is a huge part of every single appointment that I conduct.” However, tutors also describe their use of active listening for their own engagement, such as one tutor stating, “I try to use active listening in all of my appointments because I will get distracted and stop listening to them.” Another tutor shows a balance of both by explaining “I try to ensure that I’m employing active listening during all of my appointments nowadays, and hope to make it clear to clients with my body language and comments that our sessions will follow their lead.” The results show a further implication of active listening not being used only for a client’s benefit, but also for a tutor’s personal benefit.
Updated Education Presentation
After analyzing my results, I modified my training presentation to both reflect my findings and support the benefits of emotional mindfulness using the voices of my fellow tutors. With these changes, I wanted to create a more personal feel to the presentation while also providing more context and examples of exactly how these strategies can be used by using tutor responses from their journal entries.
I first reformatted the presentation to make it visually attractive. I then emphasized the practices tutors have already learned and are currently using to link with prior knowledge and experience, such as providing examples from tutor journal entries after introducing a metacognitive strategy. For metacognitive monitoring, I emphasize the conscious and unconscious process of labeling emotions with examples. For metacognitive control, I explain the task-related and emotion-related strategies tutors used with journal entry examples. For metacognitive evaluation, I use journal entry examples to outline the versatile usage of reflecting on tutoring. Additionally, I use my data to contextualize how many and what kind of generative, disruptive, and circumstantial emotions appear when tutoring. I also use journal entry examples when explaining mindfulness stances, such as beginner’s mind and self-compassion, and use my results to emphasize what strategies tutors in our writing center used. Throughout the presentation, I made the moments of reflection more specific rather than basic questions asking what tutors were feeling and learning.
Limitations
My study had several limitations. First, the emotional mindfulness education was only conducted at one university, so the presentation may not fully meet the needs of other institutions. Second, there is no control group in the study, as I wanted to administer the training to all tutors in our writing center. A control group would allow an examination of the use of mindfulness in untrained tutors versus trained tutors. Third, I originally planned to include session observations and transcripts in this study. However, due to time and resource limitations, I was unable to gather these. Additionally, these means of data collection would have allowed for clients’ voices to be included in this study. Finally, my study focused primarily on tutor experiences and written words regardless of experience at the writing center (new versus experienced tutors), which could have influenced how tutors received the training.
Conclusions and Future Research
This project allowed me to directly examine the impacts of emotional mindfulness education on tutors through their journal responses. The results ultimately proved that the presentation was not only successful in educating tutors about emotional mindfulness but supported that tutors already actively employ their own emotional mindfulness strategies, consciously or unconsciously. Furthermore, the results displayed the adaptive nature of tutors through task-related and emotion-related metacognitive control strategies. Providing formal emotional mindfulness training facilitates growth in a tutor’s strategies by labeling what a tutor already practices and provides a tutor with new tools in their tutoring toolbox. The results also stressed the importance of implementing tutor reflection into writing center practices so tutors can process their emotions regarding sessions and their abilities as tutors. The journal entries gave tutors a chance to actively employ metacognitive evaluation by venting and reflecting on their emotions regarding their tutoring, allowing them to be conscious of their own tutoring practices moving forward.
More importantly, this project gave me additional insight on how to improve my presentation through tutor insights and practices. By learning from my fellow tutors, I improved the presentation by using examples from my research. With this updated presentation, future new tutors have tangible and direct examples from their own writing center to help process their nerves about tutoring and eventually handle emotional sessions with confidence. I plan to give the presentation again to the new batch of incoming tutors, and the training presentation I created will continue to be used by my writing center administrators once I graduate.
I hope that writing center professionals can extend and expand upon the emotional mindfulness training I created. However, I am happy with the amount of data I received from my study, and future research could examine usage of mindfulness strategies through session observations or session recordings. Further research could examine the effectiveness of mindfulness training for clients and elevate client voices alongside tutors. Future research could also examine different theories and research outside of Driscoll and Wells to implement in training. This presentation can be adjusted to the specific needs of different writing centers, such as added onto any existing training on emotional situations. I highly encourage writing center professionals to use my presentation and results as a resource or starting point when implementing emotional mindfulness into writing center training for tutors.
Works Cited
Driscoll, Dana, and Wells, Jeniffer. “Tutoring the Whole Person: Supporting Emotional Development in Writers and Tutors.” Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, vol. 17, no. 3, 2020, pp. 16-28. https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/bitstream/handle/2152/82567/396_Driscoll_Wells_Proof_8_10.pdf?sequence=2.
Giaimo, Genie, et al. “A Matter of Method: Wellness and Care Research in Writing Center Studies.” Wellness and Care in Writing Center Work, Press Books, 2021, pp. 7-28.
Geisler, Cheryl and Swarts, Jason. Coding Streams of Language: Techniques for the Systematic Coding of Text, Talk, and Other Verbal Data, University of Colorado Press, 2019.
Im, Hojin, et al. “The Emotional Sponge: Perceived Reasons for Emotionally Laborious Sessions and Coping Strategies of Peer Writing Tutors.” The Writing Center Journal, vol. 38, no. 1, 2020, pp. 203-230. https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1925&context=wcj.
Mackiewicz, Jo and Isabelle Kramer Thompson. Talk about Writing: The Tutoring Strategies of Experienced Writing Center Tutors, Routledge, 2018.
Mannon, Bethany. “Centering the Emotional Labor of Writing Tutors.” The Writing Center Journal, vol. 39, no. 1, 2021. https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1962&context=wcj.
