Face-to-face appointments allow tutors to collaborate with writers in person. Face-to-face appointments are conversations with the flexibility to use elements of the space as resources, for instance, getting up and using the whiteboard or cutting up a print-out of the draft to experiment with the organization.

🗺️ Appointment Overview

Face-to-face appointments give peer writing tutors an opportunity to “use a process approach, to serve as an audience for [writers], and to familiarize [writers] with the conventions of academic discourse” (Shamoon & Burns, 1995, p. 135). Additionally, because each writer and each writing exigence is different, peer writing tutors should use these appointments to “attend to the individual concerns of every writer who walks in the door” for a face-to-face appointment (Harris & Silva, 1993, p. 525).

🪜 Appointment Steps

• Introduce yourself to the writer and spend time building rapport
• Discuss expectations and assumptions about how appointments operate
• Collaboratively set an initial agenda with the writer
• Read through the writer’s draft if they bring one
• Revisit the agenda after reading the draft in case you or the writer notice anything to add to, remove from, or reprioritize within your agenda
• Use Synchronous Appointment Strategies to help you achieve whatever goals you collaboratively set on the agenda
• Set aside time at the end of the appointment to help the writer define their next steps
• Write Appointment Letters that summarize your work with the writer
• Send the appointment letter to the writer and anyone else the writer requests that you do

📝 How to Prepare

Before every appointment check WCOnline and read through any information the writer has provided to you about...

• themselves, including their preferred name, pronouns, and learning support information
• the project they are bringing in