The development of a full-credit peer tutor training course for college freshmen is based on the assumption that respect for the writing student and respect for writing as a process are essential attitudes for peer tutors to acquire. Training begins with assigning tutors writing activities to make them more aware of themselves as writers and…

Until recently, the conventional wisdom about the conjunction of peer tutoring and writing in the disciplines was that a tutor unfamiliar with subject matter actually operated at an advantage. In spite of some of the theoretical advantages of ignorance, recent research suggests that it is difficult to ask probing questions and make useful…