McBride, Maureen, et, al. “Responding to the Whole Person: Using Empathetic Listening and Responding in the Writing Center.” The Peer Review, vol. 2, no. 2, 2018. https://thepeerreview-iwca.org/issues/issue-2/responding-to-the-whole-person-using-empathic-listening-and-responding-in-the-writing-center/.
Notes
1. Driscoll and Wells refer to these strategies as mindfulness techniques. However, for clarity, I refer to them as metacognitive control strategies.
2. My original coding scheme included a code for client circumstantial emotions and tutor circumstantial emotions. However, coding for these emotions as individual t-units became difficult as most of the circumstantial emotions were not clear in a single t-unit, and instead usually appeared disruptive, which did not capture the full scope of that emotion or situation. Because of this, I changed the coding scheme to later analyze circumstantial emotions by first coding for seemingly disruptive emotions.
3. 2 t-units noted both the client and tutor feeling some kind of generative emotion together. Because the journal entries consisted of tutors reflecting on these emotions, those 2 t-units were labeled under Tutor Generative Emotions.
Appendix: Coding Schemes
Client Emotion (C)
Refers to when a client expresses an emotion (“They were uncertain and nervous about their paper”)
Refers to when a tutor observes that a client has not expressed any explicit emotions (“I don’t believe anyone explicitly stated any strong emotions”)
Generative Emotions (CG)
Refers to an initial emotion expressed by a client that is perceived as positive and helps the progression of a session, like enjoyment or excitement (“This helped ease the student’s worries”)
Refers to when words such as “relief,” “calm,” “happiness,” or “excitement” are used referring to a client
Refers to clearly positive emotions, such as a client being relieved at the end of a session or excited during a session
Disruptive Emotions (CD)
Refers to an initial emotion expressed by a client that is perceived as negative and hurts the progression of the session, like disinterest or anger (“She became frustrated with me for saying we could exclude a particular piece of information”)
Refers to when words such as “disinterested,” “indifferent,” “distracted,” “frustrated,” or “annoyed” are used referring to a client
Refers to clearly negative emotions, such as anxiety from a client or disinterest during a session
*Note: Label emotions associated with Circumstantial Emotions (CC) as CD due to the emotions being unclear if they turn into circumstantial emotions in the individual segment.
Tutor Emotion (T)
Refers to when a tutor expresses or mentions an emotion (“I felt myself wanting to be uncandid”)
Refers to when a tutor feels they have not expressed any explicit emotion
Refers to when a tutor expresses an emotion that is hard to label (“I was grounding myself… in order to make sure my nerves didn’t surface”)
Generative Emotions (TG)
Refers to an initial emotion expressed by a tutor that is perceived as positive and helps the progression of a session or the tutor’s emotional processing towards their work, like enjoyment or excitement (“I was excited to see his improvement from session one to two”)
Refers to when words such as “relief,” “calm,” “happiness,” “confident” or “excited” are used in reference to a tutor
Refers to clearly positive emotions, such as relief a tutor feels after a session or excitement about a topic during a session
Refers to when a tutor states they feel a positive way (“I felt relieved at the end of the session”)
Disruptive Emotions (TD)
Refers to an initial emotion expressed by a tutor that is perceived as negative and hurts the progression of a session or the tutor’s emotional processing towards their work, like frustration, anger, or annoyance (“I felt pretty frustrated with the client who seemed annoyed”)
Refers to when words such as “frustrated,” “resistant,” “unconfident” or “annoyed” are used in reference to a tutor
Refers to clearly negative emotions, such as a tutor getting frustrated at a client or an unresolved emotion
Refers to when a tutor states they feel a certain negative way (“Whenever I feel unfit as a tutor”)
Mindfulness Strategies (M)
Refers to when a tutor uses a mindfulness strategy, either described during a session or used outside a session (“I utilized the three deep breaths technique as a way to center myself and continue the session”)
Refers to when a tutor states they did not use any mindfulness strategies (“I can’t say I’ve used any mindfulness strategies recently”)
Metacognitive Monitoring (MM)
Refers to when a tutor labels a client’s emotions before acting upon them (“I noticed that my client was getting frustrated over not understanding the instructions”)
Refers to when a tutor labels their own emotions before acting upon them (“I realized I was frustrated and ignoring that emotion”)
Refers to when a tutor notices a moment involving emotions is happening before acting upon it (“There were moments of long pauses I noticed was happening”)
Refers to when a tutor states explicitly that they labeled their emotions (“During the session, I tried to label my emotions”)
Metacognitive Control (MC)
Refers to when a tutor acts upon a client’s emotions after labeling and helps them through the session (“I spoke to them about the nerves they seemed to be feeling”)
Refers to when a tutor acts upon their own emotions after labeling them (“I took a step back”)
Metacognitive Evaluation (ME)
Refers to when a tutor reflects upon their actions or feelings about a session (“I have had multiple sessions with clients where I feel as though I am not smart enough”)
Refers to when a tutor reflects upon their current tutoring practices (“I attribute a fair part of my success as a tutor to my ability to make most clients feel comfortable and heard.”)
Refers to when a tutor reflects upon their past tutoring practices (“When I started tutoring in 2020, I fully doubted my ability to help clients”)
Active Listening (ML)
Refers to when a tutor uses active listening to listen to or explicitly address a client’s emotions (“I try to use active listening in all of my appointments”)
Other (O)
Use Other (O) when the tutor is describing information too general to fit into any code, or if the tutor explains any session context