0.8 Manual for writing mentors  (Page 7/11)

Being a mentor is a little different from being a tutor. A tutor is someone who knows course material that a student does not know; it is assumed that a student who approaches a tutor "needs help"—that the student is unable in some way or finds difficult the task of learning the material in a course. A tutor teaches content that the professor has assigned for the session or that the tutor thinks would be helpful to students in that stage of the course. A mentor who is consulting, on the other hand, is an advisor and learning resource that a student can work with in the process of pursuing projects and assignments. Mentors share their student clients' enthusiasm and commitment to excellence in learning.

A consulting session is driven by the student's agenda or by the agenda that the student and his or her instructor have chosen for the session. The first part of every consulting session is a review of the student’s goals and a mutual definition of the session's purpose. In other words, the mentor provides the assistance requested based on his or her training and experience; the student carries out his or her work. The mentor does not take over a student's project, write papers, choose the actual words used, proofread papers, or earn the grade: those are the student's responsibilities.

These differences have important consequences in the session. It is the mentor's job to help the student perform for himself or herself the primary intellectual tasks of the assignment and to improve the process of scholarship—to suggest ways to think about the tasks, to point out tools, and to teach the student techniques the student needs to know. The mentor may go over similar papers or projects, talk about the processes used, and prompt the student to identify elements of an example that may be a guide for the student's own choices. But in every case the mentor makes these choices in order to achieve the objectives of the consulting session and separates his or her work as someone consulted by the student from the work the student is supposed to perform.

Abiding by the Rice University Honor Code is essential. The Honor Code forbids "aid," which includes supplying the content of a paper, specific words, or corrections—roughly the parallel to handing the student the answer on a test. When you consult with a student, you are not providing him or her with a paper to hand in. Rather, the mentor helps the student learn what he or she must do to write well—how to discover ideas, formulate a thesis, support ideas with evidence, organize, revise, and edit. The mentor might identify a problem in the student’s grammar and then advise him to look for other examples of that error so that he can correct multiple errors himself. Remember, a consultant must determine whether the assignment is one in which the student is allowed to consult a writing mentor before beginning the session.

How to conduct a consultation

Establishing rapport

Be friendly and professional. Chat a moment. Gauge the client's feelings and attitudes. Why is he or she here? Is he or she in a hurry? Ready to take a break and talk things out? Set an appropriate tone.