ASSAY: A JOURNAL OF NONFICTION STUDIES
11.1

Elizabeth Leahy

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Creating Space for Writing Tutor Vulnerability: 
Six-Word Memoirs in the Writing Center 

Fall 2024 Spotlight:
​Six Word Memoirs as Assessment
Writing centers are borderlands where students negotiate new literacy practices, take chances, and begin to feel less alone as they develop as writers. They are also vulnerable spaces, not just for the students who visit, but also for the staff who work there. When Kim invited me to participate in the six-word memoir project, I recognized it as an opportunity for my student staff to reflect on the incredible work they perform. I also hoped the memoirs would help me better understand the working conditions and emotional labor of my staff.
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In this essay, I describe an approach to six-word memoirs for writing center staff development. After briefly discussing the emotional dimension of writing center tutoring, I’ll describe my institutional context and the artifact collection process. Then I’ll share my findings, including the most salient themes. The memoirs demonstrated the complexity of tutor experiences as they acclimated to their roles and offered an important record of the labor, working conditions, and embodied aspects of tutoring. The memoirs also allowed tutors an outlet for processing their emotions, functioning as a space for reflection and growth.  


Tutoring is Emotional and Vulnerable Work:
​A Brief Review of Literature

Because of the personal and one-to-one aspect of tutoring writing, writing center work often demands significant emotional labor that can be difficult for even seasoned tutors. As Bethany Mannon explains:
tutors draw from reserves of kindness and enthusiasm to help writers build confidence, even excitement. At times this means defusing writers’ frustrations over challenging assignments or writers’ disappointment in low grades, but even when no negative emotions arise during a conference, tutors try to spark writers’ investment in their projects and empathize with the challenges of navigating higher education.” (Mannon 144)
Further, tutors with marginalized identities perform more emotional labor as they navigate an institution or a writing center that marks them as other. Talisha Haltiwanger Morrison’s research study of Black women writing center tutors discusses the many ways white racism impacts their work, including “the burden of proving, sometimes repeatedly, that they belonged at the writing center and were capable of their jobs” (129). Karen Moroski-Rigney describes working at a writing center as a queer student with undiagnosed disability, saying “my experiences as a consultant were fraught with complete depletion, anxiety, and having to try so hard to blend in” (68). Directors must be aware of the ways in which their centers are complicit in these experiences and invest time and labor into supporting all tutors. 

As if writing center tutors don’t have enough to deal with, the pandemic exacerbated many of the routine challenges they encounter. In an article about pandemic impacts on contingent writing center workers, Guay writes, “it feels as though student services staff are expected to sacrifice ourselves on the altar of care—to become endless wells of student comfort, drawn on as needed” (12). Genie Giaimo argues that writing center work often “verges on crisis response” and that tutors need more training to assist in this way and directors need to pay more attention to their wellbeing (Giaimo).

One way to attend to tutor wellbeing is to openly discuss emotional labor and working conditions during staff trainings. Nelson, Deges, and Martin argue that writing center directors “should consider making emotional labor an area of focus in their centers— in training, in their conversations with tutoring staff, and in what they assess and report about their tutors’ work” (168). They argue that doing so can “aid in the development of emotional intelligence,” which is what Katie’s work in this spotlight focuses on (169). Another way to consider tutor wellbeing is to acknowledge the vulnerability inherent to tutoring. Brentnell, Dixon, and Robinson argue “the writing center can become a more empathetic and responsive space” when we create opportunities to reflect on these vulnerabilities. They urge writing center directors to “see and mark their centers as spaces where vulnerability is enacted on a daily basis” (Brentnell et al.). I saw the six-word memoir project as an opportunity to respond to their call.


