Kaden was a writing consultant intern and tutor for the BYU Research & Writing Center during Summer Term 2023.
Briefly explain what you did and the result of your internship.
In this internship, we read extensive theoretical and practical works about effective writing tutoring, including various skills, techniques, and practices that allow tutors to engage with writers in meaningful, critical, and educational ways. We would meet twice a week to discuss these readings and talk about their applicability in our work. We also did practice consultations, observed consultations with feedback, and we each completed philosophy statements to define and explain our individual writing tutoring philosophy.
What did you learn on your internship that you were not expecting to learn?
I had done a lot of writing tutoring for people prior to this internship, so I thought I knew pretty much everything about best practices. This internship proved to me that I couldn't have been more wrong about that. I also have long felt that writing tutoring was something that others needed, but not something that I would benefit from since writing has always been one of my stronger skills. I was surprised to see how even the most fluent and eloquent English majors can massively benefit from workshopping their writing with a tutor. There were several times where I brought my own written works in--whether they were creative or academic--and I had some deeply helpful and educational sessions with other writing tutors in the RWC. In short: I did not expect to become a recipient of writing center support or value that support for myself, but I definitely have through this internship experience.
How have your future plans changed because of what you learned from your internship experience?
My plans haven't been changed, but I've gained relevant skills related to my future career field: English education. Knowing how to best work with a student on their writing and knowing how to avoid overtaking their ideas and writing style was really important to add to my skillset.
Please share how your experience led to personal inspiration or insightful revelation.
At one point in one of our internship meetings, we were discussing the vulnerability of writing centers and how important it is for tutors to recognize that vulnerability. In addition to this, we discussed how transformative, connective, and freeing writing can be. During that conversation, I thought about how helping writers become better in their writing can also help them become better communicators with God, enabling them to have more impactful and enlightening spiritual experiences in their lives--whether they know it or not. Moments like these in the internship made me grateful that I go to BYU, because I was able to connect these seemingly secular ideas and experiences to revelatory and religious ideas and experiences. I also noticed in another internship meeting that attributes of effective writing tutors are also Christlike attributes in many ways. In the same way that writing tutors are always striving to live up to the standards of effective writing tutoring, so too are disciples always trying to live up to the perfect standards that Christ set for them. Even if we never get there in mortality, it's our striving to be there that makes us good disciples--or in this case, good tutors.
Would you recommend this internship to other students?
Yes! It provides fantastic experiences and skills transferrable to a variety of different professional and academic ventures.
