Secondary English Tutor-Coaces Searching for Empowering Writing Conference Methods
Major
English – Literature
Submission Type
Poster
Area of Study or Work
Educational Studies
Faculty Advisor
Leah Nillas
Location
CNS Atrium
Start Date
4-11-2026 8:30 AM
End Date
4-11-2026 9:45 AM
Abstract
One-on-one writing conferences are a staple of the secondary English classroom. This study investigated writing conferences in such a classroom not only to examine students’ perceptions and writing achievement, but also a pre-service teacher’s growing understanding of effective tutoring and coaching strategies. The study’s student teacher aimed to act as a tutor-coach, who not only offered writing wisdom and revision, but also encouragement and skills which students could carry with them as they continued writing in an effort to empower students in their writing. This study was conducted in different secondary English classrooms in classes with 15-25 students covering various topics in English. The study includes comparative analysis of student work with and without tutoring, their perceptions of the conferences recorded in exit surveys, and reflections from the pre-service teacher about which strategies he used were effective or ineffective. While the study indicated that some students’ writing achievement improved as a result of tutoring and coaching strategies, it also found that changes like increases in allotted writing conference time and understanding of prompts were necessary in order to understand the students’ personal learning needs and objectives for each conference.
Secondary English Tutor-Coaces Searching for Empowering Writing Conference Methods
CNS Atrium
One-on-one writing conferences are a staple of the secondary English classroom. This study investigated writing conferences in such a classroom not only to examine students’ perceptions and writing achievement, but also a pre-service teacher’s growing understanding of effective tutoring and coaching strategies. The study’s student teacher aimed to act as a tutor-coach, who not only offered writing wisdom and revision, but also encouragement and skills which students could carry with them as they continued writing in an effort to empower students in their writing. This study was conducted in different secondary English classrooms in classes with 15-25 students covering various topics in English. The study includes comparative analysis of student work with and without tutoring, their perceptions of the conferences recorded in exit surveys, and reflections from the pre-service teacher about which strategies he used were effective or ineffective. While the study indicated that some students’ writing achievement improved as a result of tutoring and coaching strategies, it also found that changes like increases in allotted writing conference time and understanding of prompts were necessary in order to understand the students’ personal learning needs and objectives for each conference.