Getting this Out of the Way:
​Institutional Context and about the Study

The University of Tennessee-Chattanooga is a public doctoral granting university in the southeast and enrolls about 11,000 students per year (about 10% are graduate students). The Writing and Communication Center (WCC) is located physically and administratively in the UTC Library and serves students across the disciplines at the undergraduate and graduate level. In the 2023-2024 school year the WCC conducted 2,889 appointments with 1216 students. 93% of those consultations were conducted by our contingent staff, including a graduate assistant, 12-14 undergraduate peer tutors, and a part-time professional tutor. In the spring we also host a few English graduate teaching assistants. New tutors complete a simple orientation on their first day and begin conducting appointments after their first week on the job. During their first semester they complete a series of assignments: individual reading, reflections, observation assignments, and a tutoring philosophy. We also hold weekly staff trainings for the entire WCC so that we can learn from and with each other.

I collaborated with Jenn Stewart (who directs the Composition Program at my university and whose piece follows mine), to create an IRB-approved research protocol for rollout in the fall. From November through Mid-March I collected 107 memoirs from the 14 participants who opted in (one student did not consent to the study and two others consented to the study but did not submit memoirs). Tutors used a Google Form to submit their work. During weekly meetings, I provided six-word story prompts to generate discussion about that week’s training topic. Staff could then optionally submit their response to the research project; 40 memoirs were submitted this way.

The remaining memoirs were spontaneous submissions that trickled in outside of the trainings. Because it was the consultant’s choice to submit their memoirs, I had uneven participation across the fourteen participants. I had encouraged students to submit as often as they’d like. One eager participant submitted 18 memoirs. Another submitted two. Most submitted between five and ten. For that reason, I decided to look at the corpus as a whole and use it to help me paint a picture of life in the WCC rather than to try to track individual consultant growth. 


Okay, I have memoirs, now what?
​Coding and Analyzing

To analyze the memoirs, I first categorized them according to focus. My categories were simple: if the memoir was about an appointment, for example “Respectful student, short appointment, feeling swell,” I labeled it as an appointment-focused memoir. Only about 35% fell into this category, which surprised me since appointments are the main focus of the work we do in the WCC. The other memoirs focused on general WCC life and life as a student. For example, “research papers and proposals surround me” could refer to the genres of writing we were seeing coming into the center that day or could refer to the writer’s own schoolwork. “Morning chats with colleagues emanate warmth” references the general vibe of our workplace that day.

To dive deeper into the memoirs, I began a process of eclectic coding (Saldaña 223). I used simultaneous coding (allowing more than one code per memoir) so that I could capture the complexity of these compositions. For example, I coded “BRILLIANT WRITER BRINGS TUTOR GREAT JOY” as joy, engagement, and confidence. After this initial process of coding, I then considered how the variety of codes worked together to create themes. The most salient themes I identified included the emotional labor of becoming, the labor and material conditions of tutoring, and the importance of venting.


Theme 1: The Emotional Labor of Becoming

Throughout the memoirs I saw my staff making sense of their roles as tutors, engaging in what Kate Navickas calls “the emotional labor of becoming” (59). Navickas describes this labor as “a negotiation between who you understand yourself to be (often understood in terms of the values we hold) and the realities we come in contact with” (60). I first noticed this theme when considering a common thread of unease or uncertainty about the job or the tutor’s abilities. 23% of the memoirs focused on doubt, anxiety or nervousness about their work. Some expressed doubt after appointments, wondering “was that actually helpful? No clue” and “I hope my help was enough.” Another, when prompted to reflect on the challenges of working with writers on sentence-level issues, wrote “Anxiety about my own abilities.” One student (who broke the rules and created a 12-word story) wrote about the self-doubt that can happen when a student is not engaged in the session: “asks no questions; takes no notes. ‘I’m not good at my job.’” I also saw students speak to the tensions they need to balance in their session, for example “I can guide, but not fix.”

While unease was present, students also submitted memoirs that demonstrated they were growing comfortable in their role as tutors. For example, memoirs like “what are we working on today?” “So how can I help you?”  and “do you have any more questions?” while simple questions, represent the various stock phrases tutors adopt as they develop their tutoring personas and figure out how to begin and end a session. Submissions such as “Meeting clients wherever they’re at individually” and “Learning with the client again today” give a window into some emerging tutoring philosophies. Memoirs such as “My knowledge grows ever so higher” and “surprisingly, I feel very confident” show that tutors are feeling more comfortable and capable in their roles. Some memoirs commented on how training was helping them with this, such as “Surprisingly, role playing helps me learn” and “peer observations are a great window” during the weeks we were implementing these activities. This sense of comfort or confidence was evident in 25% of the memoirs.  

As they learn the job, tutors also express pride in their work, and this was evident in about 11% of the artifacts. Whether they were reflecting on an appointment that went really well or writing about the vibes of the center, consultants saw joy in their daily duties alongside the uncertainty. For example, one consultant wrote “loving learning along with my clients,” and another wrote “great to see we’re helping people.” Overall, the memoirs in this thematic cluster document tutor growth as they make sense of their roles, reflect on praxis, and develop their tutoring philosophies.


Theme 2: Labors and Working Conditions

As I’d hoped, the memoirs also provide insight into the lived experiences of a contingent tutoring staff and make visible the different types of labor involved in tutoring. Some memoirs merely described the level of traffic we were experiencing or commented on no-shows or cancellations—a routine part of the job. But more importantly, the memoirs offered insight into the dual role my staff occupy as tutors who are also students. For example, one tutor wrote “worried about exams while tutoring others” during a particularly busy week near the end of our fall semester, and another wrote “Other people’s papers are easier mentally,” presumably comparing the experience of helping others with writing to completing their own writing tasks.
 
Another  wrote “woman races against clock to finish powerpoint,” perhaps to describe the mad scramble I often see my tutors make as they try to squeeze homework in between WCC sessions or as they realize they are sometimes secretly glad about a no-show or cancellation so they can squeeze a bit more of their own classwork in, as “cancelled appointment means party (classwork) time!” demonstrates. These memoirs document the difficulty of balancing coursework and other responsibilities while also remaining professional in the workplace.
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The emotional labor of writing center tutoring, defined as “the affective or feelings-based work that is part of successfully navigating tutor positions, specifically those expectations that are seldom included in position descriptions” was also evident in 17% of the memoirs (Costello-Murray). I’ve already noted examples where tutors expressed anxiety and doubt, but other memoirs spoke to some intense feelings-based work. One tutor wrote “that session was very mentally draining.” And another wrote “client shares miscarriage experience. Heavy sorrow.” Other memoirs referred to the masking of emotions we often need to perform to be professional.

When we think of the working conditions of our staff, it’s also important to remember the embodied aspect of tutoring and the material conditions of this work, and 9% of the memoirs fit with this theme. Students wrote about feeling unwell or ill, for example “Tummy troubles during session inflict distress.” And “Nearly nodded off during that session.” One tutor turned in several memoirs reflecting on how cold, temperature-wise, the WCC is, with musings such as “Frigid air lulls tutor to sleep” and “woman too cold to have thoughts.” It’s true, climate control in a large campus building like our library is difficult. In fact, it’s currently July in Tennessee but I’m writing this in my frigid office while wearing my “office poncho” and using my space heater, so I can certainly empathize with the tutor, but I can also make it a goal to find out if there is anything else we can do to ensure physical comfort in our tutoring space.  

Taken together, all of the memoirs that fit within the broader themes of labor and working conditions demonstrate the realities of contingent work. Efthymiou and Zea discuss the tension they see “between the value peer tutoring affords undergraduate tutors and the cost of that labor alongside the life choices undergraduate tutors have to make when deciding how, when, and why to do the work of peer tutoring” (Efthymiou and Zea, 87). Tutoring can be extremely rewarding. The students who work here are passionate about the work, but I need to remember that this passion is not without its costs and is not always an acceptable trade-off for some of the challenges.

Theme Three: Venting is Important

Several memoirs contained unfiltered venting about sessions. About 14% fit this description, but I also saw a hint of complaint in other memoirs. Because of the nature of our current WCC space, there is no safe space for venting—it is a very public area. Tutors are encouraged to instant message a peer or a senior staff member if they want to step out of the WCC to discuss or debrief a session in private.
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​While venting may seem unprofessional, it can be an important coping strategy in high stress work environments. Many tutors seemed to appreciate having an alternative space to vent via the six-word format. The venting I saw in these memoirs, of course, are moments of reflection. Rather than shouting their frustrations in the middle of the WCC, the tutors expressed them via reflective writing. This is important because, as feminist epistemologist Alison Jaggar argues, “emotions play a vital part in developing knowledge” (171). Many of these memoirs seemed to convey strong emotions, especially those I labeled as venting. When a tutor takes time to sit with these emotions to compose a memoir, this act may help them process and learn from the situation they were writing about. Below are a few examples of venting, including another 12-word memoir.  
Wow. That was a weird conversation.


Professor [redacted] responsible for mass WCC agony


Woman pummeled by avalanche of mothertruckingbusinesspapers 


student routinely arrives hour early. help.


"I used Chat GPT"
"Please leave."


Here for peer review” Oh God.
Comes in. Sits down.
Starts eating.


​Six Words Can Be Really Useful:
​Takeaways and Recommendations

Six-word memoirs have valuable application to writing center professional development. First, the memoirs offer one way to quickly evaluate the mood of the center. How are tutors feeling? What is on their mind? When I first started directing the center in 2017, my office was in the back of the center and my staff was small. I nearly always knew what was going on. After seven years, a grant for more positions, a pandemic, and a space move that took my office out of the center, I am often more removed from the day-to-day happenings in the center. Six-word memoirs offer one way to do the kind of eavesdropping I used to do.

Beyond using memoirs to check-in, memoir prompts can also jumpstart discussion in staff training or take the pulse of the group on an issue. Asking someone to distill their feelings in just six words doesn’t leave room for hedging or dancing around a topic. For example, I was not able to attend a staff training where generative AI came up in discussion, but I became quickly aware of the anxiety my staff had about this issue when I scanned their post-meeting memoirs later. I plan to implement more six-word prompts into group training as a result of this experience.

Next, when paired with other opportunities to have open discussions about writing center emotional labor, six-word memoirs can be a valuable outlet for processing emotions. I have previously written about (in collaboration with Erica Cirillo-McCarthy) the value of listening to moments of conflict. We developed a heuristic for directors to engage in a listening and reflecting process in order to learn from and develop strategic responses to administrative conflict (Cirillo-McCarthy & Leahy 239). When I saw my tutors engaging in venting in their own memoirs, I realized that heuristic could be adapted for tutors as well. In future tutor training I’m planning to adapt the six-word memoir format for an exercise aimed at asking tutors to reflect on a difficult appointment. Writing about strong emotions or conflict may help tutors come to new understandings of the situation they were writing about.
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Finally, six-word memoirs are helpful in documenting and making visible the material impacts of writing center work and the significant emotional labor my staff performs. Since the pandemic I’ve been looking for new ways to document success and report on the labor of my staff. Collecting memoirs could offer a new way to spotlight some of the significant labor and effort. These artifacts are powerful evidence of the lived experiences of the tutors and the extraordinary work they do as I argue for more resources or support.
Click here to download a printable PDF with Works Cited.
Elizabeth (Beth) Leahy is Director of the Writing and Communication Center and UC Foundation Associate Professor at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga. Her research interests include feminist writing center administration, writing center assessment, and composition histories of border spaces. You can read her work in Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, Rhetoric Review, The Peer Review, WPA: Writing Program Administration, and edited collections including Emotions and Affect in Writing Centers.